A bull on the beach

March 13, 2012

A FREE-RANGE bull with his harem grazing on the path down to the beach is a bit of an off-putter in the dog-walking department, so it’s down to ‘Brave Dave’ to take Glen for his ball game and a swim while I plead the need to use the wireless network.

If I told you we’d spent the whole day happily sitting in a supermarket car park and then in a sandy patch of windswept waste ground alongside the main road you could be forgiven for thinking we’d lost the plot.

But we were sidetracked from our original goal – a trip to Gibraltar – by the arrival of literally hundreds of short-toed eagles, battling their way along on the fierce, gusting wind, across the water from Morocco on migration.  And those were the best viewpoints we could find.

There were several booted eagles and Egyptian vultures, too, literally just over our heads, so we had fantastic close-ups and even I could work out which one was which.

Every mountaintop around here is covered in wind turbines and I can’t imagine how the exhausted birds avoid getting chopped up as they head inland. We parked the Hymer almost underneath the flailing, whining blades at what must once have been a lovely, peaceful lookout point over the coast, and it was quite unnerving. All I could think about was what if one of them broke off!

We’ve absolutely loved Tarifa, and have found a spot where we can ‘free camp’ if we come again. But now we’re halfway through our eight weeks, and planning our route northward, which I hope will include Granada, as I'm longing to visit the Alhambra. There’s so much more we’d like to see, and for our next trip we’ll try not to squeeze in so many places. That way we’ll have days to spare at the ones we like best.