We got up to a beautiful sunny morning in coastal Gijon, Spain and ended it in the mountainous Portugese national park listening to the rains lashing down on the van.
First thing I had in mind for this morning was catching a wave. Well Shreddies more truthfully but then a wave. But when we got to the beach the four foot lines of last night had been replaced by one foot slop. 4 people did go out in the 2 hours we kicked around the city but they didn't catch a piddler between them. I didn't waste my cash hiring a board. Very disappointing.
The city was worth a look around though but by midday we needed to get going as we still had a 5 hour drive ahead to get to Portugal and the national park. The surfers still hadn't caught one ride.
The 5 hour drive started badly when TomTom didn't know how to get out of Gijon. So we resorted to the crazy plan of following road signs. Only to discover the Spanish are crap at road signs.
Eventually we found our way into the Picos de Europa - the mountains south of Gijon (Thanks Luke for being our email encyclopedia again!). They were stunning. Snow topped, craggy and sun kissed. It was like being in the Alps again. Beautiful.
We couldn't stop too long though as we had a lot of driving to do so we pushed on for the next five hours of varied terrain across northern Spain. As we headed south the weather turned nastier and as we hit Portugal the rains and fog set in and darkness fell. But we only had 5 miles to go till we reached the campsite according to TomTom.
Sometimes sat nav is brilliant. Sometimes its the spawn of the devil. Tonight it was the latter. As we pulled into a road signposted to our campsite with 4 miles to go we felt we were nearly home. Till we saw the "road" it was taking us down.
This "road" was nothing more than a rutted, pot holed, flooded, van breaking fire trail in a forested mountain side. In the dark. With fog for a side dish. It was to dangerous to get out of 2nd gear so we bounced and span and guessed our way down this track at cycling speeds hoping we didn't fall off the track or bottom out or break down. Some 15 minutes of hell later we found the campsite - just off a main road. Today TomTom was devil spawn.
But tomorrow I'm seriously tempted to ride that 4 mile trail on my mountain bike - I reckon it could prove quite a challenge!
Finishing on a high note as usual: the Cali fridge is superb. We only have it on 3/10 but its as cold as our fridge at home. Our milk we brought from the Uk 4 days ago is still ice cold and fresh. And the top loading nature and height means you can really easily get stuff in and out. Love it.
Tomorrow we'll get to see what this national park looks like. And I might have to ride the road to hell.
Sent from my ZX Spectrum.
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