[Fwd: In praise of Cabo de Gata]

[sue james]

I'd intended to post a message about the Cabo de Gata Natural Park in Almeria in January when we had a lovely day's walk there.
We went back to the same place yesterday and this time I've put fingers to keyboard.
The Cabo de Gata-Nijar park is geologically fascinating by virtue of its fairly recent volcanism - two episodes between 15 million and 7 million years ago and not currently active! - and even if you are not interested in examining the rocks there is an impressive coastline. The hinterland however does seem bleak unless you appreciate its volcanic domes and calderas. There is also a rich mineral heritage which has tended to scar the landscape and outside the Natural Park the area is currently covered with "plasticos" for the intensive cultivation of tomatoes etc. These can look impressive on mass but more impressively ugly than beautiful.

Visitors to the area  have plenty of opportunities to walk - there are lots of well signed trails and  these now have abundant of information on illustrated panels (although the text is often only in Spanish) but car parking is strictly limited and the designated parking areas quickly fill to capacity at busy times.

One both visits this year we chose to go mid-week and while the most popular beaches were far from deserted it was easy to get away from other people.
We also visited the new Volcanic Interpretation Centre in Rodalquilar which does an excellent job of explaining the landscape and also presents the history of the gold mining that took place in the village of Rodalquilar as recently as the mid 1960s. Among the things we learned yesterday is that the name Cabo de Gata doesn't refer to a female cat but instead is a reference to Agate which is abundant in the area.

Sue James