Each year for the past few years I have taken a dedicated photography trip somewhere in Europe with my birding pal and near neighbour Mike. This year was to be no different !
We are both fortunate to have wives that give their blessing to our annual trip as they have no interest in birding and prefer to stay at home and let us get on with it!
This year we chose Spain mainly because two of our mutual friends, Rich and Steve had already signed up for this photographic tour designed for 6 people and I guess better the devil you know, they asked us along!
As it happened we had a good group, with the final two being Cornelius, fluent in English and from Sweden and Paul, an Englishman who lives and works in Germany.
The company we were booking with is Turia Hides who do both photographic hide tours and general bird guiding too.
https://www.turiahides.com
Our contact, Yani, was also to be our organising guide too who picked us up and dropped us off at most hides with the exception being where a 4x4 vehicle was needed which was the case on a couple of occasions. She puts some hours in to keep her clients happy often leaving home at 6.00am and not returning until probably 7.00pm on some days. Her determination to give us the best possibilities of all the species that were regular visitors to their hides was a plain to see although on occasion some hides were not available as they had been booked to other clients on a one off day basis or the weather meant it was unsuitable to try.
Our chosen mode of transport was an Easyjet flight ( £113 pp including a hold bag at 23Kg) to Alicante as you couldn't fly to the nearer Valencia from either North West airports. This incurred two extra nights in Spain but the Ibis Budget hotel proved to be more than adequate and only cost £53 for the two nights on a room only basis.A hire car was a very nice Vauxhaul Astra estate at just £28 for 9 days. We opted to take the toll road both ways at a cost of £34.Petrol added around £54.
Our hotel for the 7 nights of the tour was motel style just off the dual carriage way at Lliria.
http://www.puertadelaserrania.com
The cost for a rather confusing half board deal was a very reasonable £312 and a pint of beer at 2.60 euros didn't push the bill too far despite our best efforts!
The use of the hides and transport came to around 800 euros per person.
All of us had experienced professional hide photography in the past. I think we probably all agree that a mix of hide and walkabout is a better mix than being sat in a box all week but we were prepared to give it a go.
This is how we got on!
TBC.
We are both fortunate to have wives that give their blessing to our annual trip as they have no interest in birding and prefer to stay at home and let us get on with it!
This year we chose Spain mainly because two of our mutual friends, Rich and Steve had already signed up for this photographic tour designed for 6 people and I guess better the devil you know, they asked us along!
As it happened we had a good group, with the final two being Cornelius, fluent in English and from Sweden and Paul, an Englishman who lives and works in Germany.
The company we were booking with is Turia Hides who do both photographic hide tours and general bird guiding too.
https://www.turiahides.com
Our contact, Yani, was also to be our organising guide too who picked us up and dropped us off at most hides with the exception being where a 4x4 vehicle was needed which was the case on a couple of occasions. She puts some hours in to keep her clients happy often leaving home at 6.00am and not returning until probably 7.00pm on some days. Her determination to give us the best possibilities of all the species that were regular visitors to their hides was a plain to see although on occasion some hides were not available as they had been booked to other clients on a one off day basis or the weather meant it was unsuitable to try.
Our chosen mode of transport was an Easyjet flight ( £113 pp including a hold bag at 23Kg) to Alicante as you couldn't fly to the nearer Valencia from either North West airports. This incurred two extra nights in Spain but the Ibis Budget hotel proved to be more than adequate and only cost £53 for the two nights on a room only basis.A hire car was a very nice Vauxhaul Astra estate at just £28 for 9 days. We opted to take the toll road both ways at a cost of £34.Petrol added around £54.
Our hotel for the 7 nights of the tour was motel style just off the dual carriage way at Lliria.
http://www.puertadelaserrania.com
The cost for a rather confusing half board deal was a very reasonable £312 and a pint of beer at 2.60 euros didn't push the bill too far despite our best efforts!
The use of the hides and transport came to around 800 euros per person.
All of us had experienced professional hide photography in the past. I think we probably all agree that a mix of hide and walkabout is a better mix than being sat in a box all week but we were prepared to give it a go.
This is how we got on!
TBC.
Thanks for the blog posts, would be of interest given weight restrictions on aircraft for the kit used. Thanks Paul S
ReplyDeleteThe beauty of Easyjet is there is no limit on weight for hand luggage, just a size restriction. Consequently, and within the size limit ,my bag contained a Canon 5DMk4, a 1DXMk2, a 100-400Mk2 lens, a 600mm f4 Mk2, a 1.4 and 2.0x TC, a MacBook, an external hard drive and a couple more small bits and pieces. Battery chargers, leads etc went in the hold baggage as well as a 70-400mm f2.8 lens which wasn't used in the end either.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the response. I have similar kit but Ryanair peg me back to 20kgs into Murcia based part of the year just south of Alicante. Tried contacting Turia Hides but no luck... any chant you could give them a nudge, would be appreciated....Some great images by the way
ReplyDeleteLet me have your email Paul and I'll pass it on.
ReplyDelete