Tchau Portugal, Bueanas tardes Spain

Roads in Portugal are not that well maintained if they are maintained at all, it’s impossible to tell!  It took about 4 hours to do just 150km down to Porto and then across to Villa Real.  Nice camp surrounded in hills on a hill in the middle of town. Meet a lovely English couple whom kindly gave us their Lakes district address in England.

Driving through to Spain was surprisingly nice on a Sunday, with very little traffic on the road.  Loads of road works that often sent us on side roads or down the other side of the motorway.  Loads of picnic areas, but no supermarkets on the way.

As a result we are now at a lovely camp in Tordesillas with no dinner supplies!  Oh dear!  Lucky there’s a restaurant and bar here.

Time to service Mildred so trying to discreetly change our oil in the camp ground, and we’re parked right in front of reception/bar.  A bit of Kiwi ingenuity required so we are in the bar drinking sangria’s looking very innocent as the oil drains.

Ola Portugal

Despite all good intentions it’s getting harder to get up too early so we didn’t leave the camp until 10am, had a short drive of 230km (3 hours approx.) to get to Caminha where we found a lovely beachside camp, about 2km from the small town.  

We arrived at 12.30 pm (time went back an hour).  Driving in Portugal worse than Spain as police everywhere and speed limits not posted.  Tomtom had a laugh at our expense, made us leave the main road for a goat track, which ended in an extremely tight road to get back on the main route.  The mirrors of Mildred nearly touched the houses both sides!  Pleased I wasn’t driving.

Last night we took a bottle of wine to the beach to watch the sun set.  We didn’t get to see it over the horizon due to fog, but it was still very romantic.

Today we biked into town for another look around and intend on moving on tomorrow.  Nice camp site and cheapest yet €15 pn. Toilets have no seats nor t/paper!


We walked thru the town to the back streets, past all the tourist stuff and stumbled upon a better/bigger supermarket and beside it was this cafe called Befe-Come it was packed with locals, all the tables (paper cloths) full of plates of food and wine bottles.  We couldn't resist.  The two front staff where amazing coming out wtih food, wine etc flat out.  Most of the workers had a bottle of wine to themselves, before heading back for the afternoon's work.  One beer, one bottle of wine, bread basket and two huge plates of local food Euro 10.  Amazing.  To the supermarket for dinner supplies, then home.  Total cost today iclud accommodation Euro 35.


Below is a summary of our tour to-date.

iHola! Spain

The only reason we knew we were in Spain was the change of road signs and drivers!  Been here 3 days and heading towards Portugal, we are currently in a fantastic camp called Campino Vilia De Sarria , in a quaint Spanish village.

Had a mixture of rain, sun and wind.  7 pm here now and we are doing two loads of washing as so warm and windy it will be dry in no time.

Had a mixture of camp grounds, most good.  Getting by without speaking much lingo, thank goodness for both Tomtom and iTravl.

Need to do oil change soon but ‘he’s’ forgot the mixture to buy.  15/50??

South West France

Drove south towards Bordeaux in the rain, we drove unitl we hit Sun, and ended up stay in a camp near Saint Emilion, a very quaint village in the heart of wineland – my kinda of paradise!  The camp was very ‘hidehi’, with welcome cocktails, music in the bar at night and children’s entertainment  Canoes and paddle boats, swimming pools etc.

We finally got to use our bikes and biked thru vineyards to St Emilion was a lovely historic own, where we wandered the streets and went up the Kings Castle. 

Very nice to have a relaxing day, we got our washing up-to-date, Mildred got a very much needed wash (her second in a week), wheel nuts checked, oil and fanbelt etc.  over 1000 km under our belt and all is well

France

France – wow!  It was so easy taking the Eurotunnel.  At the border they didn’t even look at our passports.

Got to France and it was still raining so decided to drive south a bit – avoiding Paris and because Daryl can’t as yet accept road tolls we took the scenic route.  That was a great decision as we got to see a lot of French countryside and villages

So we decided to go into Rouen, a BIG mistake, nearly fatal to our trip and Mildred’s head.  Tomtom sent us thru this street where we were told to take the two left lanes, they went into small tunnels then up to street level, back to tunnel, we were in the far left lane of 2, the tunnel heights kept getting lower, then we came to one the side 150m 1.9m – whoa!  We are at least 2.1m high – panic!!! – quickly push ourselves over 2 lanes – they were kind to us – maybe the NZ ovals and the NZ flag on our bum helped?  We fueled up and then got the hell out of Rouen before it ruined us.

Continuing to head south as want to outrun the rain.

And so we begin....

So far all is going to plan, we arrived late Sunday to London, took the tube to our freighters on Monday and re-packed Mildred.  Apparently London had had 3 weeks of rain, but the sun shone for us as we loaded Mildie up.

It was so good to see her!

Tuesday we collected her, filled with fuel GBP 85, got groceries and headed south towards Dover.  Mildred was running like a bag fill of shit, with the stale NZ fuel on the Monday, however by the time we got onto the A40 she was purring along very nicely.

Our first camp night was in Densole, a small town (village?) near Dover.  Camping is different here, maybe it’s too early in the season, as all other campers seem to be retired folk, they all sit in their campers or caravans, cook in them, eat, etc with maybe one chair outside of a few.  Whereas we have tables, chairs, bbq, bikes etc scattered about our site and only go inside our kombi to sleep.

 Can’t believe how friendly everyone is, they’d all talk the leg of a donkey.

Went for a MOT in Dover, website made it out to be a huge business, it was a back street, overcrowded premises with no room to swing a cat.  But we got our MOT.

Now it’s off to get our cooking gas and we are already for our Eurotunnel trip tomorrow.  We wonder if we will be making history and being the first NZ reg vehicle on the Eurotunnel.   And I am to join the mile low club – if there is one.

I think we are changing our plans and heading south through France into Spain and Portugal first, instead of north to Denmark – the weather is dictating the change as it’s quite cool here at the moment.

Mildred's arrived in London

Mildred's in London and been cleared through Customs.  Now she's just waiting for us!