Sierra de Benejúzar - The Devil's Cauldron
Looking at the hill from ground level, the sierra doesn't appear to be anything special. However, when you get up there, you see that there's a big depression in the middle of it, nearly surrounded by nice ridges from which there are excellent views.
When a friend and I last did the walk in autumn, we saw a V flight of storks on their migration towards the straits of Gibraltar. It was really interesting to see that, shortly after they passed us, they must have found a thermal, and started lazily circling and gaining quite a lot of height. Then once back at ground level we saw some stilts in a reservoir.
Lots of dragonflies, butterflies and grasshoppers, but the only mammals we saw were 5 other Brits - not a Spaniard in sight.
The whole walk is only 7 kilometres, and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone wanting a bit of exercise and some great views.
I did log the track to open in Google Earth, but unfortunately it's not now displaying properly, and I've not got time at the moment to mark it up on a map.
See if you can follow the following instructions on Google Earth. If not, I'll either mark it up on a Google Earth image, or just give co-ordinates for each of the waypoints.
Go into Benejúzar. At the little roundabout, where there's a narrow right turn if you were going to Charlots, instead turn left.
Follow this up and out of town. Where the road forks, I prefer to go left, through the Pilarica picnic area, and round a bend to the church - Santuario del Pilar.
Park behind the church.
Go left along the road for a few metres until you see a track going off at right angles - take that (there's also a track going diagonally left up the hill, which goes to the shrine).
After a few metres, the track forks - take the left fork and follow it all the way up to the ridge line.
After taking a breather, go right.
After a couple of minutes, there's a bit of a path going uphill, and a narrower one going left and down - take that.
Just follow this path. At one point there appears to be a path going right, but this is just to a viewpoint, so keep left.
Emerge at and cross a wide track at the 206 metre Cabezo Redondo (round head) peak (it is possible to scramble up to admire the view), and pass this on its left.
From here on, there are a number of tracks, but take whichever you wish - they all go in the correct direction.
Probably the easiest to walk on is that beside the wire fence, but you then lose sight of the caldera.
You can soon see the trig point on the horizon, which is your next stopping point.
Have a rest at the Alto de la Escotera trig point, where you have views down to La Finca, and also a view of a little urb of Pete Seeger's 'little boxes' (yuk).
Continue on. You're about half-way through the walk.
The track starts to descend, and is a bit loose underfoot in places, so be careful.
You then come to a point where there's another clear track coming in at an acute angle on your left, a track straight ahead descending down between the banks of a gulley, and one to the right going down to a house.
Turn left.
The track starts to ascend, then over the rise it descends down to a road. It's quite a long descent, and again a bit loose underfoot.
At the road go right a bit, then left off the road - there are two choices:
1). Go left on the track up the hill (longer and harder):
It’s a long ascent, fairly steep after a dogleg to the left, then winds its way up.
You then follow along the top of a ridge for a few yards, then turn right on a prominent path and follow this downhill, with quite a few twists and turns.
Nearing the bottom, you can see a road below you. If it's safe to do so, you can save a few yards by going off track down to this.
When you reach the road, turn right.
When you come to the end of this, turn left on the road coming up from the church.
2). Go a little bit further and left on the path paralleling the farmer's fence (shorter):
All you need do is follow the path which contours around the bottom of the hill.
At one point there's a warning sign about beehives - if necessary go left a few metres onto the higher track and follow this - Spanish bees bites are worse than English, and as there must be twenty or thirty beehives, it would be daft to try and pass between them.
Look out for birds on the reservoirs - there's usually a few different types.
Eventually you come to a metalled road - just go left on this, then left again, back to the church.