Donana & El Rocio 2nd November

We left Gelves headed south west towards the coast and a natural park called Donana which had a great write up in the DK book, and which Di and I were both keen to explore. It wasn’t that far, about 120kms along firstly a wide easy going motorway, and then smaller, but still an easy drive minor road headed directly south towards the ocean. Our first stop off point was a little town called El Rocio which had an entry in the DK book but had also been recommended by a couple at a campground a few weeks ago, as a place Hilary would love as it is just like a town from an American spaghetti western, with sand streets and buildings with verandahs and hitching rails along their fronts. I think it is genuine and original, it is an old town, much older than Hollywood and there are people there with cowboy boots on, and one bloke who had been at the riding school practising his stuff I guess, was picked up by a friend on a motorcycle. He slung his saddle onto the drivers’ seat, his friend sat on it, and he jumped on the back, and off they went, helmetless into the dust.

We stopped at an outfit which runs 4wd truck adventures into the heart of the park (the only way you can see it as it is otherwise closed to visitors for conservation purposes) and looked at their information and spoke with the woman behind the counter. There were some slots on the afternoon tour but we spoke to one of the guides/drivers who was in the office who said that there had not been a lot seen in the past few days (some rabbits (oh wow) and a couple of other things which weren’t at all exciting) and given that the tours are completely in Spanish, despite the fact that  the weather was closing in fast and due to stay bad for a few days we decided to go for a walk around the area and to one of the park’s information/visitor areas before committing ourselves to a tour. The walk was through pine forest, a few cork oak trees, and grasslands which when it has rained contains wetlands, with reed beds and is teeming with birdlife. On the grasslands are deer, lynx (very rare), native swamp horses and native cattle along with a few smaller mammals. There are about six viewing hides all set out facing different potential viewing opportunities however despite stopping at each one, and walking the entire 4km track, all that was sighted were some empty stork nests and one yellow butterfly (I missed it). There wasn’t a drop of water to be seen either, though the sky was dark and the wind getting up, so I guess we just timed it wrongly, apparently in winter it is teeming with flamingos and other wading birds plus lots of mammals.

Outside the audiovisual display room (closed for lunch)

A section of the walk

The visitor's centre

We decided to go and look for a spot to camp but when we were unable to find anywhere appropriate, and factoring in that we hadn’t seen any animal life (and barely any human either) we decided to forgo the tour and head out of town as the weather was looking particularly grim.

We stopped at El Rocio to take some photos but that only lasted a minute before the heavens opened and the rain that had been threatening all day arrived with gusto.

We filled the truck with diesel and headed back the way we had come, through Seville and north to a small town called Zafra which had a camping spot in its centre where we stayed for the night.

An El Rocio street

One of the dozens of churches in El Rocio