Spain - Day 12

Just north of Almería is the mountain range that is the Sierra Alhamilla Natural Park. We drove round to the other side of it and up to the mountain village of Turillas at a height of about 840m. It was very windy, but still sunny.

The first part of the walk was up a gorge, then it was partly road and partly tracks. At one point we went through an old ruined farm which had what looked like a circular threshing floor.

At times we caught glimpses of the snowy Sierra Nevada mountains in the distance. It's probably Mulhacén at 3285m, the highest point on the Spanish mainland.

We reached the summit of Colativi at 1387m. There's a lot of radio masts etc. on the summit.

We had our lunch there, then made our way down the road back to Turillas. On the way we spotted some mountain goats (ibexes?).

There was also a small, old bullring just on the outskirts of the village.

The walk was nearly 19km in total.

We drove back, choosing to go over the top of the mountain range, on what turned out to be a very long dirt track which ended at the village of Nijar.

We went shopping at the Carrefour supermarket, and later had shepherd's pie for dinner.