Took a day trip over to the National Park of El Torcal. A unique limestone ‘karst’ landscape on top of a high plateau at just over 1000m high.

I had visited here on my first ever trip to Spain, so was keen to return and see how accurate my memory was. The limestone towers are all still there, but climbing is now banned on many of them. Like El Chorro, there is now a huge car park, visitor centre and shuttle bus to access it.

Finding the area where climbing is still permitted involved a short hunt though the limestone pavements and outcrops, but the guidebook description was pretty accurate.

On the walk we came across an enormous feather that my App identified as one from an Eagle! Along with vultures, they glided past all day at eye level. Stunning.

When we located our chosen tower, the view out across the country, was as far reaching as the sea. And after the hassle of the tourist crowds at the visitor centre, it felt like we were suddenly all alone.

Some of the bolts on the climbs looked very old and rusty, but luckily the one we wanted to do looked okay.

After summiting our chosen tower, we made our way back up to the visitor centre for a drink and despite several attempts, couldn’t get the students to hike the short circular trail around the summit.

When I pulled up onto the top of the small peak, I stood up to find I was in full view of the visitor centre’s ‘photo lookout viewpoint’. I promptly received a round of applause and got a wave from the little crowd, as well as featuring in several of their holiday photos! Ha ha!

The shuttle bus got us back down to our van in the lower car park. I took the first bus alone, while the group came down on the second. While I was sorting kit, I noticed we had parked under an almond tree!

It was a long and winding road from El Chorro (about an hour by car), but well worth making the effort.

El Torcal Tower Climb: (La Bogeda)

• Over the Tube, 4c*