Monday 7 March 2016

And Back into Spain

Saturday 5th March 2016


Well, today was to be a very l…….ong drive - approx 270 kms back into Spain - and because of the distance, we decided to break with tradition and use the Toll Motorways!  And it wasn’t a bad plan, they were lovely and smooth, (a real treat after Portugal's very bumpy roads), almost deserted and it only cost 22 quid altogether.  


The only other element about the day that was slightly interesting was our second episode of time travelling in the T4rdis.  This occurred  when we crossed over the bridge that divides Portugal from Spain - one minute it was 14.30 and the next it was 15.30!  And soon after that we were settled on a small Aire at Arcade that overlooks a little marina, and further afield, it has panoramic views over a Fjord like tidal bay.  It would have been quite idyllic except for our bloody great neighbour who run his noisy diesel generator till 11pm and then started it up again at the crack of dawn.  Happily he cleared off about 9am!
The View from the T4rdis window

Sunday 6th March 2016


First things First, If any Mummy's are reading x
Happy Mother's Day!


And then on with the story!  Once we'd regained our peace and quiet we lingered over our smoked salmon breakfast, and then trundled on our way towards  a campsite  near Louro, and it was here that the T4rdis had another little adventure.  As we neared our destination the road system was new and quite complicated, and this soon had Mrs Snoopy binging and bonging with great abandon, and all at once John let out a little expletive because he thought he'd entered a dual carriageway in the wrong direction! 😓  His horror only lasted seconds before he realised that all he’d done was take the wrong exit, but Mrs Snoopy continued to chuck all of her toys out of the pram as she tracked our progress (on her monitor) out into deep water.  Then the binging and bonging got to such a crescendo that we actually made up what she might have said next! - Maybe it would have been “This time travelling machine is not equipped for underwater activities - please proceed to the nearest dry land as quickly as possible”. And even more unfortunately, because we'd gone in the wrong direction in the first place, this whole episode had to be repeated as we made our return journey.


Another view form the T4rdis window
Then it wasn’t long before we reached our campsite, and immediately, we were quite happy with it because it was right on the seafront.  Also the ACSI book said it had full internet coverage, along with washers and dryers - just what we needed after nearly 2 weeks on Aires.  We  quickly set up camp, and very soon  our first load of washing was happily swishing around, however, then we realised there was a problem - NO camp site wide wifi - only a very slow hotspot in a comfortable lounge with lovely sea views. Now, this was a bit of a problem because I’d got masses of notes to update on this blog - and each photo took an age to upload!  We were there so long the owners came and offered us dinner - at a price!


Anyway, after that moan, we’re still going to stay for a day or two because we’re parked up only about 10 metres away from the shore line which is on another fjord like inlet, and as we sat sipping our afternoon tea we were able to  watch dolphins frolicking in the bay.





Monday 7th March 2016

Well, for the last few days we've really been quite lazy - and made excuses such as 'travelling' or 'bad weather' for not going out far - so today we decided to remedy that and go for a walk along the coast to a light house that sticks out at the end of a peninsular. We could see our target from the T4rdis window and John guesstimated that it would only be about 8kms so it wasn't really going to overstretch us - however, when we got up it was pouring again!




However, not to be deterred we donned warm and waterproof clothing, packed our sarnies, and off we went, and guess what - the sun came our and shone warmly on us for most of the day.




And what a lovely walk we had - nearly all of it had fantastic sea views, and most of it was on board walks, paths or tracks. To start with we walked up through Louro village and spotted several 'little houses on stilts' Apparently they were/are used as store houses for grains and other food stuffs, and the reason for the stilts - - to stop rats entering to gobble the food.






Our dining room for today was the tip of the peninsula from where we could see fishing boats laying their nets and the waves crashing up onto the rocks sending froth and spray high into the air.  











Oh, and I forgot to mention an incident that resulted in us thinking we'd been teleported to California - we came across this sign informing us we were in San Francisco - but we guessed we were wrong when we couldn't find the bridge or the trams.









Tuesday 8th March 2016

This morning we've decided to leave our campsite near Louro and head out to a place that we've often heard of on the shipping forecasts! No, not Dogger, Fisher, German Bight, Lundy, FastNet or Cromarty, but Finister - AKA Fitzroy - the most westerly point in Spain. If we can find somewhere to park overnight we might stay, but otherwise we've ear marked an Aire not far from where we are now near Carnota. Either way we'll be off line again, and likely to be so for at least the next 10 or so days, so for now, Cheerio from us xx

Click here to see our Spanish camping spots