Spain... or some of it...

Ok.. The basic plan was for a long awaited ‘romantic’ touring holiday in Spring 2011 on our two trusty old 1150’s...

If I still have your attention, and the mention of romance hasn’t turned your face inside out, please bear in mind this was a ‘holiday’ not to be confused with an ‘adventure’ in any sense of the word. In other words we wanted to enjoy a well deserved rest and some quality time... the accommodation was therefore just as important as the routes (we've grown tired of handing over our hard earned to receive cr@p service), so we looked for recommended accommodation with bike friendly hosts, off the beaten track. So the plan looked like this..:

2 Week trip to Spain (following a year of eager anticipation & a lot of saving)
2 x R1150GS’s transported to Malaga from Ireland - Overlanders.ie
Pre Booked - One Way Flights to Malaga, 3 Guesthouses & Return Overnight Ferry

Base Camp 1 - 4 nights - Casa Don Carlos (GS Heaven) - near Alhaurin el Grande www.gsheaven.com
Base Camp 2 - 4 nights/ 3 days Trail Bike Riding - Riders of the Lost Trail (Hotel El Gecko) - near Cortes de la Frontera www.ridersofthelosttrail.com www.elgeckohotel.com
2 nights random wanderings Northward - Nothing booked but researched various options Cordoba / Toledo / Hervas / Salamanca... e.g. www.eljardindelconvento.com
Base Camp 3 - 3 nights - Pension La Pisa - near Potes, Picos de Europa www.lapisa.co.uk
Overnight Ferry Santander / Plymouth (Booked)
4 nights random stop off’s with friends and family in Blighty
Ferry Stranraer / Belfast (not booked for flexibility of dates/times)
Rounding off with Horizons Unlimited weekend camping (& looking forward to volunteering again) - Enniskillen
Back home near Belfast...

Having won a fantastic raffle prize at HU Ireland last year with www.overlanders.ie
for half price transportation of the bikes from Ireland to Europe we decided that Malaga would give us plenty of options for cheap flights and a spot of touring. So mid April we rode the bikes down to Dublin where Derek, very professionally, loaded them and 20 other bikes onto his truck. The other guys were mainly heading to Morocco for 2 weeks touring on various trail bikes and regular road bikes.

We arrived in Malaga a few days after the other guy’s had set off to Morocco, but Derek had arranged for us to collect our bikes just north of Malaga at their rendezvous Hotel. True to his word the bikes and gear were in the trailer and in no time we were on our way to Base Camp 1 - Casa Don Carlos near Alhaurin el Grande just West of Malaga.

Having done the research, I was really impressed with the outstanding TripAdvisor reviews for Casa Don Carlos. I was also hoping that they’d be able to advise on good routes in the area, given that they also rent out GSA’s www.gsheaven.com . Bear in mind we were looking for a quite place to chill out together as well as spend time on the bikes, so this ticked all the boxes. In fact if your touring as a couple we couldn’t recommend this place highly enough.. we found that our brilliant Dutch hosts Carlo and Ronald run such a tight ship that it leaves you with nothing to do but chill out, to the point where it was hard to drag yourselves away from the place.!!

Carlo lent us some routes which on the first day took us on stunning winding mountain roads to Ronda via El Burgo through the Sierra de las Nieves...

During dinner the previous night we were introduced to Hana www.motoadventours.com (picture below on her GS with Carlo) ...what a star, I think she has my dream job! Hana and business partner David are known by some of this parish, they not only take tours round Spain / Czech / Morocco but they also arrange bike storage if you want to ride down, do some touring, fly home and go back later in the year for more touring and a ride home again, brilliant! Hana gave us some tips on where to eat (ever tried Baby Squid.. mmm tasty!!) and routes to take us to Antequera via the lakes and high peaks at Guadalteba and El Chorro, which I’d wanted to see for my own eyes (not for the faint hearted, if you haven’t seen it on YouTube yet, then take a look!)

On our Micheline map we’d spotted a really nice route South from Antequera, via Villanueva de la Concepcion through the Rio Campanillas, which turned out to be lovely open sweepers interspersed with tight winding mountain and valley sections, with the odd hairpin thrown in, hardly saw a car / person / house / donkey for about 20 miles... saw a few big yellow road signs with something in Spanish that looked like Attention..? until we came to this..!!

So it was back up the road for a few miles until James spotted a rough steep track which thankfully linked up to a parallel road down the opposite side of the valley... phew..!!

Then it was time to tear ourselves away from chilling out at Casa don Carlos and head up the famous Ronda Road, hanging a left towards Cartajima to take the scenic route through the Pueblo Blanco’s towards Cortes de la Frontera and our spot of Trail Bike Riding with Phil Wood at www.ridersofthelosttrail.com . Again, the location and accommodation was just as important to us as the riding. Hotel El Gecko www.elgeckohotel.com is beautifully situated in the valley, with the rooms and terrace overlooking the river, Bill and Maxine (& Boxer dog Woody) do a great job and you couldn’t be better looked after of an evening with Bill’s brilliant food and their easy company...

Phil on the other hand is full on (in the best possible way...!) After a briefing and familiarisation with the bikes we were off.. and within half an hour, we were ontop of the world..!! looking across to the Riff Mountains, with endless trails ahead of us. With the recent heavy rains I can say that the DRZ400 was the perfect machine for coping with deep boulder ruts and complete landslides.. to say that some of the riding was technical was an understatement..! But this was interspersed with fabulous Cork forest tracks just winding endlessly with not a soul to be seen... Phil has been based here for years and also runs his own building firm so he ‘speaky di local lingo’.. which meant great lunch breaks too..!

Me and James on top of the world...

And no hassle parking, just pull up into the local square, on the noisiest bikes known to man and enjoy lunch...

So... all was going swimmingly until I decided to break my ankle not looking where I was putting my foot..! so it was home time, courtesy of my Travel Insurance... Hey Ho.. Sh1t happens.. One thing to bear in mind if you’re traveling with your partner / spouse, check to see if their bike is transported back with yours when they accompany you home. Although we are both in the RAC they brought mine back but wanted to charge £1,000 to stick James’s on the same trailer..! so I found a quote from a haulage company based in Estapona, Murray Harper www.murrayharper.com to Birmingham (€295)...

So apart from all that I’m now looking forward to 2 more weeks in plaster and potentially 4 weeks of SSP at £81.60 a week..! until I am fit to drive my sorry @ss back to work.. but what a fantastic holiday up to that point.. ah well.. time to get saving again..

As Hana (MotoAdenTours) said, in hindsight we should have left the bikes with her and flown back in September to finish off the journey... met some brilliant people... had an unforgettable time.... what next....!!!!!!!

Doh! Was a great report right up to the last post

Get well soon Sue

Flippin 'eck Sue, I was enjoying that report from one of my favourite areas then you bust your ankle!

Bad luck, but it did look like you were having a great time

Oh dear Sue ... hope you're on the mend and back in the saddle soooon

Ouch. I hope you enjoy a speedy and full recovery Sue.

Good to read your report on Casa Don Carlos as I won a 50% voucher for CDC & GS Heaven at Enniskillen a few weeks ago. Think Mandy and I will head over late Feb or early March next year.

Nice write up & photos, looks like a great holiday Sue.

Enjoy your extra time at home

Wow! that was a twist I didn't expect.

Thnaks for posting the good reviews, and the warnings.


GWS

Neil.

Nice write up.............................sorry to hear about your ankle

Wot he said.
Mark

Grand write up pulled up a chair got really excited when you mentioned Ronda Julie and i visited a couple of years back, we know we want to return on the bikes. Great pictures enjoyed every bit until you broke your ankle. Get well soon.

Andrew

Thanks for the best wishes chaps...

Unfortunately there's not much wine being taken during my unscheduled time off, as it tends to make the crutches go all wobbly... a most shocking design fault

Nice place to get about