As I said at the end of Part Two, we wanted to visit Canfranc and we made it our first stop back in Spain. Still very Pyrenean and high at 1195 metres asl. You can read about it here: Michael Portillo visited it for his BBC2 series Great Continental Rail Journeys. It’s somewhere we’ve wanted to visit since first finding out about it before we moved to Spain and it didn’t disappoint! (Apart from the very loud music which kept me awake till 4am!)
https://www.canfranc.es/turismo_canfranc_pirineos.php?idRec=5
After Canfranc we headed to Jaca, a town with a star shaped fortress which we enjoyed exploring.
After Jaca we spent a night at the very old, cultural village of Sos del Rey Católico on the border of the regions of Aragon and Navarre. Did the obligatory wander around the old, steep, cobbled streets….
Before too long we had to reluctantly leave the mountains behind us, reached the coast at Mutriku in the Basque country about an hour’s drive east of Bilbao where we were due to pick up some specialist dog food at a large pet store for Ditto (he has allergies) in a few days time.
Some other bits and bobs were due to be delivered to an Amazon pick up point in an attractive sounding village a bit further on and a bit later that next week. This included a very important delivery of tea bags, we were running very low! We decided to move inland to a higher and quieter spot where the forecast was for cooler weather. (All good so far, hope you are keeping up and not losing the will to live!) The next morning on the way down from this lovely spot that we had all to ourselves we heard a suspicious knocking noise. We pulled into a Repsol service station, checked the tyre pressures, hoped we had fixed it but no…….Nigel suspected a wheel bearing had failed so I got back on the phone to the insurers, slightly easier this time as we were back in Spain. To cut a very long story short, we were recovered and the motorhome taken 70 kilometres away to the nearest Fiat specialist in Vitoria Gasteiz. But it was not simple of course, it was a Thursday and the first day of St. James festival weekend so everything was shut.
The tow truck arrived at 5pm, we had been waiting all day and there was no room for us in the cab so we were told we would have to wait for a taxi. Off went the motorhome with the dogs inside and we waited another hour for the taxi to arrive. We were eventually reunited but of course the Fiat garage was closed till Monday so here we were again stuck in a heatwave unable to move but this time we found a nearby retail park to linger in, so there were no worries about running out of food. And there were some take away meal options too.
On the second day sitting in stifling heat in a concrete car park the water pump decided to give up the ghost. So I went over to Carrefour and bought 6 x 5 litre bottles of water to tide us over. Thankfully it was Saturday……on Sunday the supermarket was closed.
Oh what fun. As it turned out a few days later we discovered the connection had become dislodged and has now been fixed but we’ve bought a new pump anyway as a spare! On the Monday morning we limped a few kilometres to the Fiat garage. Immediately we were told no, we are too busy and we close on Thursday for the whole of August. Looking distraught and helpless we asked if they could recommend somewhere else local as it was dangerous for us to drive anywhere and a very kind Spanish customer who was bilingual could see our distress and waded in to help fight our corner. The boss then decided to come out to the vehicle to have a look, felt the noisy wheel and said it was the tyre that was buckled and needed changing, it was not a bearing issue. He said he could do it but would have to order the tyres in (by this time we decided not to take any chances and have all 4 replaced.) It would likely be the next day before they arrived and he agreed we could stay in the locked compound overnight. But they arrived and were fitted that afternoon so we were at last mobile again.
Ditto’s food was picked up, the Amazon delivery was next so we could stop hanging the tea bags out to dry and then we went back up to the Asturian coast and had a few days lighthouse bagging!
Temperatures were rising on the northern coast so soon after we had entered Galicia we decided to cut across to the Atlantic coast south of A Coruna where it was scheduled to be in the low twenties. It was still very busy here and we hit another crowded weekend but we found a spot (only just) at lovely beach where dogs were allowed in the early morning and late evening.
We stayed a couple of nights here and visited another place on our “Want to go” tick list. An Iron age fortified settlement, Castro De Baroña. The dogs accompanied us and it was worth the effort.
By this time, our friends Jill and Graham were making their way up the coast of Portugal to come and catch up to say hi, so we carried on a bit further south and they north and we met at an aire that Nigel had identified as being worth a visit. We had a pleasant evening playing catch up.
Their dog, Burtie sat quietly at Graham’s feet whilst Poco, ever on the alert was a pain in the proverbial, having to react to everything vocally, so D and P were returned to our motorhome where they stood on the driver’s seat looking down wistfully at us! A small amount of alcohol was consumed as you can probably guess. Graham introduced us to white port which they found in Porto would you believe!
We parted company the next day, Graham and Jill going on to spend a couple of nights at the beach we had been to just before meeting them which they loved too. We set off inland again to another couple of spots Nigel had earmarked as being of interest and our sort of places.
But after a few days whilst sitting out the Assumption of Mary weekend and having to turn away from another beach that we couldn’t get near…(had to spend the night on an access road as it was too late to find another spot), we worryingly noticed that the camper’s leisure batteries were not holding a charge despite the sun shining on the solar panels.
So our last weekend was spent next to the Magical Forest of San Sadurñino in Ferrol. We had been going to head back up to another lighthouse on the northern coast of Galicia but it was not to be. The sculpture park was fun though, nice off lead runs for the dogs and a bakery close by.
That meant curtains for this trip …. we had spent far too long already sitting about waiting to be rescued. The last thing we felt like doing was driving around trying to find somewhere willing/able to replace the batteries, far easier to do back home. So on the Tuesday morning we started the journey back to Casa Crompton, 1066 kilometres over two days, we arrived home Wednesday evening, 21st August.
Ironically there had been an issue with the grid power at home which we knew about as we have remote access via an app. This meant that we could not use the high demand appliances, air con, oven, microwave, electric kettle, TV, ceiling fans etc. after sunset in case the solar battery depleted which would cause the fridge freezer to shut off. But we could have showers, use the washer and dishwasher frugally during the day while the sun was shining. The first couple of nights were a challenge when the bedroom remained at over 30 degrees but we bought the two small rechargeable fans in out of the camper and they helped a bit. Then on the Sunday evening the solar technician came and changed the component that had caused the issue……so now we are all up and running again.
Meanwhile there is plenty to do in the garden, some areas have been overtaken by weeds and some plants have died in the heat. The trees we had cut back just before we left have gone rampant again so it doesn’t look quite as bare as it did when they were chopped. The figs are plentiful and daily fig picking has to take place to avoid them being trodden into a sticky mess. And we’re back in time to enjoy the grape harvest! They are delicious. The pool was in a sorry state but is back to normal now and lovely to cool off in again.
And Nigel has just found this report of a road collapse that we traversed just a month or so ago!!!!
So here endeth Part Three! Another supplementary post will follow at some stage with some more professional photographs and I expect ones that will fill in a few gaps (I’ve had to leave loads of places out would you believe?) and give a different slant on things……that’s it for now!
Hasta Luego