It was blooming cold again overnight; not on the truck, but certainly outside on the plains. I know because I braved a run that I began at about 08:00 and not only did I feel the nip, but ran through quite eerie rising mists as the morning sun started to warm the cold, damp earth: it was all very atmospheric.
It was also disconcertingly silent. I hadn't initially realised just how quiet it was, but about ten minutes into the run I stopped to check out some birdlife through my monocular and heard - for the first time in my life - the sound of my own blood whooshing through my heart. How about that!
Post quitting-of-camp I covered some miles as I'm acutely aware (but also keep forgetting) that I have to collect Emma from the Algarve on Sunday morning and it just wouldn't do to be late.
Even though I had to cover ground, then, I still made use of as many quiet back roads as possible. Fair to say I thoroughly enjoyed the fair-weather bumble through backwater villages and very 'birdy' countryside. Only taking on diesel at the equivalent of £1.25/l slowed progress a little.
Speaking of fair weather, by lunchtime things had heated up dramatically and I found myself watching butterflies as well as birds over a long and relaxing lunch. For sure, the warm sun made for quite a contrast with the surrounding and spectacular snow-covered mountains of Spain's Sistema Central range.
After lunch I headed for a place we've been to before that's really good for wildlife, and which hosts one of the best overnighting spots we've ever stayed in. And so, to the Parque Nacional de Monfragüe. Well, the birds were there in force but my camp was denied (pic).
To be fair I'd half expected some or other control over access to the track in question. Last time we were here it was literally the only bit of real estate in the whole national park that wasn't gated / chained off / signed as No Pasar. Ah well: all is fair in love, war and overnighting off formal sights.
As often happens in such circumstances, the newly-enforced quest for an alternative spot was less than straightforward. Having passed countless eminently suitable spots during the course of the day, all of a sudden - and even though I was now well clear of the national park - there was nowhere to even pull off the road to regroup. This went in for about an hour before I finally came upon a likely-looking track that wasn't gated / or signed as prohibited.
Well, it proved to be very bumpy, rutted, steep and with quite a few standing water bodies to plunge through, but eventually I came upon a spot wide enough to turn / stop: so turn / stop I did. And it's a beauty. I spent a splendid hour on the cab roof watching stuff and generally coming down, which added a couple of species to today's already impressive bird list. Of the more notables I've seen: black-winged stilt, great white egret, turtle dove, black kite, azure-winged magpie, Dartford warbler, Sardinian warbler, woodchat shrike, and more griffon vultures than you could shake a stick at.
That would have been a good haul on any day but after dark I broke out the thermal imaging camera and a whole new world appeared. I saw small mustelids, tree-climbing rodents, bats, a few birds still moving around, but best of all saw a whole group of wild boar comprising about six adults and eight young. As a bonus to this bonus they were being followed at a respectable distance by a fox that was presumably looking for prey in the disturbance the boar were creating.
Now too wired to sleep...
This post was composed at 22:15 on Thursday 27th March from my intended overnighting spot N 39.72257°, W 06.08364° / http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:39.72257%2C-06.08364