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Wednesday 29 February 2012

27th Feb ABRANTES – BARRAGEM DE POVOA near NISA

Just a short journey today, we’re going to over night at a barragem; we’re really excited as we’ll be able to wash our clothes (it’s not allowed to put up clothes lines at aires).

As we were driving we saw this large white bird, with black wing tips (a stork) flying above us, it came to rest on a nest on the top of a telegraph pole. Then we noticed all the telegraph poles along the road had nests on top of them, most with two adult birds in.

Sat Nav (bitch) took us through Nisa; she directed us down a street (which looked fine at first) then it became one way, then it became an unpaved street that got narrower and narrower so that in the end we literally couldn’t fit down it; so we had to back all the way back up it (the wrong way). She’s evil, there was no reason at all for her to have chosen that route, it wouldn’t have been any shorter than the proper way; she just wanted to take us off the road for ½ mile only to put us back on the same road ½ mile further on!!!
The drive to the barragem got a bit hairy towards the end when we had to drive across the top of the dam (very narrow with a bend in the middle) but it was worth it; I thought the aire at Boiro was fabulous, this beats it hands down (and it’s free). It’s so pretty here, I think the trees are Mimosa (it’s probably what’s giving me hay fever); we parked under a tree so that the van wouldn’t get too hot.
Barragem de Povoa
There was already a camper van parked; actually it was a horse box which had been customised on the inside, with a lovely French range (wood burning stove), it belonged to an English couple (from Oxford) who fed us with wine and gave us tips on some of the best places to camp. They also told us about (and showed us) processional caterpillars, which apparently are very poisonous (they can cause your throat to swell up) and are therefore to be avoided. They gave us this huge pine cone which we have to heat up, so that it opens; inside are nuts, which you shell, and inside these are pine nuts – it’s obvious where they come from once someone tells you (for goodness sake the clue is in the name).

Our bikes were really filthy so we decided to clean them; we couldn’t believe it Brett’s back wheel is completely buckled (it’s unusable, he needs a new one); we have no idea how it’s happened, we haven’t reversed into anything. Poor old Brett is really upset (understandably) and me (trying to help) saying “don’t worry we’ll just have to buy you a new one” didn’t go down well – as Brett says we haven’t learnt how to ask for a back wheel for a bike especially one suitable for disc brakes! (and more to the point we haven’t yet seen a bike shop).
Tuesday 28th Feb: Still at Barragem de Povoe
We’ve decided to stay here another night. Just look at the view from our bedroom window at 7.30 this morning.

Today we did our ‘housework’; we hand washed our clothes and swept and dusted the van. Then we had a leisurely walk and came across this ‘shanty’ town. It was weird, a huge area (at least an acre) all sectioned off with bits of tarpaulin used as fences and roofs, many of these sections had caravans in them. But it was really quiet, as if there was no one there. It was in the grounds of this huge old mansion that was falling into disrepair; however all the plants in the garden had been pruned and tied back, all very strange. Brett thinks perhaps it’s accommodation for migrant workers, when they come to harvest the grapes or olives.
Across the road from our van is a field with cattle; we first noticed them as one of them is wearing a bell – I love that sound; I’m going to have cow bells on my goats. They are all bullocks and the older ones have horns and it suddenly occurred to me that when we came through Nisa yesterday we saw a bullring. How horrible, I thought (hoped) bull fighting had been made illegal; maybe they just tie hankies to their horns and the matadors have to collect them? Look at them they’re beautiful why would anyone want to torture them? Maybe I’m wrong, perhaps they are beef steers?


This is a really quiet area, but a couple of hundred yards up the road is this shack with music playing (day & night) which is a small bar; we went and had a beer this afternoon, 1.40 for 2 beers!
At dusk we walked down to the water to see a very strange sight; these fish were popping their heads out of the water (about 3” – 4” up in the air) and then swimming for a couple of yards before going back under the water. What was that all about?
Tomorrow we’re going to try to find a campsite near Fundao (there are no aires around there), so that we will be in the right area for our 10.00 a.m. appointment to view houses on Thursday. Hopefully we’ll be able to get on the internet.

26th Feb FATIMA – ABRANTES

Yippee, we’ve cracked it!!!! We just break the journey down and give her bite size bits to deal with; today we travelled with NO U-TURNS and no mistakes, even though our first choice of route had to be aborted due to a road race.

I’ve had a bit of an off day today; I felt a bit homesick but I think (hope) it’s all down to the fact I’ve got hay fever (I don’t normally suffer from hay fever) but my eyes are itchy, I’m sneezing, my nose is runny and I’m feeling generally ‘crap’. Talking of home we found a Lidls today which was practically identical to our one in Pontardawe; unfortunately they didn’t sell ‘proper’ teabags and we’re running out (we're making one bag last for two cups!).
We’re nearly in the area where we want to start looking at houses; we’ve emailed a couple of agents and we’ve got appointments for Thursday and Friday ................. how exciting is that? And we haven’t even been in touch with the agent for the 27 acre farm yet.
We’re in an aire next to a river beach; we’re parked next door to the beach cafe AND THEY HAVE INTERNET!!! So I’m busily updating my blog, and I’ve just had a long a long chat with Will & Gill and Stephanie on Skype, which was lovely and just what I needed (as well as Lidls!).
One of the problems with my blog is that I have to go through the Portuguese blogspot site – which means it’s all written in Portuguese! So I can do the obvious stuff like new post but I haven’t worked out how to edit a post; I have some photos from SAO PADRO DO SUL which I want to include in my blog, so I’m putting them here!!
Sau Pedro do Sul
I love this photo, the reflections are perfect and it looks like the walkway is high in the air - it's actually river height

Update on SAO PADRO DO SUL: Sao Pedro do Sul is a spa town, with thermal springs that reach a temperature of 70°C (that’s too hot to put your hand in).
Thermal Spring

Most of the shops weren’t open (as it caters for the tourists) but there was one shop that was selling really nice patchwork quilts (double) for 45 (they would have cost £100 - £200 in Britain).

Sunday 26 February 2012

25th Feb LORVAO – FATIMA

The countryside is much flatter here, with lots of little plots being cultivated by hand. There’s a few sheep kept too – they tend to tether them (like goats); Brett wants to know if they have ear tags but it’s difficult to see as we’re driving. Still lots of cabbages on stalks being grown plus oranges, lemons, olives and grapes.

The dogs are allowed to run loose around Portugal and Spain; you see them all over the place, even on the motorways - mainly dead, in fact there are quite a few dead animals along the roadside (dogs, cats, foxes). And there’s lots of dog poo around the villages!
FATIMA is a holy town, like Lourdes (France); pilgrims flock here to be cured of illness. Lots of tacky tourist shops (great if you want to buy religious iconography), but no supermarkets; so decided to eat out – I had cuttle fish with potatoes; cuttle fish looks and tastes like squid; it was served with two mounds of, well I don’t know what it’s called it was bread with beans and cabbage ( a winter version of gazpacho?) it was ok....... Brett had pizza.
We’ve been trying to learn Portuguese; we bought a couple of CDs (to help with pronunciation) and some books. In the evenings we’ve been dutifully repeating the phrases (first couple of chapters) so we have ‘mastered’ greetings, ordering and asking directions. Some words in Portuguese are very similar to Spanish but the Portuguese are more nasal and they tend to pronounce ‘s’ as ‘sh’ (sounding almost like you’re drunk). Tonight we tried out our Portuguese, in the restaurant, unfortunately our waiter replied in English! Anyway at the end of the meal we paid our bill, got up to walk out and in unison said “adios” both of us emphasising the ‘sh’ at the end of the word (smugly) – the replied “adios” had no hint of a “sh”?? Now we are perplexed, who’s right our CD’s or native Portuguese?

24th Feb SAO PEDRO DO SUL – LORVAO

We started the day well when we went off in the opposite direction to the way we needed to go (we were ignoring Sat Nav’s weird and wonderful route); so an hour later having turned around three times we were back where we started! Believe it or not we are learning how to use the Sat Nav effectively – we’ll have cracked it soon.
Barragem

We had lunch parked at a service station just off a motorway, next to a Barragem (reservoir); apparently in Portugal you are allowed to camp over night at Barragems. But we were going to an aire in a little village up in the Mountains, LORVAO. There’s a very impressive monastery here; the aire is in the car park in the centre of the village. It’s not a big village; a few shops, bars and houses with mountains as a backdrop – very striking.  

We went for a short walk around the village; a very short walk – we were glared at as if we had signs above our heads “STRANGERS!!” it was very disconcerting, we tried saying “Ola” but nobody replied, they just kept staring – so we scuttled back to the van!
The sim card that we bought especially for using in Europe (Story Telecom) isn’t working properly, Lots of the texts I’ve been sending haven’t been received (or I’ve got very rude friends and family) and it won’t let us make calls (which was the main reason we bought it) and of course we can’t sort it out as there’s no internet access (and we can’t make calls!!!). Fortunately we can receive calls and texts (I think we’re getting all the ones that are being sent).
In Portugal most of the houses in the countryside have vegetable plots, all that they seem to have growing in them is cabbages on very long stems (sometimes over 6 foot long), I think it’s called walking stick cabbage (I’ve seen it in seed catalogues).


23rd Feb LORDELO – SAO PEDRO DO SUL (90 miles)

WE SACKED THE SAT NAV; after yesterdays unpaved roads episode and decided to navigate our route for ourselves; this was fine on paper, we knew exactly where we wanted to go, but for some reason the Portuguese don’t mark their junctions with road numbers, just local (small) place names that aren’t even mentioned on the map – so we had to reinstate her (but I did turn off her voice!). We chose a road that was marked with a green line to one side (this indicates a picturesque route) of course Mrs Sat Nav chose a different route, but we ignored her.  Well it was certainly picturesque and very,  very scary.

I thought the journey we took on the 18th (Cangas de Onis – A Portenova) was bad but the roads in Spain are fabulous compared to Portuguese roads. In Spain all roads are clearly marked and junctions are logical, mountain roads have steel barriers all along the edges and are well kept. In comparison Portuguese roads are full of potholes (even quite main roads), the sides of the roads are crumbling away, road signage is dreadful and on top of this the Portuguese drive like maniacs – they just pull out in front of you regardless of whose right of way it is, stop any where – even parking on roundabouts and don’t get me started on their road positioning!!

Anyway to get back to our picturesque journey; it was up and over several mountains and the roads were VERY windy and most of the time we were on the outside edge (with no barrier),  our average speed was 22mph. We both agreed we did not want to live in Northern Portugal – but it was absolutely beautiful; terraces of olives and grapevines, and eucalyptus forests and deep,  deep gorges with rivers at the bottom. It’s getting warmer and warmer the further we drive south, today we saw lots of butterflies, a heron, a goose and a duck (these were all flying close to the van, not at the same time).
Our shower is a bit of a pain, the drain is towards the back and unless the van is level or sloping backwards water doesn’t drain away (and you can’t drive with a shower tray full of water), so Brett (he had the last shower) is on his hands and knees scooping the water out with a mug; apart from that it’s quite impressive, it gets very warm, the power isn’t too bad and there’s plenty of water to wash and rinse hair and bathe.
We’re eating well (in case you’re worried!) tonight we have ½ kilo of fresh Camarao (king prawns) cooked in garlic butter with pao de centeio longo (bread) and this came to a grand total of 4.74 (£3.95 real money).

22nd Feb TUI – LORDELO

A couple of miles out of Tui and we were in PORTUGAL. What a journey!!! Mrs Sat Nav takes us some very strange routes and today was the worst so far – she decided to take us via, as she put it, ‘unpaved roads’. These were single lanes of cobbled stones with very sharp bends and one way streets (which she took us the wrong way down!) weaving between the houses leading down into Lordelo and of course once we started we had to continue as there was no way we could turn around.  And when we came out of this maze we were back on the road she’d directed us off of so it could have all been avoided!!!

The aire was in a huge well lit car park overlooking the river; across the road was a pretty little church with a clock (AND BELL); The bell rand every ¼ hour, plus 5 minutes to the hour and 3 minutes past the hour and this continued ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT!!!! And then we were woken up at 8.15 a.m. by an air raid siren! (it really was an air raid siren) this continued wailing for ¼ of an hour – we think it was the ‘school bell’.

21st Feb BOIRO – TUI

We're now in Tui; the people here are still dressing up; this time lots of adults if fact whole families. The aire was crowded with parked cars and people walking into town. There were carnival floats (somehow we managed to miss the parade) and again gangs of boys throwing flour and eggs. The odd thing was this was all happening on a Tuesday afternoon, not a weekend; I must find out what it’s all about but internet is very sparse.

Tui is a pretty town built on a hill, houses made from large chunks of granite stone; narrow alleyways with decaying houses with fabulous ironwork and flaking paint.

Tuesday 21 February 2012

20th Feb LUGO – BOIRO (Santiago de Compostela) (103 miles)

WOW, WOW, WOW ......... look at the view from our ‘bedroom’ window.

This aire is literally a stone’s throw from the beach, with a eucalyptus forest to one side and a bar to the other – however it came at a price, 3€!

Last night it was very cold; freezing outside and down to 2°C in the van, we slept under a duvet, a blanket and a patchwork quilt (and I was still cold). Today the temperature went up to 28° in the van, and even now (9.00 p.m.) it’s 19°, we’ve unpacked our summer clothes!!

This evening, when we were cooking dinner there was a knock on the door; it was a man selling live cockles that he’d dug up from the beach (he sells them to the local restaurants) – guess what I’m having for lunch tomorrow?

When we walked by the sea we saw masses of fish (Henry), don’t know what they were (looked like trout) but they were big 2 or 3lbs.

The blog entries are rather sporadic as we haven’t managed to find any internet for 3 days now (no there aren’t any MacDonald’s around here Henry!), I think it might be because we’re still ‘out of season’ there isn’t actually much open at the moment.


19th Feb A PORTENOVA – LUGO (32 miles)

A lovely aire today; it’s right at the top of the town, with fabulous views down to the river. Lugo is the only Spanish town to remain completely enclosed within superb roman walls; 10-15 metres high with 85 circular towers (The Rough Guide to Spain, pp 584-585 – I’ve forgotten how to do it but you get the gist!).

We’re here on a Sunday, so all the proper shops are closed which is a shame. We went for a walk around midday, when the Spanish do one of their promenades, and all the children were dressed up in fancy dress (cowboys, Zorro, aliens, pirates etc) outside the tourist (trash) shops were models of witches with broomsticks and pumpkins (a bit like Halloween), but I can’t find any reference to today in any of my travel books (any ideas?).

Another walk this evening, walled city which is full of churches.

The children were still dressed up, as were some of the adults and teenagers. Gangs of youths were setting off bangers, throwing eggs and flour – exactly like Halloween in Brynaman!

We came across a brilliant brass band (all the members were dressed up like ‘Ghostbusters’) playing down a side alley. I wish I could have taken a video to add to my blog; they and their audience were having a great time, people were dancing, clapping, singing and swaying in time to the music.

Everywhere we’ve been in Spain there’s graffiti; it’s covering walls, sculptures, statues, tourist information boards, trailers, motorway signs (the ones on the motorway!), in fact anything that’s static! – Some of it is very artistic and some is obviously political with reference to the Mafia (the only bit we could understand).

18th Feb CANGAS DE ONIS - A PORTENOVA(140ish miles)

TRAVELS WITH A SAT NAV!!!

We were woken up this morning by a chorus of dogs, their barks were echoing loudly around the car park. On looked out of the window; the area was full of cars with small trailers, with men were standing around in groups talking and the dogs were in the trailers (hence the echoing). They stayed around for nearly an hour and then all drove off. We can only guess what was happening; we think they were all gathering to go off boar hunting, or perhaps deer.

As mentioned previously we made the decision to travel around the coast of Spain to Portugal; one of the reasons for this was our (my) reluctance to negotiate narrow winding roads with deadly precipices on either side (i.e. I was frightened of driving over the mountains) – well I should have informed Mrs Sat Nav of this! Today she took us for a ‘short cut’; unfortunately once we realised where she was taking us there was nowhere to turn around so we had to negotiate 13 miles of “narrow winding roads ..........................” however, you can only be petrified for so long, and the scenery was absolutely amazing.


The sky was blue, the sun was out and in the end we actually appreciated the journey. It wasn’t much of a short cut though; it took us nearly an hour.

We thought the route to our chosen to the aire was quite straight forward (for about 100 miles), straight along the A8/E70, however parts of the motorway were new and Mrs Sat Nav didn’t recognise the way (she was convinced we were driving through fields) and spent most of the journey squawking “recalculating”, “prepare to make a U turn” or “turn  left”  - I took great satisfaction in turning her off!! We had our lunch (the elvers were very disappointing hardly any flavour to them, but the rest was good) overlooking a very pretty sandy cove.

The Sat Nav is really useful for the finish of a journey; it can navigate to specific coordinates quite accurately (as long as she’s set up correctly!). So we turned her on for the last part of our route, to the aire, and we obediently followed her command “turn left”;  driving over the foot bridge with the sign (which we roughly translated from Spanish once we were over) “vehicles forbidden except in emergencies”!!! Oh yes, and it did have a weight limit.

Now we’re parked in A Portenova a grim looking town, with a very eastern bloc feel to it. It’s full of high-rise buildings, a few shops and is rather grey.

We’re looking forward to tomorrow as we’re only travelling about 40 miles so we can do some exploring.

17th Feb LIEGANES - CANGAS DE ONIS

It rained a lot in the night and was rather grey when we woke up.

We found a supermarket a short walk from the van (we asked the couple in the camper van next to us!); the Spanish don’t seem to drink fresh milk, it’s all UHT (yuk!), but we did buy some very nice ewe’s milk cheese (you’d have loved it, Will – Siop Laria).
LIEGANES, everywhere around here the trees are pollarded

It was much better day driving today, the Sat Nav worked ok – apart from telling us to exit roads and then go around roundabout then join same road a couple of times!! Brett drove 90 miles, I drove 0 miles!! But I did navigate. We’ve decided to drive around the coast of Spain and then down into Portugal, it might take a little longer but hey we’ve got no ties! Fabulous scenery, we didn’t think it would look like this, a bit like Switzerland; and I thought we had mountains in Wales, huh!!

Once parked up for the night we went for an explore; the town was much bigger than we had expected – it was then we realised we had no idea where the van was, we were completely lost! Obviously we got back to the van, but it was a bit scary for a while. We bought some food for lunch tomorrow – elvers, squid in ink and other exciting stuff (your guess is as good as ours!!). Wine is very cheap, I found bottles of rose and red for 69 cents, that’s 59p in ‘real’ money!  

The Spanish eat late, nothing opens until 8.30, so Brett bought some biscuits to have with a cup of tea – he ate one and said “these taste like babies’ rusks” we read the label, “Monjas Rosquillas” it sounds like rusks, we still don’t know.

Tonight we decided to eat out; we don’t speak Spanish (we’ve been learning Portuguese), and around here they don’t speak English. So we went into a bar and Brett orders two beers (he knew the phrase for two beers, it’s in the phrase book!), he then turns to me and says “you did want beer didn’t you?” We spent the next half hour trying to work out how to ask for food (and drinking beer on empty stomachs!); we actually did ok – we ordered the ‘menu of the day’ 10€ which included a bottle of cider to share; it looked, and tasted, like scrumpy. It was served in this weird device where the bottle was turned upside down, the glass was laid in a cradle at 45° and a button was pushed – the cider then went up a tube and came out into the glass all frothy a bit like a soda siphon.

Tomorrow we’re (Brett’s) driving a little further, about 140 miles, but then we’ll have a few days of short distances.

Friday 17 February 2012

WE'RE IN SPAIN !!!

15th Feb

Stayed overnight outside Joanna’s house; yes, she did offer us a bed inside but as we wanted to leave early in the morning (and she had a sofa blocking the hallway, but that’s another story!) we decided it would be easier to sleep in the van.

Our ferry departed at 11.00 a.m. and we had to be at the harbour at least 45 minutes prior to this. So we decided to leave Joanna’s at 6.00 a.m.; it’s a 40 minute drive from Southampton to Portsmouth but we were determined not to miss the ferry, we arrived by 7.00 a.m. and we weren’t the first in the queue! In fact the ferry left 45 minutes late as there was an accident on the A34 and several of the passengers hadn’t arrived by 11.00. We overheard one man saying that because of the delay he had had to drive at 85 miles/hour (bet he wished he’d left at 6.00!!).

The ferry was HUGE, 9 storeys with several restaurants, a cinema, swimming pool, and shop etc.

In one of the restaurants there was a rather interesting glass screen – a light box made from 2 sheets of glass about 8” apart; both sheets had very deep sand blasted roses, on both sides of the glass (float glass about ½“ thick), quite simple but effective.



In the corridor there was more glass art; three pieces in a row, all very similar, consisting of a large fused and slumped glass sheet, about 15” square, sandwiched between this and the top layer was a ceramic layer that looked a bit like wood bark (9 – 10” square, I couldn’t get at this layer to have a feel!), and the top layer was again fused glass (like the first layer, it appeared to have sandblasting internally, but there was no bubbling on the outside – the top and back was smooth); it was very simple but again quite effective. I appreciated that both pieces were made from float glass.



It was quite calm on the boat, at first ....................... so we promenaded around the decks several times, had breakfast and lunch, had a shower (which was remarkably good considering it was on a boat), read our kindles (thank you Steph!), I did some sketching (as we were passing Isle of Wight) ..................... and then, as we left the shelter of Britain the sea got a little bit rougher, and then a lot rougher; as you walked you looked drunk! Then Brett started to feel sick; so we went to the shop to buy something to help him; we asked the lady, in the shop, if she had anything for seasickness and she directed us to these bracelets, so Brett says “Do they work?” and she says “Of course not Sir!!” whoops! In the end he got a pill from the information desk, but the only thing that helped was lying down, which was a bummer as I wanted my dinner!



Thursday 16th: By morning the sea had calmed and Brett was better. We decided that once we landed we wouldn’t drive too far, as we needed to get used to driving on the right. We chose an aire (free/cheap camp site) that was about 20 minutes from the harbour, keyed the coordinates into the Sat Nav and started driving (Brett was driving), we went on motorways, through towns and villages and finally we were driving towards the mountains with Brett muttering “I was sure it was nearer than this” in the end the road started to get really narrow and we stopped to look at the map – we were about 50 miles from where we wanted to be! In the end we realised it was because the Sat Nav wasn’t formatted the same as the book we were using!!! Talk about a ‘baptism of fire’, Brett drove very competently there and back! And now he’s quite confident, I haven’t had a go yet.

The aire was in a very strange place; there was a safari park with elephants, buffalo, antelopes all roaming free – it looked like something out of Jurassic Park, and the elephants were all red as they’d been rolling in the mud. Unfortunately the village was more or less shut up for the winter, everything looked very unkempt and sorry for itself.


So we moved on to another aire that was in a slightly busier village. So far we haven’t found any shops to buy milk or groceries (stupid Sat Nav said the nearest place was, 40 miles away, in the opposite direction to where we want to go tomorrow – hope she’s wrong!).

WE'RE IN SPAIN !!!

15th Feb
Stayed overnight outside Joanna’s house; yes, she did offer us a bed inside but as we wanted to leave early in the morning (and she had a sofa blocking the hallway, but that’s another story!) we decided it would be easier to sleep in the van.


Our ferry departed at 11.00 a.m. and we had to be at the harbour at least 45 minutes prior to this. So we decided to leave Joanna’s at 6.00 a.m.; it’s a 40 minute drive from Southampton to Portsmouth but we were determined not to miss the ferry, we arrived by 7.00 a.m. and we weren’t the first in the queue! In fact the ferry left 45 minutes late as there was an accident on the A34 and several of the passengers hadn’t arrived by 11.00. We overheard one man saying that because of the delay he had had to drive at 85 miles/hour (bet he wished he’d left at 6.00!!).
The ferry was HUGE, 9 storeys with several restaurants, a cinema, swimming pool, and shop etc.
In one of the restaurants there was a rather interesting glass screen – a light box made from 2 sheets of glass about 8” apart; both sheets had very deep sand blasted roses, on both sides of the glass (float glass about ½“ thick), quite simple but effective.
In the corridor there was more glass art; three pieces in a row, all very similar, consisting of a large fused and slumped glass sheet, about 15” square, sandwiched between this and the top layer was a ceramic layer that looked a bit like wood bark (9 – 10” square, I couldn’t get at this layer to have a feel!), and the top layer was again fused glass (like the first layer, it appeared to have sandblasting internally, but there was no bubbling on the outside – the top and back was smooth); it was very simple but again quite effective. I appreciated that both pieces were made from float glass.[Image]
It was quite calm on the boat, at first ....................... so we promenaded around the decks several times, had breakfast and lunch, had a shower (which was remarkably good considering it was on a boat), read our kindles (thank you Steph!), I did some sketching (as we were passing Isle of Wight) ..................... and then, as we left the shelter of Britain the sea got a little bit rougher, and then a lot rougher; as you walked you looked drunk! Then Brett started to feel sick; so we went to the shop to buy something to help him; we asked the lady, in the shop, if she had anything for seasickness and she directed us to these bracelets, so Brett says “Do they work?” and she says “Of course not Sir!!” whoops! In the end he got a pill from the information desk, but the only thing that helped was lying down, which was a bummer as I wanted my dinner!
Thursday 16th: By morning the sea had calmed and Brett was better. We decided that once we landed we wouldn’t drive too far, as we needed to get used to driving on the right. We chose an aire (free/cheap camp site) that was about 20 minutes from the harbour, keyed the coordinates into the Sat Nav and started driving (Brett was driving), we went on motorways, through towns and villages and finally we were driving towards the mountains with Brett muttering “I was sure it was nearer than this” in the end the road started to get really narrow and we stopped to look at the map – we were about 50 miles from where we wanted to be! In the end we realised it was because the Sat Nav wasn’t formatted the same as the book we were using!!! Talk about a ‘baptism of fire’, Brett drove very competently there and back! And now he’s quite confident, I haven’t had a go yet.
The aire was in a very strange place; there was a safari park with elephants, buffalo, antelopes all roaming free – it looked like something out of Jurassic Park, and the elephants were all red as they’d been rolling in the mud. Unfortunately the village was more or less shut up for the winter, everything looked very unkempt and sorry for itself.[Image]
So we moved on to another aire that was in a slightly busier village. So far we haven’t found any shops to buy milk or groceries (stupid Sat Nav said the nearest place was, 40 miles away, in the opposite direction to where we want to go tomorrow – hope she’s wrong!).

Saturday 11 February 2012

And we're off .................................

Yesterday we left Wales, I was quite teary!!!

We were supposed to be sleeping in the van from now on, ha!! It was -8 degrees last night, so we slept on William's sofa. Tomorrow and Monday night we don't have the option ................. we WILL be sleeping in the van!!!