After about 100m the track bends right and after another 100m we come to a track junction where we turn left, dropping steeply down into a small side valley.

Ahead is a large wooden chalet (right) mysteriously transported from the set of “The Sound of Music” to sit incongruously in the Spanish landscape.

Resisting the temptation to yodel a greeting to the occupants, we continue across a dry riverbed and then, 50m up the far bank, fork left to contour gently around the nose of a spur.

From here, we can look back down across Torrox to the sea, and northwards up the Torrox valley towards el Fuerte and the mountains beyond. Beyond the rocky outcrop, the track narrows to a footpath and immediately crosses a neglected acequia, before winding around the head of a pretty little side valley lined with avocado and citrus trees and clumps of aristolochia, prickly pear and agave.

This track takes us though a sprawling village (Lautin, I seem to recall?), and past a goat pen on the far side (2.6km), where a gaggle of young kids skip across to quiz us while mother or perhaps grandmother, a heavily bearded lady, studiously ignores us.

The track now climbs steadily across the slope above the river, winding in and out of a series of hidden side valleys, with delightful views across the valley to our right: almonds, and carobs with a scattering of agave and prickly pears on the slope below us, thick stands of tall cane in the valley bottom, and on the far bank, avocados, giving way to olives and grapevines higher up the hillside.

Passing between two houses a little lower down, the track levels out in an open space, where we take the footpath running off to the left below the left hand house, and dropping down more steeply into the belt of canes along the river course.

We re-cross the Torrox at a point where it’s joined by a small side stream (4.6km) - the stepping stones are loose and slippery and it’s probably safer to paddle again… Slanting up the hill to the right we join a track passing just to the left of a group of orange trees. This takes us up a series of terraces and, after 100m or so, joins a better, motorable track where we turn right.

At this point we have a choice.

Slope down top the river

Olives beside the track

Either we can remain on the main track, winding in and out of a series of side valleys, or we can drop a short way down the slope to the right to join an acequia, and follow the line of the acequia for about 800m before rejoining the track. This saves two or three hundred metres by cutting off a few of the bends but the acequia is overgrown in places and involves a bit of a scramble, so having described this as an easy walk we’ll stick to the main track.

We follow this track for about a kilometre, winding around the side valleys and ignoring lesser tracks which fork off to the left towards the ridge above (Loma de la Cascoja). Emerging from one of these little valleys, we pass a white house with a prominent chimney (6.48km), immediately beyond which a footpath climbs up from the left to join our track. This is where we would have come out if we had followed the acequia.

Just beyond we pass through a splendid stand of eucalyptus and then increasingly frequent cortijos and fincas, some smartly restored. A kilometre or so further down the valley we begin to drop quite steeply down the slope and round a long bend where we pass a house with a couple of large dogs (friendly or hungry?), which hurl themselves against a chain fence in their enthusiasm to greet/eat us.