7th October A 'Short' Walk

Despite being a Saturday and there being market opportunities we, or rather I, suggested a short walk to do a bit of geocaching not too far from us.

As it was only going to be a few hours out we decided against taking lunch as we'd be back for a late lunch. But we packed up a leftover doughnut from yesterday and half a packet of crisps along with a litre of water in our thermos flasks - brilliant for keeping our drinks cold.

Off we went after I'd slapped on suncream, located my sunglasses and donned our hats. Our first geocache was close to the marina just up the road.

First find of the day. You have to sign your log in name and date and confirm on the app that you've found it. You're given hints on the location, size of the find and then it's a matter of looking for it.

Our next 2 geocaches were a bit tricky to get to. After a taking what we thought was a possible route we had to abandon it (too many fierce sounding dogs for my liking) and headed along the cycle/footpath towards Empuriabrava.

Snail spotting on dried grasses and twigs.

We ended up taking a rather long route to the airport. Next time we must avoid trying to go across the field as there was a ditch at the end that was too wide and deep to get across. We must also turn right rather than left after going over the canal bridges as we ended up in a dead end😬.

Eventually we got to the cafe in the airport where you can see the parachutists landing. A busy afternoon with the 2 planes working overtime with the number of people prepared to throw themselves out of a plane. It was so clear you could see them jumping out of the plane before pulling their chutes!

Ian, my resident David Attenborough, spotted a Praying Mantis as we continued our walk. 

Our route back took us in the direction of the geocaches we couldn't get to on the way out. Ended up being quite a challenge. On our GPS map we could see what looked like paths but they turned out to be ditches. Then we had to get from one field to another which involved going under a fence. I'm in the running for a limbo dance now! Then we had to climb over another and get through a ditch to eventually get on the trail we wanted to be on!

Eventually found the trail.

Someone had helpfully labelled all the different varieties of tree.

Along the trail looking for the tree names.

At least we found a geocache. This was hanging round the back of a tree.

Our next was near a bridge.

After this find we then had to navigate back to the apartment. This turned out to be quite a challenge as the path we were on was not heading in the direction we wanted!

We ended up on a bit of a road route before joining up with a section of trail going in the right direction.

Checking out development potential. Too much work needs doing 😅.

Anyway after 10am start we eventually saw the outskirts of Santa Margarita and Lidl! Time for a stop to enjoy their air conditioning and get some drink before the last bit back to the apartment. No walking up the stairs when we got back - definitely the lift. Back by about 4.30pm, shoes off and a cold drink before a dip in the sea. 

After nearly 28,000 steps, 18.2km (over 11 miles), we're definitely staying in tomorrow. And after my 'short' walk Ian has taken over choosing walking routes 😅.