The three part foray – part 3

I have been trying to write this post for a while; life does tend to get in the way sometimes so this is me getting around to it now.

We are now on the last leg of the journey, we travelled to a place called Mont Roig del Camp, where we had rented a wooden cabin in the middle of what used to be an olive tree plantation. I think we were both hoping that the last few days would be spent relaxing at the cabin, out on the patio and in the surrounding garden, however as the cabin was in a valley it was a bit of a wind trap, so we decided to explore instead.

We took a drive and ended up climbing the Serra de Llaberia, which is part of the Catalan Pre-coastal Range, a system of mountain ranges running parallel to the Mediterranean Sea coast. On the road up we encountered some amazing views, even if it was a bit colder than anticipated, it was still really beautiful.

The drive up the mountain, Serra de Llaberia.

The Pre-coastal Range, Serra de Llaberia.

At the summit we happened upon a small village, incidentally called Llaberia, which was completely deserted. It was actually very strange, it was at the most two or three streets of houses and for the most part a lot of them looked as if they were crumbling behind the main front wall, however some of them had satellite dishes fixed on the front and telephone lines running on the outsides of the buildings. As if they were maybe being used as holiday homes, or perhaps they just set up when it is peak tourist season as there was a museum, not that we looked for it.

Ghost Town, Llaberia.

The edge of the village, Llaberia.

As we walked along I noticed that there were some patterns on the ground, originally I had thought that someone had painted the patterns on. However when I took a closer look I realized that they were leaves that at some point had fallen onto the ground and over time had flattened into the stone, almost as if they were fossilized. I don’t know if there is a proper scientific term for what this process is or how it happens but it was quite astonishing to see.

Plant patterns, Llaberia.

We came back down the mountain and I decided that I would like to go to the beach, in my mind I had an idea of a similar set up to our previous beach day, unfortunately it proved a bit more difficult to find a gem like we had before. We drove around for a while and I thought I had found a perfect spot, it turned out to be really close to a nuclear power station.

Hiding Power Stations behind hills is cheating, La Rojala-Platja del Torn.

We didn’t end up stopping at the beach, we saw some more nice views and made plenty jokes about the extraneous limbs we might end up growing.

Miami Platja.

On our last day we took another drive to see what interesting finds we would come across, our adventure lead us to a wind farm.

Wind farm

I’ve never had the opportunity to see the windmills up close and if I’m honest it wasn’t something that I ever really gave much thought to but it is actually quite interesting when you get up close and personal. Admittedly I didn’t enjoy getting out of the car, it wasn’t so much the cold it was also the irrational fear of being blown off the steep cliff top it felt like we were perched on.

No looking down now.

Once we set back down the mountain, we renewed the search for a beach and ended up finding one. Not as nicely secluded as I had hoped but we found a little spot and ended up having a picnic on the sand. It was a lovely last day lunch, which was followed by a pretty good last day dinner that I cooked, steak and roast potatoes.

Our picnic spot.

This trip has given me the bug and I can’t wait to explore some more. Not sure when it will happen or where I will go, but I definitely know I’ll feel that itch again sooner rather than later.

∞