Murcia - Monte de las Cenizas

The "Monte de las Cenizas" is located in Calblanque Natural Park (Murcia-Spain), very near of "La Manga del Mar Menor". This is a great contrast to the traditional tourist areas of "bucket and spade", being a quiet place where nature still prevails on new tourism.

It's a very easy route with a length of just over 2 hours round trip, being suitable for all ages. The way is a dirt road very well conditioned, being very gentle climb to reach the top of the "Monte de las Cenizas", where there are military batteries.

The route

To arrive the trailhead you have to go through the MU-312 highway and take Portman direction near of the town of "Los Belones". After passing "La Manga Golf Club", the road widens an begins uphill in a few miles, at the time a sign appear on the right indicating a parking lot (the indicator says something like:"El Llano Beal). The car is left here, we crossed the road, turn right and climb about 100 meters along the road until you find the beginning of the dirt road. At the beginning of the way there is a fence and a sign explaining the vegetation and fauna.

We did the route in January, with an exceptional temperature: 17 degrees. The climb is very gentle and accompanied us very pleasant smell that emanated from the thyme and rosemary plants.

During the journey you have same very beautiful views of "La manga del Mar Menor" and "Portman", and upon reaching the top, we found a very nice view of Cape Palos.

We continued walking until we found a stone arch that welcomes us to the "Bateria de Cenizas". The entrance arch is inspired by the ruined city of "Chichen Itza" Mesh. It is very curious find this kind of construction in the middle of nowhere. After passing through this arch we found the entrance to one of the mineshaft that are in the area. We went through the tunnel until you reached an miners material store.

Cannons

We returned to the way and continued until the end of the trail, and our surprise was found two breathtaking canyons in the high mountain (technically are Vickers-Armstrongs Model 1926 38.1 cm and a range of 35 km).

The canyons was installed in 1930s and have been in service until 1994.

At present they are declared of cultural interest.

Mountain Bike

During the tour, we met many cyclist doing the route. It is a road suitable for the practice of mountain biking. One of the times we were posing for a photograph, at the time of the shooting appeared just in the perfecto framing a cyclist, if we try to do it intentionally leave us.

Finally take courage, all that you go through this Spanish area holidays, one day have to visit "El Monte de las Cenizas", and so break your beach routine and discover a remote corner near the mass tourism.