Monday 30th December - Last Entry on Blog

Just to update any lingering blog followers, we arrived home at 11am GMT on Saturday 28th having departed from Amy's 25 hours previously. It was 815 miles and we just slept for half an hour and one hour in England. It wasn't all plain sailing though! Having done the 400 miles in France and arrived at the dog check in at Eurotunnel at 9pm we had a bit of an issue. When I was scanned for the microchip in the back of my neck there was no reading. I won't bore you with the finer points but we were told that we could not cross for another 3 weeks! A few hours later, let's just say we overcame the problem and arrived in England at midnight. Bri wanted to get the other side of the M25 before the traffic started getting busy but we just kept going. We tried to get some sleep at some service areas but they all had 2 hour limits so we never got a decent kip (well I did). Funny isn't it, we travel all over europe and park for as long as we want wherever we want and when we get back to our homeland its all rules and regulations stopping us parking! Eventually we arrived at Scotch Corner and treated ourselves to a bacon and a sausage butty, even I got some, yum yum :-p. Just another one and a half hours and we were back in Carlisle, I use that phrase rather than 'home' coz home is the motokennel :-)

TOTAL DISTANCE 5,150 miles
FUEL CONSUMPTION 27 mpg
WINE CONSUMPTION excessive

Thursday 26th

"Dad, I think you've had enough of that Ricard, remember that we're on the road again tomorrow"

Wednesday 25th December

Merry Christmas everyone from us in Nantes (unfortunately Yann isn't with us until this evening and Amy has to go to work this afternoon!!)

Droopy after running through mud, urghh!

Still Thursday 19th

Met Amy and Yann's dog Droopy today. He's just a young French adolescent so I needed to put him in his place. Nothing personal, it's just I'm a 'human' dog not a 'dog' dog so don't tolerate all that 'sniffing' stuff. Honestly, they behave like animals some of them. Here is a photo of me smiling at Droopy, accompanied by the necessary growl so he didn't misunderstand

Thursday 19th

With Amy and Yann for Xmas :-)

Wednesday 18th

What £22 buys you in France-

A) 100 miles of toll motorway

OR

B) 22 bottles of wine

Lesson: DRINK, don't DRIVE!

Tuesday 17th

An early start for our easy trip north to Bordeaux. We stayed the night with a few others in a little car park then came to have breaky on the seafront. Setting off as soon as I post this.....

Monday 16th (cont.)

We were in and out of the fog for most of our journey north. When we arrived at Renteria (Spain, but very close to France) we found 2 things. One, it was remarkably warm when we stepped outside, and two, it was too remote for the oldies, although I couldn't see the problem with us being the sole camper in a secluded wood. Obviously I would have preferred to stay but never get a say, so off we went to France. Only 14 miles to the aire, only problem was it was being resurfaced :-/ so we drove down to the tourist office where Bri used his best French "Parlez-vous Englais" and was directed (in English of course) to our overnight stay in this seaside town.

Monday 16th

Woke up to frost and freezing fog (I think it's preparing us for our trip north!). Headed for the last aire in Spain and the sun IS making an appearance now and then. We are presently about 100 miles from the border with France (Vitoria-Gasteiz) and have about 85 miles to do to get to the aire. On the road again now........

Caceres

Photos from 12th

Photos from 11th Duloc

Sunday 15th

Greetings loyal blog followers :-)

Quite a bit has happened since the last entry. We woke to grim weather on Friday but the rain soon cleared although it did stay overcast for our drive into Spain to meet up with the Ross clan at Caceres.  It was great seeing them even though we joked that they had brought the Scottish weather! Yesterday was a beautifully sunny day and we had a look around the picturesque town/city. Today we woke to another lovely day, Neil, Kath and Mac headed west to Portugal and we headed northeast towards France. After about 200 miles we lost the sun and have been enveloped in low cloud since. We are staying the night at a great aire at Palencia (about 200 miles from the French border). I think I'm stealing the wifi signal off another camper and its asking ages for stuff to happen. I'll put photos on if poss but may need to wait until we're with Amy.

Thursday 12th

Contact!

Yesterday evening we had contact with Neil and Kath and after a few texts we arranged to meet at an aire in Caceres (Spain) lunchtime on Friday. 

Saw the sunrise and after another quick look around the place headed for another hilltop town in Portugal called Marvao, great views again and another remarkable place, as you will hopefully see from some of the photos. On our way we passed through acres of cork trees. I call them cork trees coz its where corks come from, but I  haven't had chance to Google them yet to find out their proper name. Oh, we also stopped at a Lidl to restock the wine cellar, yes we have one! Bri frequently lifts the floorboards of the motokennel and brings out all kinds of goodies, sometimes I fall in coz it's so much fun :-). Anyway, 6 bottles of red for less than seven English quid! In Marvao we  walked along the very narrow walls, Bri got a right stress on fretting I would jump (or fall) off, I'm not a stupid human you know!

6.45pm What's this I hear on the motokennel roof? The only time I've got wet since we left England was through my own choice, jumping into a lake, water fountain or sea. It'd better clear up by the morning! :-/

Wednesday 11th

The satnav took us along an 'interesting' roads for the first 20 miles from Silves. My ears did a fair bit of popping as we climbed up, and dipped down unusual countryside, very green but with red soil. The rest of the roads were pretty good and we headed for the barragems (reservoirs). Great scenery and really pleased we made the slight detour as we headed north in search of Neil and Kath (coming south in their motokennel). We are staying the night at a place called Monsaraz, one the best place we've visited. We got quite a shock when we first walked into the town, it was a little bit spooky with no sign of movement but piped Xmas music (just like Duloc in Shrek) and 'statues' even camels! I will let the pictures tell the story :-)

Tuesday 10th

Parking on a beach 30 metres from crashing waves was never going to be a 'silent night' but not too bad considering. The wind got up early doors and when we opened the blinds there were clouds! Not everywhere but far too many for our liking. The intention was to stay a couple of nights but we decided to head a little bit inland to Silves, a very pretty place. Depending on the weather we may start meandering northwards and hopefully meet up with a southbound Neil and Kath in a few days :-)

Monday 9th

You must be getting bored of this by now but I suppose if you were THAT bored of it you wouldn't be reading!

 I loved our 6 mile walk along the beach at Praia da Rocha yesterday, it was typical Algarve, lovely! A Brit van parked next to us late afternoon and Bri and Rachel obviously got chatting to them. I invited myself into their motokennel and had a good sniff around then came back outside to hear Bri say "Would you like a glass of wine"? to THEM not ME! 4 bottles later everybody split so they could eat, bit of a bad head job methinks. This morning after 2 nights at the aire we headed for the hills, 3,000', and had a great view of the coast, but as we were looking into the sun (remember that?) the photos weren't that good. We decided to come back down to civilisation with the intention of staying at a €3 aire at Lagos. We walked around the place, very nice, but the aire was boring so we drove 10 miles down the coast to a little cove we had been tipped off about by Steve and Jan last night. This place is idyllic, parked right on the beach, no 'no dogs' signs, its brill! :-)

Saturday 7th

A picture paints a thousand words so here's today's 6,000

Friday 6th

As we trundled through the coastal region of The Algarve along, what can laughingly be called a main road, I saw the traditional symbol of Portugal, a cockerel. It suddenly dawned on me that having been photographed alongside the traditional symbol of Spain, a bull, I should maybe rename The Dogs Blogz to 'A Cock and Bull Story'. 

We originally planned to meet up with Paul and Marissa in Tavira today to celebrate their 30 something wedding anniversary, I sent our apologies via email that we couldn't make it as we had to continue west as we were running out of days (THEY are here for another 6 months!). Well, would you believe it, as Bri and Rachel were stuck into the red wine and pâté (at 1pm!) who should roll up but Paul and Marissa! About 4pm Bri & Rachel wandered off with the usual 'Wont be long' and arrived back 2 hours later stinking of drink! Apparently €3.60 for 4 pints! I've REALLY got my work cut out with these two!

Basking

Basking in the sun at Villamoura, this is just a nice temperature and NO tourists :-)

Tuesday 3rd Panic Over

Rest easy, the menacing cloud build up we saw yesterday has dispersed and normal service is resumed B-)

Monday 2nd Update!!

Dreadful news, looks like the weather is turning as evidenced by this photo taken by Bri en route to free wifi locus! The clouds are coming!! :-(

Monday 2nd

Since arriving on The Algarve we have yet to see a cloud (no doubt it'll throw it down from now on!). Beautiful blue skies through the day and starry nights. It gets a bit chilly during the early hours but still t shirt and shorts weather for most of the day. We aren't doing much really now, just walking on the beach, Bri goes for a daily bike ride and just generally taking it easy and not driving so much :-).

The photos pretty much sum things up at the mo'