3. Rio Corneja Mills

Dehesas, rivers and valley floors

This is one of those routes that not many people know about and yet it very easy and full of surprises. Its total length is approximately 7Km, it is mostly on flat ground and it is at its best in the early spring and late autumn.

La Fonseca

It starts at the village of La Horcajada, and for 3 Km the track runs amongst Oak trees more than a hundred years old, until it reaches the ancient stone bridge of "La Fonseca" over the Corneja River. We cross the bridge and continue along the river on its north side through hunters? tracks. The next feature which makes this area special is what the locals call "El Hocino". At this point the river disappears underneath great pile of granite boulders, only to reappear another hundred metres ahead.

These river banks used to be very fertile and crops and vegetable plots would be the way of life of its people. There are a large number of water mills along the sides of the river which are now mostly derelict but still keep the old machinery inside. A few hundred metres past "El Hocino" the track will lead us to the only rehabilitated mill along the route, where we can admire the whole structure and imagine how it used to work.

Noria

Further down, the river widens and the vegetation changes, with an abundance of poplar trees. It is here that we find the greatest collection of very well preserved "Norias" or water wheels, with buckets attached to the rim and a long pole to attach to a donkey which would turn it round. They were used to raise water for transfer to an irrigation channel that would water the fields and crops. Some of them are on top of big granite structures, others carved on the rock. The track will then turn away from the river and across cereal fields towards the village of Navamorales, where our route will end.