Punta Entinas-Sabinar Natural Reserve

The great protected area of the district is the “Punta Entinas-Sabinar” Nature Reserve. Roquetas de Mar, more than just having part of its territory inside this natural area, has been intrinsically linked to it. The Saltworks; Salinas de Poniente, those of Cerrillos and las Viejas were called “Las Salinas de Roquetas”, were extremely important for its economy and even contributed to the foundation of the municipality.

It is therefore a place to visit and get to know in Roquetas de Mar.

From Roquetas de Mar

Roquetas de Mar is an exceptional platform from which to organise birding excursions in the surrounding area. The wide range of accommodation allows you to plan birdwatching trips and return to enjoy our stay.

You will be able to look for the species you are interested in and find out where they can be seen.

The great sensitivity and fragility of the nature making up the Punta Entinas-Sabinar Nature Reserve invites us to use the public facilities there.

The Regional Government of Andalusia (www.ventanadelvisitante.es) currently offers two trails: towards the east “Salinas de Cerrillos” with a length of 4.6 km from the “Puerta de Roquetas” classified as ‘easy’ and with an estimated duration of 1 hour and 15 minutes.  And to the west, the so-called “Marismas (marshes) de Entinas”, which starts near the “Puerta de Almerimar” has an approximate length of 6.5 kilometres and an estimated duration of 2 hours.

The two trails are linear and connect with the GR Footpath-92 (E-12) the Mediterranean Long Distance Footpath, which shares some sections with the previous ones (http://www.fedamon.com/index.php/home-6/2013-04-16-17-25-48/11-federacion/165-sendero-gr-92-e-12).

These routes run along public rights of way; therefore, they are the ones recommended for the journey. It is particularly important to adhere to the instructions in the manual of good practices on your excursions.

Although the local councils attempt to keep mosquitoes under control, it is convenient to bear in mind that you are in a natural environment, and mosquitoes are part of the ecosystem. So that their presence does not spoil a day out in the countryside, it is convenient to take preventive measures and use the appropriate insect repellent and antihistamine.

Salinas de Cerrillo Footpath

This route starts at Roquetas de Mar, just “ahead” of the official footpath, on “Avenida de Cerrillos”, next to the Las Marinas municipal sports facilities. Between these and the electrical substation, there is a small overgrown building, virtually hidden amongst the vegetation, it is the third level pumping station of the saltworks. This route follows the opposite direction of the salt pans route. This is where the water was pumped up from the ponds -deposits in salt-making terminology- of the Cerrillos, Nuevas and Viejas salt pans to the canal that connected them with the crystallisers in the San Rafael salt pans.

 

 

There is a large lagoon to the right, which was originally the “Salinas Viejas”, made up of 14 pools each with different functions (“sources” that supplied the water, “heaters” that were used to concentrate the salt and evaporate the water and “threshing floors” where the salt was “harvested”). After walking almost five hundred metres along the “Avenida de Cerrillos” you will reach one of the threshers that has kept its name: “El Hornillo” (the stove), next to which there was a watering place for livestock. During this route you will travel along what was once the important “Cañada Real de la Costa”, a Royal Right of Way used by shepherds to bring their flocks from the Gador Mountain Range to spend the winter on the coast.

After walking another three hundred metres you will reach the “Puerta de Roquetas de Mar”, which indicates that you have entered the Protected Area (up to this point you have walked along the boundary). Here there are some panels with recommendations and information to take into account for the route.

A little more than two hundred and fifty metres further on, you will be on the dirt track leading south, to your left, the access path and the “La Gravera” pond. This wetland and all the space to the left of the path, bears witness to when sand was extracted in the 1980s to provide substrate for greenhouses. Today, this sandy area has become a mixed zone, conserving some sandbanks and, above all, a lot of open, wetland-like spaces, with salt-friendly (halophilic) vegetation. The Gravera lagoons, with their fresh water, bear witness to how the excavations here came into contact with the important aquifer located to the north, which discharges and “flows” through this area into the sea.

Las Salinas Nuevas, los depósitos construidos en 1952 para ampliar el complejo salinero, uniendo las Salinas Viejas y las Salinas de Cerrillos, que conoceremos más adelante, se sitúan a nuestra derecha, al norte.  La única agua que reciben procede de las precipitaciones, de la escorrentía de a zona situada sobre ellos, y algo de los retornos de los riegos en los invernaderos de esa zona, por lo que son lagunas con gran estacionalidad. La inundación primaveral da paso a una desecación, que lo normal es que sea total, durante el verano, y hasta las lluvias otoñales no comienzan a cubrir con una lámina de agua, que en invierno se hace mayor, y así hasta la primavera, cuando el buen tiempo comienza a favorecer la evaporación.

The Salinas Nuevas, the salt pans built in 1952 to extend the salt complex, joining the Salinas Viejas and the Salinas de Cerrillos, which will be seen later, are located to your right, to the north.  The only water they receive comes from rainfall, runoff from the area above them, and some from excess greenhouse irrigation in that area, making them highly seasonal lakes. The spring flooding gives way to a drying out, which is normally total, during the summer, and it is not until the autumn rains that they become covered with water again, which in winter becomes gradually deeper, and so on until spring, when the good weather begins to favour evaporation.

 

 

After walking some 1300 metres from the previous stop, you will reach the junction with the GR-92 footpath, which turns south at this point. Continue westwards, following the route of both footpaths.

 

 The access road to the Cerrillos Tower is almost seven hundred metres further on. It is one of the most significant landmarks, marking the boundary between the municipalities of Roquetas de Mar and El Ejido, a watchtower in the fight against the pirates who dominated the Mediterranean centuries ago. It is about 420 metres away and is well worth a visit. Close to the tower (barely 80 metres away) is what used to be the Corps of Carabineros (Police) Barracks at “Cerrillos”, nowadays converted into a private house.

 

Scarcely fifty metres away, on the right, there is a road. It was built in the 1980’s for the trucks transporting sand to use, nowadays it is closed to public traffic and must not be used. At this point, you will reach the first of the ‘new’ salt pans, currently covered by halophilic vegetation, leaving open areas where birds take advantage of the seasonal floods to feed.

After covering about eight hundred metres, you will find yourself in an interesting location, flanked to your right (to the north) by the ‘new’ salt pan Nº. 1 and to your left (to the south) by the well-preserved remains of the sandy areas left after the sand extractions of the last century. Now, to the north, the Salinas de Cerrillos, a salt marsh transformed in Arabic and possibly Roman times to extract salt, which at the beginning of the 20th century underwent its first major transformation with the construction of crystallisers. These ponds were specially designed for the extraction of the soul of the sea, common salt. These crystallisers were located opposite our location. Despite the work carried out in the 1950s, some remains can still be seen in the form of walls, which are visible in summer in the area of the old Cerrillos road. Earlier, the remains of a building to the south of the road will have caught your attention, they are the foundations of the winches, mechanical devices that helped to drain the surplus brine from the extracted salt.

 

At this point there is a slight change in direction, as you head south-west along a path that was the route used to lay a railway line and along which, for the first fifty years of last century, the salt produced was transported in mule-drawn wagons. Approximately two hundred and fifty metres away you can still see a large mastic tree, cared for by the salt workers so that it would provide shade for the beasts of burden in the harsh summer midday heat; it was known as the “Lentisco del Burro” (the Donkey’s Mastic Tree) for this reason.

About one hundred and twenty metres from this unique tree, a path to your right may catch your attention, especially because appears to go up to be the highest place in the area, and your intuition will not deceive you, it was a privileged place. The company that ran the saltworks constructed an important building there, now in ruins but which can still be identified by some of the remains. This path, a variant of the 450-metre trail, takes us to what was the “Management Building”, the only two-storey building, equipped with the best modern conveniences of the time, with its own cisterns, kitchen, and rooms. Not in vain was it built to house the owners when they visited the salt pans. It was demolished in the seventies of the last century, but many remains of it can still be identified. It is commanded a view over the whole estate, you can see all the Salinas de Cerrillos and even the Salinas Nuevas. Today it serves a similar purpose.

 The remains of what used to be the mills are a reminder of where the final product was manufactured. The white mounds of salt, rose up on the esplanade, which still exists today,. The thick crystals obtained by the workers who, with picks, crumbled the salt layer of the crystallisers, arrived here through the machinery that refined them and achieved the optimum grain size for sale. Hardly anything remains, to the south of the mill building there was a quay built with a jetty where the salt would be loaded and transported by sea to its destination.

 

To the north, a 250-metre-long path leads to what was once the salt settlement. Before it was demolished, a total of 9 groups of buildings housed up to 43 dwellings, but today only one of them remains, with what were once four dwellings. At the end of this path, you will reach the first pumping station, where the remains of the first machine used to move the water, a winch driven by a diesel engine can still be seen. It was later electrified, although practically nothing remains of it.

 

GR-92

 

At the esplanade of the mills, is the Saltworks path and the GR-92, part ways to follow different routes. Continue along the GR or Long-Distance Route and after walking just 160 metres you will reach the remains of the “Winch” facilities, or the beginning of the “Canal de las Almejas”, the umbilical cord between the salt flats and the sea. This canal, opened at the beginning of the 20th century, supplied water to the salt flats with different devices until it was closed, the last of them were unique dredges operated from this facility to keep the water inlet clear of sand. 

 

 

Continuing in a westerly direction, you will see the artificial lake on your right (to the north). It was the last great transformation of the salt pans, a lake created at the beginning of the 1980s to supply water to the salt process, and in 1986, the saltworks in Roquetas de Mar was closed. You will be walking along the last great sand bar in western Almeria, with the Mediterranean Sea to your left (south).

 

 

After almost three kilometres along the route, after leaving the artificial area to your right you will come to the “Sabinar” (Juniper Forest). Keeping to the path, you will be able to observe the juniper and mastic forest appearing to your left, to your right the great coastal plain of “Punta Sabinar”. About four hundred metres further on, you will reach the path from the lighthouse to “Punta Sabinar” and turn towards the lighthouse, towards the north, which you will pass on its eastern side, keeping to the path until you leave it behind you. If you wish, you can go to the southernmost point of the province of Almería, Punta del Sabinar. Here, now almost lost to the action of the sea, are the foundations of the first lighthouse, which had to be dismantled and moved to the current location following a heavy storm.

 

Continue along the GR, which now follows a tarmac road, the lighthouse path, which allows us to cross the impressive copse of junipers and mastic trees in what is possibly its widest part. 600 metres of path will take you back to the wetlands, specifically to part of the old lagoon that later became the Charcón del Flamenco (the Flamingo’s Pool), which you will cross. This will be a good time for bird watching.

Upon reaching the Sabinar gate, to the west, your left, the footpath turns to the west. Carry on along it for another 700 metres, leaving the greenhouses to your right and the dense vegetation surrounding the wetland to your left, to reach the old Civil Guard barracks “Príncipe Alfonso”, where it converges with the “Marismas de Entinas” (Entinas Marshes) footpath, which will take you to the end of the route.