After breakfast we did our final packing, loaded up the car, and left about 9am. We stopped to fill up with petrol before driving to the airport, only about half an hour away.
The handover back to Avis went smoothly, and we sat in the airport for a while. Our flight took off about 30 minutes late at about midday, but seemed to make up the time on the journey.
After a cold walk to our car at Edinburgh airport, we drove home, arriving about 5.30pm.
The weather and the walking really came together today. We drove right to the centre of the island, which took well over an hour, and parked next to the Degollada de Becerra viewpoint. Although it was bright sunshine, it started off quite chilly as were were over 1500 metres high.
The views from the start were just magnificent. There are many rocky outcrops, with the most famous being the Roque Nublo, which is in many ways the emblem of Gran Canaria.
The first part of the walk took us round the edge an ancient caldera, or volcanic crater.
After crossing the dam of a reservoir we climbed up to another viewpoint where we had some lunch.
From there we approached Roque Nublo, and joined the many others who do this short walk, the most popular walk on the island. We chose a slightly longer route, round the back of the rock before going right up to it.
We could very clearly see Mount Teide on the neighbouring island of Tenerife.
Roque Nublo towers about 60 metres above a flat rocky plain and is very impressive.
Back at the start of the Roque Nublo path we got an ice cream from the kiosk there. Our route then left the busy area and took us to the valley floor far below the rock, through pine forest and passing some old formerly inhabited caves.
There were some almond trees with blossom.
At the bottom of the valley is the village of La Culata, which has a couple of busy bars in the main street.
We then of course had to go steeply up the other side of the valley, partly on steps, partly on roads, and also some zigzagging up tracks.
It was very hot going uphill, but eventually we made it back to the car. The walk was 15 km in total, with about 850 metres of ascent.
On the way back we stopped in the village of Tejeda for a drink.
The drive home was about 90 minutes of winding mountain roads down to the coast. Back at the bungalow, we did a bit of packing and tidying before our journey home tomorrow.
We later had pizza for dinner.
The weather forecast for the mountain areas wasn't that good today, and from home we could see there was quite a lot of cloud there. So we decided to go for a walk nearer to the south coast of the island.
We drove for just 15 minutes to Bahia Feliz and parked near a bus stop. The walk took us up one side of a dry gorge and down the other side. There was a reservoir in the gorge, pretty empty though.
We got to a rock formation known as the Arco del Coronadero, a double arch of volcanic rocks.
We stopped at the highest point of the walk for our lunch, looking down steep cliffs into another gorge.
The route back down took us over the top of the dam, we had to climb over a wall to get to it.
We saw a bird down next to the water. It was quite far away but with later research we found out that it was a ruddy shelduck, which are relatively rare in the Canaries.
From the top of the dam we went down a staircase at the other side which took us to the dry river bed, and from there we walked back to the car. The distance walked was about 13 km, with about 500 metres of ascent.
We still had some time, so we drove up the coast to Arinaga, and went for a walk round the promenade to a lighthouse.
We stopped at a bar for a beer in the sunshine, then drove home.
Later we went out for dinner, walking to Playa del Ingles again. We went to the El Poncho Asador Steakhouse, which was busy but we managed to get a table. This turned out to be a great idea, as it was a quality restaurant with very well trained and attentive staff.
For starter we shared garlic bread and a tomato stuffed with goats cheese and topped with caramelised onions. For the main, Scott had "mixed meats" (steak, pork chop, lamb chop, chicken and sausage), with Roquefort sauce and French fries, and Shirley had fillet steak with Canarian potatoes. We shared some grilled vegetables.
It was all excellent.
After this large meal we welcomed the walk back to the bungalow.
