We faced an IMPASSABLE OBSTACLE on GR92 – Is it an Epic Fail? | Day 12 Hiking From Estartit to Tamariu

For that day, we had a plan of hiking from the town Estartit to the town Begur and then further down the coast to Tamariu where was the only open campsite closest to us on the trail. We wanted to walk along the seacoast and it was going to be around 16kms in total. On the elevation profile, we saw that the trail was quite easy with only 200m uphill and then downhill at the end. But we expected it to be quite gentle.

The night we had at the camping La Sirena was a bit disturbing with many dogs barking around and some street noise. Also the area was full of mosquitos as there were many wetlands. We got up at 8 am and after having breakfast and wrapping all stuff we got out on the trail at 10am.

So we began walking in the open sun along the Bassa del Pla Ramon wetlands where again we didn’t see any bird life or much water at this time of the year. Soon we came to the bank of the Riu Ter that we had to cross, we were amazed by how wide, and deep the river was. We then stepped on the sand of Platja de la Platera and could appreciate wonderful view of Les Medes islands in the morning light, they looked very dreamy.

We progressed further on the beach towards the supposedly narrowest part of the river where on the map we saw some kind of bridge or crossing possible. As we did the same crossing few days before we hoped that it would be possible to find the shallow waters in some place and even if there is no bridge we would be fine wetting the legs.

To our disappointment, there was no possibility to cross apparently. Dima was scouting the area for some time checking all the possible spots but unfortunately in vain. The waters were too deep and even if it was for several meters it meant swimming for us and no chance for backpacks to get to the other side dry. If there would be someone with an inflatable boat or even paddle board around it would save our day but there were very few people and no one carrying such things. It was a huge fail but eventually it was happening anyway when we were planning our trail ourselves and not following the established one.

So having no other option we had to continue following the river getting away from the coast to the nearest possible bridge, which was only in 6kms! You can imagine the level of our disappointment now as this change meant doing at least 8 extra kms for the day and also the trail with no coastline parts.

But as we needed to get to our destination anyway we got into the mood of crushing it and we can do it. As it was expected, we were walking along the open fields with little shade all first 6kms. The sun was cruel to us and we got very hot and it even felt like a heat attack after some time. We were passing through many cornfields as well as apple plantations there and knowing the Girona province is an important provider of apples not only in Catalonia but also in Spain it was curious to see the origin of them and how they grow. There were many different kinds of them of green, yellow and red colors.

It took us around 1.5h to do this part when we were finally able to cross the bridge to the other side. It was silly knowing how easy it could be to have a small bridge or at least pontoon bridge in that narrowest part of the river and how much more interesting could be our trail then. But whatsoever we tried to calm down as much as we could and after having a little break in the shade continued on.

We had 1.9km more to do walking right along the other side of the river where we found more shade luckily and it made it easier. Then there was a 6km part of confusing routes where we had to rely on our GPS heavily. Again, we passed many apple fields and also rice fields to our surprise full of water. We knew that in Catalonia Deltebre area was famous for its rice plantations but apparently here there were suitable conditions for it too. We met several cancers right on the road crawling through and it was a mystery to us what were they doing there. Only then we realized that by the channels of water that were used on rice fields connected to the river they could easily get trapped in there and end up scouting the roads searching for the river probably. We felt very sorry for them, as there wasn’t much chance for their survival in such conditions.

We had a short half an hour break in the shade at the side of the road meeting again a lot of cyclists and no backpackers nor hikers. At that time, we did 12kms already and had the same distance left to do.

Then we needed to get through some car roads and closed campgrounds before we came to the forest path. There we faced very sandy routes on which it was quite hard to walk and having the tired muscles already our body was feeling it a lot. The sun didn’t want to leave us till the very last moment and we were sweating a lot all day long. It was 5kms long stretch until the town Begur where we planned to do our shopping.

In the end, we felt tired, dirty and miserable but at least the uphill was gentle and barely noticeable. It was the sand, heat and our tiredness that made the trail hard.

Town of Begur was located on the sides of the hill with the castle on one side and in order to get to the supermarket we had to get to the very top of it. We could find all the essentials we needed there and began doing our last stretch of 4kms approx. It was going downhill the same gentle way and luckily, it wasn’t a sandy trail so we were able to walk faster.

We got to Tamariu campground the latest we ever got to destination on this trail only at 7pm. And we had to move fast setting up our tent and choosing the right spot for it while it was still daylight. The campground itself was very nice and spacious located in pine forest with huge trees and had several levels as it was on the slope. There were few people as it was closing in few days from then and so we could choose the isolated spot far from others. Feeling very exhausted and broken apart, we had our shower and dinner and went to sleep as soon as we could.

Here is the link to Google map to follow the hike: