Campsite life in Cabopino, Costa Del Sol
Zagan the motorhome is on a very popular campsite. He’s parked up in the shade of umbrella pines at Cabopino Camping (N36.489211, W4.743305) on Spain’s Costa del Sol. A couple of spaces along are our friends Richard and Jenny, and their pooch Carling, who we first met in Estonia last summer. After bumping into them several times as we travelled up through Finland, we spent a great night with them at Nordkapp, before more fun under the midnight sun as we toured Norway.
After leaving the car park in little resort of La Cala de Mijas (known as La Cala around here as pretty much everything is classed as being in Mijas as far as I can tell), we drove all of one kilometre to Lidl for a quick stock up, then a further four kilometres to the campsite. These long driving days do take their toll, so it was nice to arrive and get the awning out. Only thirty minutes before we arrived Amazon Spain had tried to deliver our ACSI discount card to the campsite, only to be turned away because we weren’t yet registered as guests. The receptionist honoured the ACSI rate of €19 (£16.50) a night and delivery was quickly rearranged for the following day, so we set off to find Richard and Jenny, and Richard’s parents who are travelling with them in their motorhome.
There’s a great long boardwalk by the beach here
The leaning tower of Cabopino, that isn’t actually leaning
After a few walks around the site, which is quite big and on a hill, we gave up trying to find them and dropped them a text to say which pitch we were on. Richard’s reply of ‘are you in the same car park as us?’ had me rechecking our previous messages only to discover that I had mis-read one of them – oops. The car park they were in was only a couple of hundred metres away, so we strolled over for a few reunion drinks. The following day they moved their two vans onto the campsite with the plan to stay for a night and get some laundry done, that was a couple of days ago.
We’re working out how to incorporate a drop down patio area on Zagan
There’s a list of rules here as long as my arm, but this sign in the showers is an unusual one!
The site suddenly got extra busy last night as a convoy of Spanish families arrived for the weekend, prompting us to move pitch to avoid Zagan becoming part of a kid’s football match. The temperature has risen, so we have done a lot of nothing, which mainly consists of sitting outside under the awning and keeping cool, chatting with Richard and Jenny, learning a bit more Spanish, BBQing on our gas stoves, reading and finding out what we need to do to get a full state pension (always fun). In the evening when it cools off, we’ve ventured to the dog friendly beach a couple of hundred metres from the site entrance and last night had some tasty food in the campsite bar.
The boardwalks are great for a morning run before the sun gets too hot
Along the beaches are little bars and places to get a massage. For my good friend Caroline at Essential Solutions in Kimberley – these are the charges if you fancy moving your business to the beach!
It’s been really great to catch up with Richard and Jenny these past few days and see what they have been up to since we parted in Norway. Their zest for life and happy outlook on everything has made us both think that we need to lighten up a little, enjoy ourselves a bit more and stop wondering about what we should be doing so much. While they are pushing on tomorrow, we’ll probably stay just a little bit longer. We’ve some planning to do to get us where we want to be for a few stages of the Tour de France, (yes it is the same planning we were doing while we were house sitting in the villa, but we still haven’t quite got around to it yet) and to be honest, we’ve found a place we like, so why shouldn’t we stay and enjoy it for a while?
A cooling shower for Charlie after a dip in the sea – he wasn’t impressed with either!
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Have a fantastic long weekend everyone.
Ju x
Hi both, enjoy reading your blogs especially as we are touring around trying to find our place in the world – also with a cavvy and a cocker! Just to say, we are parking up the motorhome and renting a place in Eymet from July for 6 months. A stage of the tour is starting from Eymet on 12th July I think. There’s a campsite right in town, if you end up visiting it would be great to meet for a drink maybe if you fancy the company, let me know. I’m on Facebook, Joanne Benham, if you wanna get in touch that way. We know Cabopino well, we enjoyed a curry in the restaurant next to the site! Well, we are from the Midlands!
Thanks Jo! Liking your plan to rent for 6 months too. We’ll try and remember your kind offer when we’re over your way! Cheers, Jay
Hi both, agree about the long days driving taking it’s toll. Just finished the NC 500 and a couple of days we only drove 10 or 20 miles which was bliss. The long road back home was the worst – bank holiday weekend on British motorways..mmm. Say no more. Loving the sunshine you guys are having there. Best we can do is look at the tour on Eurosport! Still get some great views from the helicoptor shots – we’ll look out for Zagan on the tele!
Hi from Norway, we are still following your trip, well roughly…
Just a few updates… in the Lofotens there are now several Thetford loo cleaning machines… totally free and with green chemicals… amazing… along with the weird and modern WCs some of which were still locked for winter, in late May and early June! So much is still closed… However, Trollstigen was amazing in the snow, with monster waterfalls, must be the best time to be here and before too many tour buses get here.
We are currently parked in Valldal, with 2 Dutch vans, opposite a no camping sign… best thing here is the washing machine and dryer at the marina for 10NOK EACH… best value of anything in Norway so far!
Thank you so much for all the information in your blog, it has made our trip so easy!!!
Missing the sunshine though, it reached 19C briefly this afternoon, despite the roaring wind…. Portugal for us next…
Carol
Hi Carol! It sounds dramatic up there at the moment. I wondered what it would be like outside the summer months. Those cassette cleaners look great; they had one in a campsite we stayed in recently, but it demanded beer tokens so ours got cleaned the old fashioned way. Portugal will be dirt cheap and roasting in comparison, but that scenery up there…! Thanks for taking the time to send comments, much appreciated, greetings from the Sierra Nevada, Jay