Off we go!

Surprisingly for us we managed to set off on time, 11.30 am on 5 May, allowing plenty of time for our journey to Portsmouth.

Our first stop was a late planned but lovely start to our trip – a fab picnic lunch with Debi at Woodall Services on the M1! The sun shone as we sat at a picnic table alongside the motorway, with our car and caravan dwarfed by the lorries alongside.

We left about an hour later and made such good time that we arrived near Portsmouth with hours to spare, so we had our second picnic and then arrived early at the Brittany Ferries port.  We had hoped to meet up with Ritchie and Phil too en route (and we would probably have had time as it turns out) but despite everyone’s best efforts it proved to be just too hard to do!

As ever we were among the last to board, this time involving a U-turn on the car deck with the caravan. 

We dumped our bags in our cabin and headed straight for the bar where we managed to get through a bottle of red wine in very short time. We both slept really well and had a very lazy day on board, even watching the final episode of Line of Duty which Grant managed to download to his iPad whilst we were dropping off in Roscoff!

All passengers were invited later to gather in the bar to celebrate the birth of Baby Sussex, with discounted bottles of champagne on offer – we went on deck to look for whales (with no success) and then had a beer in the bar. We landed on time and despite having to once again reverse with the caravan to get off the ferry (!) had a good journey from Bilbao to our first campsite Orio Kanpina, which is near Zarautz in the Basque country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is a lovely site, only yards from the sea and with mountains close behind us. We set up camp, which took a while as the pitch is not as level as it looks, then visited the camp restaurant/bar for a tapas lunch. You order your choices on a preprinted form, which you then hand in to the waitress who lets you know when it is ready to collect – an unusual system but it works, even with our non-existent knowledge of the local dialect. We then had a bracing walk by the beach and to the harbour before heading out to the nearest supermarket in Orio, about a mile away. 

This was very successful and we now have a fridge stocked with wine and local cheese. The rain started during the night, it was also quite windy, so we checked the canopy a few times during the night, and woke up late to more rain which is due to stop this afternoon.

This morning’s drama has been that our water pump has broken – it was new back in January as its predecessor seized, which means we cannot run water in the caravan. However there are plenty of water taps, washing up areas and showers so it shouldn’t be a massive problem until we can get another pump. That may be easier said than done as this type of system is pretty unique to UK caravans.

Once the rain stops we plan to go exploring some of the area this afternoon.