Murcia to Punta Calnegre

Sunrise over the campsite near Murcia. The sun was actually a bright red orb, couldn't capture it on camera, but it's embedded in my memory.

The campsite was surrounded by lemon trees, in the evenings because the trees were having a second bloom it smelt absolutely delicious, the sweet perfume of lemon blossom on the warm evening air.

The back of the truck, we had a church next door, the bells would ring out the changing hour.

From Murcia we headed down to the coast to an area called Mar Menor  it is a large water area/lagoon/estuary which is right next to the mediterranea, separated by a very thin strip of sand. The area has a salt works where the salt is extracted by evaporation and cleaned up and bagged for consumption. The lagoon area is beautiful, a bit like the salt pans near blenheim, gorgeous pinks and wind whipped up white foam. We were treated to a long display by 7 Spainish airforce jets practising their formation flying, loops, straight up straight down, flying towards each other, spectacular, we got to watch for half an hour plus while they exhibited and we rode our bikes along a bike track through the reserve, looking at pink flamingoes, other birds and gorgeous sea-side views.

Las Salinas near lo Pagan

The pink salinas

Salt works

Salt off to the town

Conveyer belt at salt works

Bike riding along the coast on the Med Mar Menor on our west, the Med (in picture) on our east

The bike track, the sand was firmly packed, easy to ride on

A cute house in the middle of nowhere

Fishing boats at anchor, there were fishing huts on stilts out in the shallows

The foam whipped up by the sea breeze. Riding across a causeway between the sea and lagoon

More fishing boats on the Mar Menor

One of many pretty windmills

Pretty jelly-fish (by the dozen)

The water of mar Menor is about 5 degrees warmer than the Med and the beaches very pretty, unfortunately it has been infested by British both tourists and people who now live there and so it has become another colony in a way, (with many of the new comers very colonisery in their attitudes and opinions when they tell you about their life in Britain/Spain and the issues of the world).
One of the things people do when in this area is coat themselves in the mineral rich mud, and as you can see from the photo below they are not all body beutiful or even slightly hung up about body image. I hope the mud bath thing does wonders for their complexions because i tell you they look extremely silly and smell evn worse. The mud is very sulphury smelling, if kipper smelt like that after a trip to the beach/river/lagoon he would be heading straight for a hosing down, and would not be welcome in the house!!!

The mud bathers

The mud bathers in action

One of the beaches on the Mar menor.

From here, after our bike ride and a coffee in the town we followed the coast as best we could to some other towns on the Mar menor, hoping to experience a beautiful Mediterranean scene. Not to be, awful, highly built up, multiple high risers completely blocking out any chance of a view of the sea, throngs of people and traffic and heat (and that was during siesta time), so we high tailed it out of there and headed to Carthage where Hannibal rested his elephants whenever it was.

Unfortunately once in Carthage there was a lot of bustle, traffic, more heat and despite asking around we were unable to find our campsite, so instead of getting an opportunity to explore the Roman ruins, amphitheatre etc. we made the decision to head to the next campsite onour itinerary, about 20kms south at a tiny beach/village called Calnegre.