We left Marbella to head to the furthest point South in Continental Europe. We decided to skip Gibraltar on this trip as the weather had turned. As we drove over the hills we found ourselves in very low cloud, with very poor visibility.
We arrived in Tarifa to torrential rain and a warning for 80 km/h winds The Aire where we were going to stay looked like a very wet stony car park and the services were closed.
There was a short break in the rain so we decided to venture out. After a couple of minutes the rain was back and we got absolutely soaked.
After a quick stop in the shop for some bread, we headed back to the van to dry off. At this point we both agreed to leave Tarifa for another trip.
Next on the list was Los Caños de Meca just 40 miles along the coast. The rain had now stopped and we were a little bit more sheltered from the 80 km/h winds, great for kite surfing, not so great for a large sided motorhome. The Aire was closed so we parked up on the side of the road to have a coffee and think about staying or going on to the next planned stop.
There were a couple of car parks but one was full and the other had a height barrier on it. There were lots of vans parked up although most of them seemed to belong to the kite surfers who were out on the sea. We wandered down to the beach to watch. It was an incredible sight, the wind was high and the waves big, the kites were flying high in the sky. I think this sport is not for the faint hearted!
It was starting to get late so we needed to decide if we were going to stay. Looking at the map Cadiz was only 36 miles away, about an hours drive. Sunset was in an hour so we made a run for it.
Arriving in Cadiz we had two sat navs running but neither of them could direct us to the Aire at the port. We drove all the way through the town but couldn’t find the road. We had seen some motorhomes parked on a small road that ran parallel to the main road entering Cadiz. As it was now late and dark, we headed there for the night.
It was not the best park up we have had, as the main road was very noisy.
We woke early the next morning and walked into town. We had seen that they had a drop in centre were you could get a covid booster. Our last vaccination was in June and as most of Europe were now insisting on travellers having a vaccine within 270 days ours were running out.
We queued for about half an hour at the centre but when we got to the front we were told we had to register at the health centre first. So off we went. It was a challenge as our Spanish is not very good and the person at the centre didn’t speak any English. Still, with the help of google translate, we managed to get a temporary registration number.
With this in our hands we headed back to the drop in centre and received our booster.
Feeling elated that we had managed to do this as it meant we could continue our journey, we walked down to the beach to have a coffee.
The beach in Cadiz took my breath away. It has the softest sand we have encountered so far, and was extremely clean. It stretches for miles. It was still really windy and you could see the sand being blown around.
We found a lovely restaurant on the beach where we sat inside for lunch. No wine this time though as we decided to move on to somewhere a bit quieter for the night.
Marbella to Tarifa
Mileage 71
Route A-7
Área de Autocaravanas de Tarifa – Free but we didn’t stay
Tarifa to Los Caños de Meca
Mileage 40
Route N-340
Área de Autocaravanas Los Caños de Meca – Aire was closed so we didn’t stay
Los Caños de Meca to Cadiz
Mileage 36
Route A-488
Playa de la Cortadura – Free on the side of the road
