Wild camping

The birds on Eddy’s campsite seemed to tweet all night. One, the ‘hooping’ bird, really did, producing three quick short whoops like the Morse Code ‘S’. I’m sure I also heard blackbirds at night too.

During the day, the air for the last days has been full of cuckoos. They seems to be everywhere but thankfully not at night. They are just as boring as the ‘S’ bird.

We moved south towards Merida and had coffee on the way in a field of flowers.

There’s no campsite within commuting distance and so we headed for a lakeside halt for campervans just to the north. Trying to drive on smaller roads, we allowed Google to take us on a route that would end with a gravel road - according to our old, out of date TomTom sat-nav, which we assumed was, out of date.

It wasn’t and so the last two miles were on a very rough gravel and rock road that needed low gears and high clearance underneath. All went well until the last two metres at the junction with the lakeside perimeter track. Here our exit was blocked with a high mound and we needed to turn around.

This proved to be a good move as halfway back to the tarmac we took a left, up another tricky hill and then along another track away from everyone. Here we spent an idyllic night.

The undoubted highlight after watching a hare, was at dusk, when the colours had gone and the shapes were silhouettes. An owl came to inspect us.

We were sitting out and it silently flew over us very slowly, so slowly that it was amazing to see. It’s wings hardly moved. It almost touched Dawn’s head and then did six, seven or maybe eight slow circuits of us at the table and the Landy. It was clearly checking us out, new ‘things’ in the area. Then it was gone, a truly amazing experience.

The ground here is thin grass which is full of wild flowers and there are small trees of about 2m height and width. It’s like being in Africa but without the wild animals. Apart from a stork, that was all we saw and heard. Fortunately there were no cattle or wild goats to push or rub against the Landy.

That was the beginning of a cool-down and the shorts of the last two days were put away and we were back to our Spring collection by day and a blanket over the sleeping bags at night. 

Although we have been to Extramadura before, we haven’t been to the capital, Merida. It seemed as though we should, as it has famous Roman remains. So we drove south and parked at the not so nice Autocaravans Parking, which is handy for the city but I would hate to stay here.

The only interest for me was the strange compound of cars next to it, which might have been removed from the city streets. No one seen interested in them, as the labels go back to 2019 at least.

I’m afraid to say that Merida itself was disappointing. The road in was through some particularly uninspiring areas and even in the city it all looked unkept. There were a few nice bits but even the peep through the hedge at the Theatre Roman put us off the entry fee. It just doesn’t compare with other sights such as Pont du Gard, Nimes or the magnificent amphitheater at Epidavros. There were ruins from more recent times just a minute from the main square, such as this …

There were a couple of highlights though. Storks, quite common around here, are nesting on the Town Hall bell tower. Also as we stood on the Roman bridge, we noticed lots of turtles in the water. There were big ones and a couple of ‘babies’ and two were sitting on a wedged tyre.