Bedrock

Archive for the ‘Andalucia’ Category

And what an August it is turning out to be – temperatures in the mid-30s, superbly warm evenings and lots of late-night entertainment in Galera.

Throughput most of August there is always something going on in the area and this time of the month the focus is on Galera town square including some excellent fireworks at the weekend.

At this point a reminder that you can click on any of these images to see larger versions – and if that doesn’t work – do let me know.

Last night after a very productive day in which I finally resolved some severe issues with my home control setup, just in time for my pal to come visit us tomorrow wherein we plan to take a look at OpenHab, we had friends visit us briefly at the cave (which now sports a really neat hallway water feature).. and later we headed off down to the town, met up with friends Len and Christine for a quick beer ( don’t know about anyone else but after the first beer I really do not like that new crap that La Posa is serving up – Alhambra is much better) before heading off to the town square in anticipation of a late evening of entertainment.

We certainly were not disappointed as you can see from the pictures, firstly we met up with friends (and new friends) in the village and as usual, solved all of the world’s problems over beer and wine. Sadly one couple are heading off today but we hope to visit them later this year in the UK which will be nice. Later on the entertainment started and we enjoyed that for some time before heading off to the Kebab van – I should stress that the Kebabs here are slightly different to those  in the UK, being based more on chicken than anything else  -but non-the-less – very satisfying.

This morning I’ve been working on wiring – and filling in holes (caused by my wiring) and this afternoon after doing a little more rawlplug-drilling I’m planning some work on the home controller now that I can actually do something with it as against trying to solve radio problems. 

Watering system automation which is based on a washing machine valve and some control electronics of my own is working a treat now we have the right piping.

Right – back to the grind – my good lady wants some holes drilling in the wall – just what you want to be doing when it’s 35c outside! Tomorrow some travel – I’m looking forward to getting some neat new technology which I’ll write about soon.

Starting in Galera, then off via Granada , Seville (on the way back), Rio Tinto and Portugal – what an adventure – the general idea at the start was to leave Galera (right on the map – we’re looking at the south end of Spain here) on Monday, pop into Baza for an early morning sandwich and then head off down to Gibraltar to spend a little time with Gemma Vasquez and her husband (Gemma heads up the GFSB – the Gibraltar Small Business organisation over there – and as a Brit who has been there more than once and listened to the traders and local government complaining, I have considerable sympathy for the hassle the people of Gibraltar from time to time get from the Spanish authorities) and then head off to Huelva in Spain for some history.

Well, as it happens,  all of that mutated into something completely different and we scrapped the Gibraltar trip PARTLY due to fears of horrendous queues at the border and partly due the inevitable restrictions caused by Maureen’s (at the time) bust foot. As it turns out, I emailed Gemma to apologise for our change of plans – and it would seem that was a smart move as that the queues at the border were as bad as ever – with a change for the worse which apparently allowed Spanish traders into Gibraltar without issue while making everyone else wait!!! I wonder if our press ever picked up on that.

So – the revised plan took us to Rio Tinto and Huelva. Let me explain – Rio Tinto is a small town and also a mining area in South West Spain not far off Portugal, famous for a river that runs blood-red due to the iron oxide and other chemicals in it. Turns out this mining has been going on since Roman times until very early in the 21st century and one of the mines is as deep as the Empire State Building is high!!! Worth a look, surely, we thought.

So, we set off on Monday and, as you do, we stopped off along the way, discovering Spanish towns we’ve never even thought of before – and one area we passed late in the day seemed to have two suns (see above) resembling the fictitious Star Wars planet Tatooine (a beige-colored, desolate world orbiting a pair of binary stars) – we figured we’d check that out on the return trip. We’re glad we visited Huelva – very nice – see ships lower down.

Moving on, we had arranged bed and breakfast in a little place called Rio-Tinto – straight off the Internet as you do – and what a winner. Ok, I’ll grant you we had a little issue that neither the owner nor his wife spoke much English but we managed – between Google translate, enthusiasm and arm gestures… we managed – what a REALLY nice couple – she has her own paintings all over the house – he was into gadgets and he’d taken the time to study my blog with the aid of Google…. the house was pristine, neighbourhood pleasant and they had a pool – a NICE pool.

The reason we travelled to Rio-Tinto was to see the river, which runs red due to iron oxides. We were not expecting the history we found – turns out they’ve been mining there for the last 5,000 years!!! More photos at the end of this blog entry.

All done with Rio Tinto we headed off to the Algarve in Portugal – to Vila Real to be precise – just for a quick visit before heading off home. It’s a long time since we’ve been to Portugal and I have to say after settling down for dinner at the sea front, I’m not in any mad rush to go back.

Portugal… well, the bit we were in…

So then we headed off back home – and again the strange “suns”  below, resembling Tatooine in the movie Star Wars – We had to investigate – the result – STUNNING – the twin solar collectors of Seville – 2000 mirrors, designed to produce 30MW of electricity, a world’s first. 20Km west of Seville this plant generates power from steam – receiving up to 15 hours of sunlight in summer per day… I really can’t explain how bright the tops of those towers are except to say you can see them from a long, long way away. 624 moving mirrors ensure the towers are hit with concentrated sunlight all day. Check out this link for more information.

And so here are more pictures of our trip…

The mines at Rio Tinto

Yes, the water really IS a strange colour…

The main roundabout at Rio Tinto… yes that’s a full size steam engine – more pics coming…

Christopher Columbus history at Huelva

And inside the ships complete with sound effects..

We finished our visit at the museum where we learned all about the mining operations and the fantastic range of materials they got out of them – Galena, Yeso, Quartz, Galena and much more.

The scale of the mining is (was) incredible. and  if you want to see some great pictures of the Rio Tinto area check here…

Marvellous trip!

We’re on our second day in Spain and the weather is wonderful – as yet not too hot and crystal clear skies.

We arrived last night and had a couple of drinks Before heading off to bed.

Today, well we didn’t do much really, I didn’t surface until 11am and got on with ensuring my remote controls were working (updating software to new mesh code I’ve been playing with at home and installed both at the house and the cottage) – as well as finding a leak in the watering system for the plants and fixing up some solar lights.

We were planning nothing for the night when our neighbours dropped in early evening to say we’re going out! So we all went off to Orce and had a nice, quiet meal and drink – very pleasant.

Tomorrow we’re off in a 2-car convoy to Albox where we will find a garden centre, a supermarket, a general hardware store and one of the largest Chinese shops in the area – all in all everything you need for a good shopping day out.

I need some shelving, we need a TV cabinet and a whole boatload of supplies. Shops close at 2pm so we’re making an early start.

Click on images to expand.

Work is coming along on the cave, the builders have just completed a storage partition for Maureen (and it would seem knocked out my watering system at the same time) and upstairs has had a refit (wall re-done from scratch with insulation). On top of that we have a new wood-burning stove (not that we’ll need it for now).  The plan is to put the TV on a mounting bracket along with some new control kit so it works with our tablets, put some shelving up in the new partition and my office in the next week or so…  and get lots of household and garden stuff “filed” away. I’m also bringing some new lighting kit. Cameras are working a treat.

Maureen has made some new mirrors for the place – she’s bought the basic mirrors, a ton of small gems and other items and has given them the personal touch with glue and grout – my job is to bury them in the walls. They’re looking pretty good. Bringing our new best friend – a large tube of Gorilla glue.

I’m pleased to see the solar powered main Pergola light I built from scratch is lighting the place up every night (there’s enough power to keep it running 24 hours hours a day so right now it’s never turned  off). A little worrying that the hallway is getting as high as 26c – might need to work on that.

We’ll be there by lunchtime tomorrow, I’ve had a couple of short business trips this week (Brussels then Blackpool) and now that’s all out of the way, it’s time to start the holidays!

What a day. From the most beautiful start – to thunderstorms in the course of a day.

This morning we headed off to BAZA, having been told that they sell HENRY vacuums up there. Having destroyed a few lesser units over the course of years we decided to do the job properly and get a vacuum with a BAG. Well, not unsurprisingly, Baza was WAY over the top pricing-wise at around 160 Euros for a Henry look-alike – sorry guys, we weren’t born yesterday, Amazon it is.

It was approaching lunchtime by now and our pal LEN had told us of a town called Gorafe, so we went to have a look. FREENAV is sat-nav software I’ve been using for some time now on my S4 phone but it’s looking more and more as if it’s destined for the bin – as it wanted to send us down a torturous route taking 2 hours from Baza to Gorafe – the place is that close you could almost SEE it were it not for the mountains in-between! Something like 45km. Anyway, we decided to take the obvious route – the A92 – and I recommend that to anyone nearby giving it a go…

The trip to Gorafe, once you get off the motorway marginally resembles a trip we did to Andorra with much of the journey winding around a mountain except this time the town is at the BOTTOM – so far down your ears start to notice.

The views are superb. Just off to one side of the town is a tiny white religious figure way up at the top of a hill, we took the opportunity to drive as far as we could and walk the rest right to the top – and the views, clearly were worth the effort.

Driving back into the town itself, by now it was perhaps 2pm or so – we stopped at a local bar for a coke and some lunch. The lady there did not understand a word we said but we sat outside in the sun, I’d say it had to be approaching 30c, she put up a Martini stand and fed us a superb salad starter (I just picked the peppers out – the olives looked gross) and a really pleasant meat dish with the obligatory chips – all very reasonably priced. The sun cover was most welcome as I could feel my skin starting to shrink from the powerful sunshine.

And then came the rain – we drove back up toward Baza in brilliant sunshine, a beautiful day and then within minutes the rain started and the temperature dropped to an amazing 12c – unbelievable but true. We rushed back to Galera to rescue the washing and my battery and controller which were sitting outside – and got there just in time – as I write this, there is lightning in the background. I don’t expect it will last for long.

Click on the images for larger versions. Definitely worth the trip for anyone in the area.

Having open fires is not something you’d do in Spain in the summer – and in fact some forms of BBQ are banned from June 1st to save burning the whole place down!

And so it was we set off around the back of Sagra near Pueblo De Don Fadrique for a BBQ – it’s around 26c in the shade and has been most of the day and deep in the woods is a cracking area for BBQs complete with stone tables and chairs – as it happens our small group were the only ones around so we had the whole place to ourselves, including a very picturesque nearby church. I’m writing this around teatime having spent the whole afternoon down there, around 12 of us.

As pictures in these situations are more important than words, I’ll let the pictures do the job. Click on any smaller ones to enlarge.

The afternoon ended with a visit by a herd of goats – which was fun!