None of us managed much sleep last night as we were hit by a bad storm, this morning it was still tipping it down and very stormy skies. We would have got drenched just walking to the bus stop! The weather forecast is not great for the next few days, so very reluctantly we decided it wasn’t worth waiting it out, time to move on. We quickly packed up and joined the queue of people all having the same thoughts and leaving. The site was fairly expensive and wasn’t set up for winter camping as much as the others we’ve stayed on.
We set off in the rain and due to some excellent work by the navigator we easily found our way out of Sevilla and onto the toll road towards Portugal. The traffic around the port area was very heavy but as we drove further away it soon became quite and with good roads we made really good progress. We stopped for a quick lunch at a services just a few miles from the boarder and planned our route, firstly to try and get some LPG and secondly to the campsite. By now the rain had stopped and as we crossed the border into Portugal the sun came out to welcome us. There were no border checkpoints to go through, we just crossed the river bridge from one country to another.
The scenery was rolling hills with some pretty villages dotted around. Not sure if it was our imagination or not but it definitely seemed windier! Found the services we were looking for and the LPG pump was at the end of one of the pump islands along with the usual diesel and petrol. Nervously we identified the attachment needed, which turned out to be the Italian one we used outside Barcelona and began to fill the tanks. Nothing happened at first but after a few seconds the pump started to show we were filling the gas bottles. When this system works it’s as easy as filling your car with petrol, it’s just the lack of petrol pumps in Spain and the variety of attachments’ that are a bit of a pain! Still Portugal has more places to top up and the two tanks should easily last a couple of months.
Having filled up with LPG and diesel both of which were more expensive than Spain, we set of to find the campsite. Following the books directions we easily found Quarteira but not the camp, so we ended up driving through the town and down some fairly narrow streets. The satnav was useless, not recognising the road name and GPS coordinates put us miles away, so we decided to try and drive along the coast road. This wasn’t too bad as it was a nice wide road, dual carriageway at times, just lots of pedestrian crossing as you had hotels one side and the beach the other, still the town looked like it had plenty to nose around! As we were leaving the town Lynn and Sarah spotted the campsite entrance on our right, so we joined the queue to get in. Having booked in and paid upfront for a week we set off in search of a pitch. They don’t allocate you one here you just choose any available one you like. Sounds easy but the site was fairly busy and most of the pitches are very sloping and sandy, not a great combination for us! Having driven round the site checking out a few pitches but discarding them for a variety of reasons Sarah found one near the start but due to the one way system we hadn’t been down that road. It certainly had the sun but was very sloping, even with ramps under the front wheels. Still we’re here and can now relax, all very tired after a day’s travelling and not much sleep. We’ll give the pitch a go tonight and see how we get on.
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