We are gradually starting to explore further afield, and so today we loaded the dogs into the back of the car and headed south. The furthest south we have been before is Mojacar, so today we were into new territory. We decided to stick to the coast road and head for Carboneras.
As we passed the bay in Terreros, we had gentle waves lapping onto the beach and, despite the day being grey, the winds and rains of the previous days have gone and so we were looking forward to an enjoyable drive.
Whenever we go to Garrucha or Mojacar we are always surprised to see that there are bigger waves and the sea has a lot more movement than in Terreros and yet it's only half an hour's drive away. Well today, the Mojacar coast was getting well battered, the waves were breaking over the rocks and spray was reaching above 6 ft. Very spectacular looking.
Anyway, straight through Mojacar and onto new roads for us. We passed the new golf course at the south of Mojacar and it looks quite good, if a little flatter than we are used to so we may come down and have a game one day - just to see what it's like.
The coastal road started to get quite rugged and we started to rise into the hills. We soon passed through the oddly named El Agua del Medio, Sopalmo and reach the edge of the Capo de Gata National Park. At this point we are high above the sea on a good road with lots of bends, looking over some very volcanic looking inland terrain, quite fabulous We eventually start the rapid descent into the town of Carboneras. The first thing that we notice is the narrow streets and the very spanish feel to the place, shop signs are all in Spanish, unlike Mojacar where so many are in English. We get the feel we are in a really traditional Spanish town. We follow the traffic through the town centre and head for the Marina. This, like Garrucha port is a working port. We park outside a restaurant where we will stop for a drink before setting back, and get the dogs out of the car for a walk along front and around the Marina.
As we head towards the beach we can see that along the front there are play areas for children and a long clean beach. The marina area is open for us to walk around and we can see that some of the boats are large fishing vessels, definitely working boats. There is also a fish market area and I can imagine the hustle and bustle on market day - it may be something for us to check out sometime. There are also lots of smaller boats obviously for locals and holiday makers to spend the day out at sea dangling a rod over the side - some of them look a little smaller than I would like to be out in.
On the way back to the car we stopped off at Restaurant Almarisco. Unfortunately, they were not serving a menu del día so we had a mixed fish platter and salad. Not the cheapest of meals but excellent food - and we were sat with on the front with a sea view - so it was never going to be the cheapest. Just to re-enforce the spanish feel we had when we drove through, the waiter didn't speak a word of english - it's always great fun trying to have a conversation with our limited spanish and a waiter with no english, meals are always a surprise. One thing we did discover - our pups like sardines!
The trip back was uneventful so the dogs slept and we enjoyed the views. Carboneras was really quiet, again an out of season Spanish resort - but in the height of summer, I can imagine it would be incredibly busy and a lot of fun