Day 13: North of Valencia (Nomad Campground)

Today I moved from the west of Valencia to it's east. For the next two nights I'll be staying at an official campground at a cost of €23 per night. I did try another, cheaper campground but, was effectively laughed at: "no chance, this is the height of the season, if you want to stay here you need to book at least one month in advance"! Anyhow, here I am, and the reasons for being so are threefold:

1. I needed to fill the Van's water tank;
2. The toilet's cassette required emptying; and
3. Most importantly the Van's leisure battery needed to be recharged.

I hoped that, with the van having solar panels, there would be no need to hook the van up to mains electricity. However, I noticed that even with the van's control panel indicating the leisure battery was 100% charged, the voltage at the battery terminals was only about 11.3 - 11.5 volts, depending on the ambient temperature. It should in fact be about 13.5 - 13.8 volts. This suggested to me that the battery was not in good health, which if true I'd be very disappointed as it was replaced last April at a cost of about £300!

On checking the battery (its LED indicator shows whether the battery is: ok; needs charging; or needs replacing): it indicated "charge", which is not "ok" but not anywhere near as bad as replace! Accordingly, I am hoping that 2 days on charge will result in a battery LED status of "ok". Fingers crossed.

At the campsite, my neighbours' van has a composting toilet, which I'm most impressed with. Depending how things pan out, I am very tempted to replace my cassette based toilet to a composting one. And here's a photograph of my neighbours'!

Oh yes, and by the way, they arrived at this campground on 28th of December and will move to the next one on the 28th January.

And now for a mosquito update!:
The night following the murderous mosquito night of the 10/11 January (death toll approximately 12), was a very windy night and, as far as I'm aware, I was not an unwitting donor of blood to mosquitoes; precisely because there were no mosquitoes in the van.

However, last night, the wind was calm again, as it was on that earlier murderous night. Guess what, last night turned out to be "return of the night of the evil mosquitoes". Yes, another bloody night of broken sleep for me and a reduction in the mosquito population, by my hand, of nine!

But, all is not lost, I do believe that I may have determined the ingress point of these night time mossies. Accordingly, I have implemented remedial measures that I hope will resolve the issue in my favour.

• Distance driven: 17 miles
• Distance cycled: 0
• Weather: Sunny
• Mosquitoes killed: 9
• Location: Google Maps