Today was Montgo
day. This was one of the first
items to go on the itinerary, many month’s back. At 753 metres it dominates the landscape around Javea
and he views from the top when not capped in cloud are difficult to beat. It is not a mountain climb, but it is a
serious challenge, especially in the heat., so an early start was planned, well
earlyish anyway. Satnav failure
delayed the start somewhat, and missing the final turn down to the car park
meant a long detour into Denia as the road twists tightly down the tail of
Montgo with no turning places.
Our starting point was
the gun club car park on the Carretera a Denia which is just past the turn off
for Cap de San Antoni. It is a bit
of a cheat in that it lies at about 400 – 500 metres from sea level, so we didn’t
climb the full height of Montgo, but it is a fairly flat ascent from Denia and
the real challenge doesn’t start until a about half a kilometre on from the gun
club.
The weather was kind
to us, being a little overcast for our ascent which kept the temperatures down
a bit, but nice and clear at the top and on the way down. Time to the summit was about 2.5 hours,
but that included time for literally hundreds of photo, a selection of which
can be seen on the web album.
The most memorable
aspect for me (having already been exposed to the views when I climbed here two
years ago, was the number of butterflies this year. There were thousands and they kept us company right up to
the top.
While Tony, Lou, Lucy, Iain and me were on
Montgo, Eunice kept Sally company back at the villa, reading and exploring
round about. Sally got in some
more sunbathing although intermittent cloud meant she has only achieved a sort
of north African colouring so far.
At 6:30pm we called
for Richard and Nina and went off to the Ca Pepe restaurant in Moraira for my belated
birthday tea. A very pleasant and
obliging restaurant, with very good food.
Unknown to anyone but themselves, Nina and Richard had arranged a
birthday cake, which came accompanied by the strains of Happy Birthday and a
firework – a very nice surprise!
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