Friday 1
March
Well, a
few days missing …due to technical problems….error messages in Italian (due to
our using an Italian sim card to get internet access cheaply across Europe).
Actually the week hasn’t really been “missing” it’s been an internet free zone
in our motorhome…no bad thing occasionally!
To catch
up from my last post…. We’re now in northern Spain on a campsite for a week,
prebooked – to do the domestic stuff, receive mail from England, to stop the endless
travelling and to recharge our batteries. Having arrived on the site today with
some trepidation (what if we didn’t like it? Or worse it had some problem like
processionary catepillars or no dog walking)….but it’s a gem. Even better it’s
got good wifi and when we arrived one other occupant…another English van. By
this evening we’ve discovered that they are hosting a Husky racing weekend and
the first lot of howling excited Husky’s have arrived, so a bit noiser than
earlier….but it looks like we’ll have a spectator sport to enjoy watching.
Funny, I’d never got around to going and watching the racing in Dorset when
they came to Verwood Forest every year, each time I’d meant to go…but something
or another had got in the way. Now it looks like the racing has come to us!
Ok, what
happened this week with travelling….We left the scenic hills near Rio Caldo,
great drive down winding valley roads (me grinning, Gary had his eyes shut for
some of it!)….to Vila Nova de Cerveria. What initially thought didn’t look too
promising an Aire, right beside the railway…turned into a great place to stop
and moved up to one of our “gold” ratings as somewhere we plan to return to on
another trip!
From the
Portugese side of the River Minho we drove on northwards crossing the border
into Spain. We then tracked out onto one of the peninsulas along the coast and
had lunch at Bueu (we really couldn’t decide how this should be pronounced).
Lunchtime highlight on the pier was dolphin watching – Gary spotted two
dolphins about 30m out. There’s nothing
quite like watching spectacular wildlife, that we’ve found ourselves, from the comfort
of our own van!
We moved
on looking for another Aire as there wasn’t a blade of grass anywhere near the
pier (so no good for the Tollers), only to draw another blank trying to follow
directions. After a hair-raising reverse down a steep hill, we decided to
abandon that particular headland and drive to the next Aire northbound. This
meant shifting about 60miles to get around the bay, to a place called O Grove –
which is an out of season “trendy” upmarket resort. After a look at the town we
camped up at Lanzara Beach…and enjoyed a night in glorious isolation in a car
park for about 400 vehicles. It could have been a airport runway!
That
brings us forward to Friday, when we made it to our prebooked site and then
spent the afternoon recovering….catching up on internet stuff, and sunbathing
in shorts and skimpy tops again. As the evening progressed more and more Husky
teams arrived. Not sure how spectating will pan out….with our gundogs feeling more
than a bit out of place….quiet, non-pulling, and old enough not to get too
excited about much these days……
After
getting dressed I took the Tollers out for their morning romp in the cold but
glorious sunshine. It was a lovely crisp morning, in places a hint of frost on
the open ground, but even at about 8.30am it was starting to warm up in the
sunshine. There weren’t too many footpaths leading anwhere so I exercised the
dogs with nosework and retrieving….only to chuck Wings’s ball down the pathway
beside the cobbled road….hit the lampost and the ball ricocheted off into a
beautiful arc….landing with a splash in what looked like a gully. I blew my
gundog whistle and W sat down like a good un. I told him to wait while I had a
look down into the gully…..there’s me thinking “I’ll just check to see how
steep the banks are …before I let him get it”….as I walked forward I heard
water flowing, and got there to see a fast flowing drainage ditch, about 2
meters deep…and his ball rapidly disappearing out into the marshes and estuary.
I didn’t let him go after it, definitely not worth it for an old tennis ball!
So I threw him another marked retrieve and told him “gone away” on that one,
which it had literally. I don’t like losing items I’ve thrown – but if I tried
to do that again (hit the lampost) I could spend months trying!
Within
half an hour we were sat having breakfast in the sunshine when out from the
same area at the edge of the marshes…popped a small bird, up onto the brambles
on the other side of “that” gully. It sat there long enough for us both to get
a look with our binoculars (doesn’t everyone have breakfast outside with
binoculars to hand?)…and me to start saying “that’s not one I know”…Luckily we
have a good bird ID book with us (Larousse for anyone interested), and
confirmed it was a Sardinian Warbler. A first for both of us, and not a bad
“swop” for the tennis ball in a weird sort of way.
Reluctantly….I
mean, how is it…we’re on a 12 week holiday and we still don’t seem to have enough time to enjoy /explore places!!
Reluctantly, after breakfast we had to set off – but Pardihlo is definitely on
the list of places to return to and spend a bit more time at! We needed to get
some more miles under our belts heading northwards if we are to make it to our
booked campsite by the end of this week. We have arranged to be in one place at
a campsite on the north western coast of Spain for a week – while we have a
couple of parcels being sent out from England. It had seemed like a good idea,
but now it feels like it’s adding a deadline to our meanderings. Fingers
crossed it’ll be worth it once we’re there.
We
decided to brave the toll motorways – but restricted ourselves to those with
manned toll booths rather than the electronic ones (we made enquiries about
getting the right sticker for the van, and it was going to be too complicated
for just a few days), and so headed north around Porto. Only one idiot driving
a white van rattled my confidence, which could have happened anywhere but it
was a near miss as I swerved out of the way. Porto motorways not on the list
for places to return to!
We
arrived at Celorico de Basto up in the hills in time for a late lunch. We’re
outnumbered at the campsite – one other caravan camping, us versus several
staff members. Gary booked in and threw four of them into confusion about what
to do entering English details onto the computer. Seems that they don’t get
many English visitors. The sun shone all afternoon, the washing got done and
dried, Wings and Maddie have been
playing chase around the pitch (no point in worrying about keeping them on lead
with hardly anyone else around). Feels like the overnight temperature will be
low again – but this time there is the excuse that we’re quite high up in the
hills.
Tuesday morning we left
the campsite in another morning of glorious sunshine, but definite nip in the
air – no shorts today, fleeces stayed on! Almost from the moment we left the
village the van was in third gear climbing hills and Gary audibly breathing in
as we rounded the narrow bends…sometimes due to the drop off’s /views and other
times the oncoming locals who clearly knew the roads (or leastways we think
they did!).
Pull
over at lunchtime was on top of a ridge of hills, the ubiquitous wind farm in
view (starting about a mile away), but equally breathtaking panoramic views
including even snow capped mountains in the far distance. The highlight had to
be that I spotted a raptor circling in the thermals and then established (with
the help of bins and Larousse) that it was a Booted Eagle! If that wasn’t
enough within twenty minutes another eagle had glided past the van coming over
the ridge, a lot closer and this time an immature Golden Eagle.
That was
quite a good bolster fo r the afternoon drive, which turned out to be just as
well. We thought we were being clever – having studied the road map as well as
Tom (the Sat-nav)…..we thought we were avoiding the unpaved roads…..our
alternative route started out fine, more little villages and pretty views…then
we turned a corner and found that we were on the ancient block roads. They
aren’t really cobbles, and they’re not really dirt tracks, more like roman
roads /paviours – but not so straight or even! Slow down to second gear and
less than twenty miles an hour….judder, judder.
It
looked like it would “only” be a mile until we picked up another N road
(equivalent to a British B road – maybe!), but it felt like quite a bit more.
The other thing about these old roads, is that they narrow between farm
buildings, village houses alarmingly (Gary was actually running his hands
through his hair at one point)….and they didn’t worry about slopes ….after all
why would you if you were building for horses?
We made
it back onto real roads both wilting with relief, and then carrried on towards
Rio Caldo. Again, on the map it had looked innocent enough, but it turned out
to be a descent into a valley – dropping down about 150 meters to a dammed lake
and village. Scenic hairpin bends with a gradient of about 1 in 5 in places.
Our
overnight stop at the viewpoint was worth it, and with some map studying we
have decided not to retrace our steps out of this valley, but to follow the
river valley westwards.
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