Another stone animal. Horse’s head, Barranco del Sing

 Up about 8am and forced my way through four pots of Caramel Flan – the shop didn’t have yoghurts. Tidied the cabin as instructed and left about 9 feeling a bit queezy.

 I had a choice today, over or round Montcabrer. The forecast was for possible heavy rain this afternoon and I had a long narrow gorge to descend. Could envisage possible problems with flash floods and I had a bus to catch to Alicante. So – round.

 It was a beautiful morning for walking.

A kilometer on the road brought me to Font Mariola where others were leaving cars for a bit of walking. The short cut  I had spotted on the map turned out to be a locally signed PR57 marked with yellow and white; makes for a change.

  The track through the woods was easy but after some time started veering too far south for my liking. On the map there were other paths going due east; so back a couple of junctions and I headed off on a decent forest track in that direction. This progressively got narrower and less used as I climbed further into the hills.

I was having doubts but continued till I was going north up the slopes of Montcabrer.

Montcabrer.

 Wishing now I’d kept to at least one of the marked routes! But suddenly a large farm appeared which placed me on the map and I was soon heading for the Barranco del Sing. Not a rain cloud in sight!

 The gorge started gently but you could already see the tall cliffs demarcating it. A well-used track dropped me to the base. Remarkably, there has been agriculture down here. At one point halfway along someone has built/restored a few ‘shacks’ and is living a simple existence. There were a couple of mules tied up – presumably for transporting his goods along the steep narrow path.

  The heat was quite oppressive down here and with the sounds of all the insects buzzing and clicking it felt tropical. One of the  clicking insects, ?Cicada, landed on the path in front of me. It was about an inch and a half long – any ideas?

 Overhead vultures were circling in the afternoon up drafts. Have lots of pictures of blue sky with the odd black blur, this is when you miss a view finder on the camera. The path wound around and became really hemmed in the lower reaches and on past the horse’s head before opening out directly above Alcoi. A superb end to this week’s walking.  A short walk into Alcoi brought me to the bus station just in time for a coffee before catching the bus to Alicante, the beach for a swim and the plane home.