New hope

[Rogerwyn]

Moved on from Barcelos sharpish in the morning due to cars being abandoned that’s the way they park, made our way out of Portugal to Garda in Galicia as we needed washing duties we chose a lovely campsite called camping Santa techs, carried out all necessary washing and had a lovely BBQ ribe of lam for dinner, the following day we make the short walk into Garda where we find a brisling town but find having a drink with a dog hard so settle on a Celtic bar were the owner isn’t that bothered about local laws, after a quick drink and taps we decided to walk the long way back around the headland, great walk all 16k, we arrive back at site knackered, we succumb to the site cafe take away for the night, following morning we make the decision that as the weather is turning nasty on the coast we will head in land so we head for the town of Ribadavia where we find a cracking free aire and a great historic town, park up Motorhome in the trees and head into town, now being Sunday afternoon it’s bussing it’s a great town with loads of tapas bars and settle on el Brion and we have the best meal of our travels, longastein, paella, pork in mushrooms, finished with beef rib in garlic sauce, 2 bottles of wine, a beer and coffee all for €47, we make our way back to the van just as the heavens open, we fall asleep and awake to the devastation of the morning our lovely site has been transformed into a quagmire, we’re lucky we’re on the upper level’s but the Motorhomes in front have around a foot of water under them, we de camp gingerly and head for Lalin (free aire)we arrive after a quick shop to stock up on essentials (wine), as the weather has been wet the poor dog has not had a proper walk so I hitch her up and depart for some grass leaving Mrs Jones to sort out the shopping, when I’m about 500m away I can hear a raised voices and recognise one as Mrs Jones so head back with with the dog looking disappointed as I’m sure she was going to drop one, to find a rather dodge character trying to extract €10 for parking from Mrs Jones as I arrive back she’s in full Swahili mode now I’m not sure what scared him most Mrs jones or the the poodle with some choice words had also gone into Swahili mode, just as he was backtracking plod turned up ( very impressed our plod would turn up about a week later but I suspect the houses behind us had phoned them as there was a racket) they pinned him to the ground and loaded him into the car, miss plod assured us that he’d be delt with in perfect English but I think possibly he’ll be given a plastic boat and sent to Calais, with Mrs jones not happy with our aire we moved on past Santiago to a lake in north Galicia we’re we found a cracking site for €10 a night and no immigrants apart from us, great bar tapas with every drink which means it’s hard work to get pissed

 

[Rogerwyn]

Having had 6 weeks of good weather it was bound to turn in the end and it did we had planned on staying at Tourist Camp Santa María de Brandoñas for a couple of nights then move to Fisterra but we were unable to move due to 70/80mph gusts, not a bad place to be stuck as the site bar was very welcoming where a great meal could he had for €10 each any time of the day, we ditched our plans to go to Fisterra due to the winds continuing until the start of next week, we could see a slight gap of less wind on Friday morning so we paid the extra 2 nights all of €22 and stayed put, Thursday morning woke to sun and high winds so kicked the Mrs out of bed and hitched the dog up for a walk around the lanes to the lake, it’s a very beautiful part of the world, rustic farm houses all with their outhouses and sheds full of machinery that wouldn’t look out of place in a museum and all seem in working order as witnessed as we watched them bring in their crops, it looks a hard life but they all look satisfied with their lot, as we passed one small holding I noticed that there was a cat by the entrance to their yard, now the poodle is off the lead as there is no traffic and she’s too old to wander off fast, as in previous episode’s you may have gathered that she has hate relationship with her feline foes, off she goes then she stops at the entrance and the cat hasn’t moved and I can see why out of all the sheds and outhouse there appears to be around 12 cats and twice as many kittens all walking slowly towards the poodle, the poodle has a piddle and turns around and heads back to us, I think at last she’s learnt and has lost her will to chase her feline foes, following morning up early to use the window in the weather to depart all necessary duties done we head for Foz, I decided to go cross country to avoid the motorways as much as possible to keep the speed down, the wind gap that was promised did not happen and we were chased along with 50mph winds which did improve the fuel consumption to around 35m/g, we got to Foz gingerly with some decline’s done at 30mph, we find a front view park up and as the sun is out we head into town for a few beers before food, as we’re watching the sun go down with a beer and wine the poodle spots a cat and reacts and both drinks are on the floor grrrrrr she’s not learnt