Last week, my husband Tony turned 80, and his daughter and her family flew over from the UK to help us to celebrate. Being January, we didn't know what to expect with the weather, but it was pretty good to us, until Saturday, when the sun refused to come out to play.
On Friday, we'd taken the family to Mar Menor, and enjoyed tapas at Casa Miguel while looking out to La Manga. Our son in law Mike was most intrigued by this, and as the weather wasn't up to sunbathing, the six of us headed out to drive along the 18.5 kilometres of La Manga in the motor home. It was a first for all of us, and when we came to the hump back Veneziola Bridge, I couldn't see how our motor home would make it. I took the coward's way out and parked at the bottom of the bridge, then went to have a look.
The illustration I've used really doesn't do the bridge justice, although it does give you an idea of just how much of a hump there is. Let's just say it looked pretty much vertical, and I did suggest that maybe we should walk over. Mike put on his disappointed face, and said he really wanted to drive to the very end of La Manga, so I decided to give it a go, for his sake.
I regretted the decision when we crested the bridge. How to describe the feeling? Think of the scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, when they're about to jump off the cliff into the sea to escape their pursuers. Remember the line 'The fall will probably kill you?' Well, that's how I felt - and so did the rest of my passengers, apart from Mike, who was still focused on driving to the end.
Obviously, we all survived, as I'm posting this. And coming back wasn't so bad, because I knew what was coming. In fact, I was so pumped up that when I saw a family in a Ford Fiesta wondering whether to try the bridge or not, I said, 'Go for it! I did it in the motor home, you can do it in that.' They did too, although they looked a bit pale as the came back. Lightweights!
