La Selva del Camp

We've been experiencing a bit of a lack of wifi - ie. we are using too much data on the phone, so yesterday we found suitable shop and invested in a Spanish Sim, 10€ for 7Gb to last us till we leave Spain.  Took a bit of sorting out last night, but this morning we are in business ....

So we need to go back to Monday 24th February - we left Peniscola and drove 80 miles north and then inland on the outskirts of Tarragona to a small town called La Selva del Camp.  It was quite a palava to enter the Camperstop as there was a large notice beside the barrier giving a phone number for the local police!  A very jolly German chap came over from his van to guide us through the procedure.  He said there would be 2 policemen and sure enough they drove up to us, asked for a passport and 10€ to stay for 2 nights and gave us a code for the barrier.  Jolly chap told us the van in the corner had arrived a bit before us and police only left about 3 minutes before we came! We assume there's no crime around these parts to give them the time to do this several times a day!  But there was more drama than this - they came back later because the van opposite us in this photo

had apparently been there for 5 days (only 2 allowed) and they hadn't paid.  Mr. Jolly said no people came back to the van the night before - he was wondering if they might have had an accident in the mountains, or even dead in the van!  He added that he couldn't smell anything though!!!  Anyway, the police spent quite a while walking around it and then decided to issue a ticket!

We then went off, first to find a geocache a few yards along the lane, which was an interesting one because we found a small box hidden on a road sign and that contained the co-ordinates of the final cache and a key.  That took us to a large box attached to a tree up on the bank(the black blob on the
middle tree) and the key fitted the lock! 

John is returning the key to its hiding place.

 We explored the town a bit then, but did a lot more of that yesterday, Tuesday 25th February.  The old part has several archways and very narrow streets and the new part has a lot of fairly modern housing. 
 
 
Part of an aqueduct built in 14C to work a mill.

 We continued on up past the town with views across to Tarragona and the sea.  Up here, there are a few remote houses with olive groves and other bare-branched trees that we don't recognise.

 It had been cloudy and breezy a lot of the day, but we watched this blue coming for some time!

 From then on it was back to business as usual with beautiful sunshine.  Lots of geocaches to find here (hence needing the extra Gb's - this one outside a school, very cleverly disguised as part of the fence.  It slid down nicely between the posts.

 Towards the end of the walk we came past this blossoming field.  I think it is almond.

And so to today - we've survived a night of extremely strong winds!!   We don't remember the van buffeting around so much ever before!  At one point, around 2.30, John got up and had a look around outside and two other (of the 8 on the camperstop) chaps were also checking things out.  Apart from keeping us awake for a couple of hours, we are unscathed.  One pair of Germans must have had their chairs and table folded underneath their van - found this morning some distance away!

It's still very gusty now as we prepare to move on - hoping it calms down soon.