Horcajo de los Montes & Estepona, Spain

Our final stop on the summer's travels was the only campsite we hadn't pre-planned, and choosing it reminded us of why we've been planning our summers ahead of time recently: You fall into the trap of endlessly swiping on phones for the 'perfect' next place to stay, while not enjoying the one you're at! The irony this time was that when I finally located a site somewhere on the way home that seemed to suit, Faye said, 'I'm sure we've been to that one before.' I was adamant we hadn't, because the only site the photos reminded me of was in Portugal, or so I thought - but no, Faye was right, and we had indeed visited this site, four years ago. The good news was that we loved it back then, so we had high hopes.

Our journey to Camping Mirador de Cabañeros, which overlooks the tiny village of Horcajo de los Montes in the province of Ciudad Real and deep in the mountains, was typically larger-than-life. The first hour treated us to sweeping passes through expansive pine forests, before we descended to the 'plains of Spain', enduring some decidedly dodgy roads as we did. In one isolated village where we stopped for diesel, a lady who overheard us chatting said: 'It's so nice to hear English voices, the first I've heard in this village in 40 years.' Turned out she was a local but she had been spending six months in London every year for a long time, hence her excellent, slightly Americanised, English.

At one point on the journey when hunger had got the better of us - and having passed absolutely zero service stations as we travelled over 100km down the emptiest toll road I have ever seen - we went 'off piste' to look for anything at all that was open. These escapades usually end in failure, and true to form, this time it felt like the village we'd entered had finished its annual fiesta literally yesterday, judging by the litter blowing around and the bunting strung across its completely empty streets. The sat nav then helpfully decided to take us down unfinished, single track roads through miles of fields before thankfully finally depositing us back on a main road, where we found an open supermarket and ended up eating pre-prepared food off of our laps.

However, all was forgotten once we reached the site. It was a bit older and tattier than we remembered it (we had visited on its first year of opening), but still friendly, well run and with all the things we like present and correct, namely a great swimming pool (semi-covered, warm, and more importantly, with no closing time), amazing views, spacious and breezy pitches, and a good restaurant. We took the same plot we'd had four years ago, and had our meal that evening in the restaurant watching the red sun set through a dusty haze, the village below cocooned by the hills, lit by glowing streetlights, and serenaded by countless crickets.

The following few days were spent acclimatising to the full-on Spanish heat, which was well into the thirties with very little wind. That meant Faye and I did our running very early, starting before sunrise. I did an over & under 200s interval session and an easy trail run, both on empty hilltop tracks. Meanwhile Faye did an epic 31km trail run where she got told off for heading into gated territory, and then rounded up her 100km week with an easy 15km road run. It also meant that the kids got into the habit of heading back to the pool for the third time each day when it was dark, after dinner, for a final cool-off.

Aside from all of that, and apart from trips down into the village for essentials, we did as little as possible that involved anything physical, entertaining ourselves on our pitch. One day two Spanish kids asked if they could show us some card tricks. It must have inspired Maya because she improvised some tricks of her own with Uno cards, showing some flair for it, and has since found a pack of real cards and continued to teach herself more magic to show us. Maya also amused us by constructing various contraptions using rocks, sticks, a bottle of water and a water pistol as she attempted to trigger a sequence of events designed to end in a stone being catapulted. She didn't quite succeed, but got some funny slow motion videos of her attempts. Meanwhile, towards the end of each day, Dylan was finding the energy to head down into the village, phone in hand, to capture Pokémon in various 'raids', excited to show us his 'haul' when he returned.

We had a restaurant meal on the final night, then next morning said a slightly emotional goodbye to the staff (who now felt like friends), and headed off. The girls both felt pretty car sick for most of the journey, but perked up a little as we wolfed down jumbo bags of crisps, Haribos and Cokes en route, and by mid-afternoon we had successfully bombed it back to our second home in Estepona, a stone's throw from Gibraltar. Now it was time to unwind for a few days, enjoy the existence of this thing called air con, and do all the jobs that have to be done at the end of such a trip, like deep cleaning the van and all its contents. This final staging post also gives us a chance to get our heads around the final four months of the year, the pace of which always hits us quite hard at the end of a summer of leisurely travel. It all starts tomorrow, when we return to Gibraltar and daily life.