We’ve now spent two thirds of our allowable time in the EU at Camping La Rosaleda in Conil de La Frontera and today it is time to head east to Torrox and Camping El Pina. Torrox is located on the Mediterranean coast around 30 miles west of Malaga and our total journey time was estimated at around 3.5 hours with a distance to cover of some 160 miles.
Google selected a route via the A381 which was inland from Vejer. Whilst it looked a little more direct I think following the N340 along the coast would have been the better option. We also took a wrong turn and added another 20 or so miles to our journey.
We finally arrived at Camping El Pino around 13:30 and made the mistake of trying to drive into the campsite. Fairly quickly we were ordered to reverse back out onto the street and to park at the bus-stop. It turns out there is no arrivals area within the site and given it’s a large site of some 400 odd places, the car and caravan were abandoned for a good half an hour.
The site doesn’t take reservations and I have been in frequent contact with them about availability so we were surprised for reception to tell us there was very limited space and that we should walk around the site and look for a suitable pitch. They said that this year has been extremely busy and space is limited – if only they had said so in the emails!
Finally we chose a pitch on which there was just room for the car and caravan. If you can’t fit the car on your pitch then it has to be left outside.
Our first impressions of the site aren’t fantastic. The toilet blocks and washrooms are well equipped, modern and very clean. Everything else is just really crammed in, disorganised and the site has a real shanty-town feel to it. The receptionist was efficient and we were able to pay initially for just a few days whilst we decide if we want to stay longer. If we do stay longer then we can utilise the special winter offers which are great value.
In the evening we headed to the local pizzeria (Roima) and they managed to find us a table. In contrast to Conil, there isn’t a great requirement to speak Spanish in this part of Spain! Food was great and the Pizerria Roima was packed all evening.