Cally
writes...
We arrived at the town of Vielha about midday
after coming coming through some lovely views of the Pyrenees
and I'm pleased to say lots of snow. We decided to fill up
with diesel (as we used most of our climbing the mountains!)
which was €0.96 per litre. Steven put on his best Spanish
accent and used some of his limited vocabulary to ask the
direction to the nearest supermarket. After getting re-supplied
we carried on through the Pyrenees and found a nice spot to
park on the side of a mountain in about 6cm of snow. We spent
our first night in Spain here. In the morning we opened our
blinds to find fresh snow and it was still snowing quite heavy.
When we turned on the tap to shower no water came out. Steven
soon discovered that the pipe from the water tank that goes
outside before coming in to the water pump had froze. After
a few minutes with a kettle of water we soon got defrosted.
Before
leaving the Pyrenees we wanted to drive through a gorge that
Steven had visited some years before on his motorbike. It
was beautiful and made even more dramatic with the snow and
ice.
Then
we drove around Huesca and then Zaragoza. From previous experience,
we've learned that driving a vehicle larger than a small van
in and through a large town or city can be challenging and
impossible to park. Often ending in Steven and myself having
a few words! We stayed the night in a train station car park
in the village of Villadoz. It was windy and cold, so with
Mog rocking us to sleep off we went to the land of nod.
We
decided we wanted to visit the town of Cuenca and its beautiful
medieval buildings and ‘Hanging houses’. We had
been told about it before but had never got the chance to
visit. We managed to drive straight to the tourist office
and parked easily in their car park.
The lady in the tourist office told us we would have no problems
driving Mog to the top of the old town where there was somewhere
we could park overnight, we were pleased with this as that
was where we needed to go to visit the famous ‘hanging
houses’ We later realised that was only true if we didn’t
meet any vehicles coming the other way, as we drove up to
the old town, the streets were very narrow with many over
hanging lights and balconies which made it impossible for
us to move over to the side out of vehicles way. Still, we
did make it to the top and found the car park perched on the
edge of a cliff with a nice view so decided to stop there
for the night, it was fairly windy when we went to sleep but
has been since South France so we didn’t mind. That
soon changed as the night wore on, we were awake continuously
with the van rocking and wind howling round the vents, at
3.30am the wind hit us so hard that a cup fell over on the
work top, that was enough for me so with me throwing his clothes
at him I told Steve that he had to get up and move Mog back
down to the tourist office car park. We later found out that
South France and North Spain had been experiencing severe
gales which had resulted in several deaths so we counted ourselves
lucky.
The
next morning we decided we’d catch a bus back up to
the old town and walk back down. It was still very windy and
we could see some of the damage the wind had done where we’d
been parked the night before. We walked back down the narrow
alleyways and visited the cathedral, it was huge!
As
we carried on further down we found the Hanging Houses, which
were pretty bizarre, don’t think I’d want to live
there. Just in front of the Hanging Houses there was a huge
bridge across the valley and road to a big posh hotel, We
started our way across even though I’m terrified of
heights, but I didn’t get very far and with Steve laughing
at me I had to turn back, If you want to laugh at me too,
you can look at the You Tube video!
Needless
to say I was glad when we got back to ground level so rewarded
myself with a beer and tapas.
We
left Cuenca in the afternoon and spent some time driving before
finding a Carrefour in a place called Villarrobledo, we went
and got some bits then decided as it was getting late this
would be a good place to stop for the night. After an hour
we found that the security guard didn’t agree when he
knocked on our door and said no Lorries were allowed in the
car park. We had seen the sign permitting lorry’s on
the way in but consider ourselves a camper not a lorry. Still
never mind, we packed up and ended up parking on an industrial
estate just round the corner, it was lovely and peaceful except
for the noise of the still persistent wind.
We
left Villarrobledo the next morning and hit the motorway to
just North of Granada at a service station where we spent
the night, It was really windy and was raining all the time
we were driving today, but I went to sleep happy knowing the
further south we got the warmer it should be getting and thinking
at least we’d left the snow behind in the Pyrenees………………………………………………………
How wrong could I of been, we woke the next morning to find
the roads at a standstill because of the 2 feet of snow that
had fallen through the night!
Of
course Molly loved it and happily found a dead sheep as soon
as she went out the door.
When
we had packed up we joined the slow moving traffic south,
it soon cleared up and was defiantly getting warmer when we
stopped for the night near Torremelinos. On the south coast
the effect of tourism
is huge, Hotels and Golf courses everywhere, not really our
sort of thing and we were glad to be out of there and finally
arrive at Gibraltar.
Anyone
who’s been to Gibraltar will know it’s not the
easiest place to drive on to and park (unless you’re
on a moped) so we decided that Steve would wait off with Molly
and Mog while I walked on and sussed it out. We knew we could
park in Morrison’s and did want to go there but also
needed to internet and all the washing We’d managed
to gather on the way down. I thought if I asked at morrison’s
nicely they might let us park there a bit longer but it didn’t
work and they insisted 3 hours was the maximum stay. I did
however find where the laundrette was and the internet. We
drove Mog on the next day and managed to park outside the
laundrette for a couple of hours to do our washing then parked
in Morrison’s to get stocked on our English bits we’d
miss while we were away ( Bisto, Marmite etc…)
Then we drove Mog off Gibraltar again, parked up and got the
bus back to do internet at the Lord Nelson. It was a lot of
messing around but at least we got everything done. Diesel
was 63.5pence on Gib but we didn’t fill up as we were
going to be in Ceuta in a few days and knew it’d be
cheaper there.
We
drove to Algerciras from Gibraltar and got our ferry ticket
there, We started getting excited then but still had to get
stocked up on Beer, wine, Orange juice and anything else that
is expensive in Morocco and of course Pork sausage and bacon
as who knew how long before we’d be buying them again!
The
next morning we finally after too many years waiting we finally
got on the ferry to Ceuta………………………………….Yeah!
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