Long drive, initially along a mountain road near Montserrat, then motorway all day. 350 km. Wow, do they know how to charge their tolls!!

Scorched dry land, dust, poorly kept rural properties . Amazing how much a landscape can change in a few hours. Drove past Tarragona then through Valencia. Just another hot (34 degrees) busy city so we skipped stopping although we did see briefly the magnificent City of Arts and Sciences complex.

On more minor roads, we noted the "working girls" in bikinis, sitting on chairs on the edge of paddocks waiting for "work"!

Reached our destination - the Albufera Wetlands, south of Valencia in the coast. Parked in a motor home park - really a fenced-in car park with minimal facilities but cheap. Went to find out about a boat trip later. Looked at the beach - not even a toilet block or cafe, overlooked by ugly high rises, glad we had not paid for a beach holiday there! Spain had its boom in the 60s and seems to have gone backwards since.

Spent some time re-examining our itinerary to see how many hot cities we really want to see. Made a few changes.

Had a quick dinner then back to get our boat. Just approaching sunset as we four set off with our boatman across the freshwater lagoon, snapping birds madly as we went. I saw the kingfisher, and we all scored herons, egrets, ducks, gulls, etc. Lovely and relaxing, cool breeze after the hot day.

Back to camp to catch up on the blog. Rob and Rob stopped for dinner and only just got in before they locked the gate!