Getting chilly... And we've done 12,000 km's !

Anyway after slowly heading up the coast of Portugal we crossed into Galacia again in Spain and soon came across a lovely rainy low pressure system and encountered our first "proper" rainfall for a while !!!

We spent a few nights in local Aires and looked around some beautiful little Spanish towns.. We used the water services and local cafes then crossed up into Asturias again via the scenic mountain roads and onto the the North coast.
Our first night was spent at the beautiful National park at Cabarceno not far from the Pico mountains.. A truly stunning area with a enormous Elephant sanctuary housing approx 20 Elephants, (adults and babies) loads of Buffalo and Deer, All roaming freely with each other..
I'm not normally a fan of animals in captivity etc but this place has to been seen to be believed.. It was absolutely huge.. Acre upon acre of land with mud bath lakes and grass hills.. All the animals looked so healthy and happy a bit surreal really as we were only in Spain and it looked like a set from Jurassic park!!
We had tasty tapas for dinner and camped that night next to the enclosure by the lake and Barney as usual had an excellent time swimming and chasing his ball !! the Ducks didn't mind sharing their lake with him as Claire gave them all our old baguettes and stale pan o chocolates from the day before.
We left the next morning and clocked up some Km's and by mid afternoon we were parked in a Spanish aire in the stunning beach town of San Sebastian, not far from the French border..
We spent 2 lovely days in San Sebastian, cycling everywhere and sitting outside cafes people watching, (even an hour on the beach).
It really is a beautiful town, obviously very wealthy and the local council take very good care of it. There's an abundance of expensive shops selling designer clothes, hand made chocolates, wines and jewellery, and restaurants selling mega expensive dishes.. Thankfully tho most bars sell small dishes called "pixtos" which are layed out on the bar similar to tapas and you can help yourself and pay when your finished.. small tidy dishes and more kind of finger food than tapas, like Parma rolls and cheesy sausages and lots of seafood, basically everything for anyone's taste buds..

Also San Sebastian has a massive University and a very large population of students, who seem to mix extremely well and have a lot of respect for the also very large elderly population.. This mainly noticeable in the lack of graffiti, litter and drunk people !!
Other things that really stand out are the super clean beaches (1 very good surfing beach and 1 protected swimming half moon bay) and the cycle and bus lanes seem to work in perfect harmony, there are 1000's of bikes everywhere and it seems by far the easiest way to get around, for the elderly and the young...
Anyway like I said we stayed for 2 lovely days and then bimbled our way over the border and into France and our first stop for 2 nights was another beautiful if somewhat massively expensive Biarritz !!
Another really picturesque beach town with cobbled streets and hidden cove beaches and again another 2 days of cafes and people watching with the added bonus of some really fun waves and lots of body surfing with the pregnant wife !!

I won't waffle on now much longer as this is starting to break blog length records for me and I need to give Barney his evening run !! so will upload a few pics after ( for some reason you cannot seem to load them in any particular order and they just randomly mix themselves up so sorry if they are a little confusing) ::))

Peace out X

U turn in the road ...

Yep like the title says... We left Portimao in Portugal and headed off down the Algarve coast in search of more tranquil spots and empty beaches.. We sadly didn't find any.. Just concrete jungle after concrete jungle sprawling across the horizon..

We gave up on the last few km's of the Algarve and headed into Spain.

Andalusia is a very pretty area and at last we found lots of local culture and a few empty beaches with friendly locals a real feel for Spain, also the area is much greener than the dusty Algarve we had just left with grass and green trees on every corner !! (obviously this meant we had a little rain for the first time in a while !

Anyway after a few more days bimbling along via Seville and the flat lands we arrived in Jerez a big Sherry producing town with all the famous major Sherry names all having head depots in the area and main outlets for the whole of Europe,also Jerez has a famous Moto GP circuit which was the main reason we were there !! A friend of ours was booked on a 2 day track event so we hooked up with him and even parked Hector in the hotel carpark next to the race track and made full use of his hotel facilities, swimming pool etc !!
We even had a good day track side parked up on the circuit behind the pit lanes (slightly frustrating not being able to ride myself.. But will next time). Listening to the bikes on full chat up the main straight !!

After leaving Jerez we headed a little further down the coast towards Tarifa and began planning our route over towards Alicante where my dad lives for a visit.. However after a day or so looking at the maps and realising it would be nearly 900 km's of concrete toll roads with no non touristy beaches we decided to do a U TURN !! So that's exactly what we did.. and within an hour we were back on the road towards Seville and then eventually back over the border into Portugal !! with a few overnight wild stops along the way.

Sagres.....

Yep back at the Southwest tip meant loads more surfing, Empty beaches, Yoga and fresh cheap food !!

After a few days chilling in town we have now slowly started our Journey home.. But back up the west coast via all the lovely spots we found and stopped at on the way down and few more we didn't get time to see...

I'll add some piccies of the trip so far, a few left over Sagres etc and some of the Industrial port town Sines (had some real fun waves) and the main church based ones are of a small town called Fatima, which has very big religious significance in Portugal where pilgrims make their journey to every year.. Most of the other pics are just fun beaches and lovely views !!

Slowly heading home to have a baby :)

Peace out x