Mystery solved. I went for a decent walk yesterday evening and discovered the place we were supposed to be parked in. I’ll blame the SatNav. As it happens, we agreed that where we actually ended up was was much better, so we’ve created a new Park4night.

I think I forgot to mention that from Caceres onwards we have moved on to our last Back Roads Spain drive in the South, number 16: Cities of the Conquistadors. Next stop would be Guadalupe. Great setting in the mountains, some lovely old buildings, and good motorhome parking. Our only criticism would be that they’ve overdone the souvenir shops.

From Guadalupe onwards, today would be a leisurely drive, a little South, then East, ultimately towards Merida. You might have noticed that we’ve been zigzagging our way down Western Spain for a couple of weeks now, determined to cover as much ground in this area as we can, but absolutely without rushing it. By the time we get to end of drive 16, we will be starting to think about Portugal.

As ever, we thoroughly enjoyed the ever-changing landscape of today’s drive. The guidebook took us along a stretch from Peloche along fascinating lakes and mountains, and there were quite a number of great overnighting spots. Unfortunately, the Internet was virtually unavailable along this stretch, irrespective of phone carrier. Whilst we love to get away from it all, Internet access is important for a number of things we need to do, and so we decided to carry on.

Further along our drive I found, what I thought was a lovely lakeside stop, away from everyone and everything, but again, no Internet. Sophie didn’t share my enthusiasm for this spot anyway, so on we went.

We were now taking the road to Campanario, which took us through some fascinating hilly, moor like scenery, where the rock interestingly stands out like sharp teeth from the grass. The road, the EX-349, soon deteriorated to being a little bouncy, but we simply adjusted our speed accordingly, and continued to enjoy the scenery, always on the look-out for a pull-in at the side of the road, suitable to park in.

After crossing an old bridge, we found our spot, set in idyllic countryside, next to a small river, and just the sound of the birds. We “did the dance”, manoeuvring around until Sophie had chosen the optimal spot, and here we are for the night. Sophie’s cooking us a traditional dish of Spanish butter beans, pork, dried sausage etc for us tonight, so hopefully it’ll be ready before bedtime. I have my cava at least. No Internet though, but we’ll survive.