Today’s walk started at Javea harbour, or at least it did for eight of us. Pat led the walk, and had agreed that those who wished could meet us at the monastery an hour later, and four had taken her up on the offer.
We normally start the walk at the far end of the harbour, but the road had been closed due to a serious landslide. We were able to walk to the start of the walk, but not take the cars. The landslide was worse than I had expected, and some of the houses above looked to be in a very dangerous situation.
It was not long before we reached the start of the walk, and began the climb uphill to Cap de San Antoni
The first part of the climb is very steep, and we were glad of a short break at the first view point.
It was quite surprising how far we had already climbed in about 15 minutes.
It took us about an hour to reach the top, so we only had a very short break as we were clearly going to be a little late to meet the second group at the monastery
This area is a natural reserve, with lots of parking and picnic sites. There is also a shaded path running along the side of the tarmac road, and this is where the group became two!
The second group was waiting when we arrived at the monastery, and realised that Barry and Ken were missing.
The figure in the distance is Barry, who arrived after a few minutes – but no sign of Ken. The road we had used is straight and there was no sign of Ken, so some of the group went back to look for him. At this point he turned up, having taken a path which runs parallel with the main road we had used.
With everyone present we were soon on our way across country to the tower overlooking Denia at the far side of the nature reserve.
We reached the tower too early for our picnic lunch, but we did have a short break to admire the views along the coast to Denia……..
…..and in the opposite along the coast towards Javea, the next stage of our walk
From the tower we followed the path downhill to join the path to The Cave.
And then a steep decent to the coastal path
We leave the path and scramble down the rocks
Through the undergrowth
Making use of the rope where the path has fallen away
We eventually arrived at our lunch spot, which is where the path leads down to the cave.
Behind us as we ate was the path leading steeply uphill back to the nature reserve again.
This is one of those climbs where everyone goes at their own pace. It is very steep, but fortunately not too long.
At one particularly difficult part a chain is attached to the rocks to help scramble to the top
The climb is quite safe, and not too difficult in dry conditions such as today. But it can be difficult when the ground is wet, as some of our group discovered a few months ago when walking with the CBMW.
It was now not very far back to the monastery, where we bid farewell to those who had opted for the shorter walk.
It would take the best part of another hour to walk down the road to the harbour and the cars. It was 4pm when we reached the cars, at six hours a longer than normal walk for us. But the weather had been excellent and the walk very enjoyable.
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