On Sunday night Basil’s batteries went completely flat. We have known for a few days that the leisure batteries, upon which we rely for everything except the engine, were not holding their charge, but we were hoping we could limp on until we reached home. But with the batteries running flat while charging only one mobile phone and running a few LED lights this was clearly not going to happen.

Fortunately I’m a member of a Facebook forum for Hymer owners with about 7,000 members and I received plenty of advice including a recommendation for a motorhome dealer in Cartagena, which was only 40 miles away from our wild camping spot.

So we drove to Caravanas Sangar and fortunately found that they had exactly the battery make and type I was looking for. They were a little more expensive than the cheapest online price in the UK, but beggars can’t be choosers. The staff at reception both spoke excellent English, in addition to German, French and probably several other languages! I was told that they could fit the batteries in the afternoon. Unfortunately because of a two and a half hour lunch break, afternoon didn’t start, for them, until 4pm! That’s Spain for you.

Cartagena is near the famous Mar Menor, a salt water lagoon which is mostly separated from the Mediterranean by a thin spit of land which has been developed for tourism. In fact the whole area is full of “urbanisations” for holidaying and retired North Europeans.

We drove to a carpark overlooking the Mar Menor for lunch and had a bit of a mooch about until it was time to return to have Basil’s batteries changed, which was promptly completed, albeit with a labour charge of €90 for about 20 minutes work.

I had read and been advised on the Hymer forum that new batteries need charging on mains electricity for 2 days, so we searched for a suitable campsite. The first we approached was full but we found a space on Camping La Manga (37.627792, -0.745739) – €18 on ACSI. We didn’t arrive until dusk was falling and there were very few spaces left on what is an enormous campsite.

Today Sarah had done the washing and of course Basil has been connected to life support. The campsite is far too big for our liking. The circumference of the site is more than 2 miles and there is even a special area for the British Camping and Caravan club which is full of British caravans and motorhomes. We get the impression that many of the Brits and other nationalities, have been here for many months.

In addition to the motorhomes and caravans the site obviously leases pitches of varying sizes on which people have installed all manner of accommodation ranging from not more that large sheds through to larger mobile homes with fancy decks on the roof and a few which almost look like proper bungalows.

The site borders the Mar Menor, but what they describe as a beach is more an area of packed dried mud next to the lagoon. Whether they import sand in the main season I don’t know. The spit of land next to the sea, we can see in the distance is infested with the dreaded blocks of flats.

One highlight today is that our pitch was visited by a Sardinian Warbler. Beautiful plumage.