Zarautz 22nd to 29th May

Our original plan was to be in Biarritz at this time and then travel up through France, stopping at La Rochelle, Bordeau, Alencon, Boulgne, each for at least two nights and then a short hop to Calais.  However we’d left a couple of days earlier from La Manga than we needed to and then decided that we’d only do one two-night stop on the way up.  Just enough time to find a vet and get the necessary done with the dog on route.

This would give us four more days in the area so we decided that as the weather was taking a turn for the worse we’d stay for 7 nights in Zarautz. We might as well be sitting in Zarautz in the rain as anywhere else, it might be raining but it might be a bit warmer.

The first evening we arrived we hadn’t been shopping and so thought we’d eat in the campsite restaurant. Iain thought it was ok, but I wasn’t impressed at all.  It was expensive for what we got and I hate meals without any vegetables at all.  But I was so knackered from the horrendous drive that I didn’t really care, it was just fuel – oh no not that word.

The following day it rained quite heavily in the morning. For me it was a chance to do some well needed housework, catch up on my blog and maybe do some of the “indoor” things that I just haven’t been doing with the weather being nice. Since leaving the house I have been carrying two boxes of old family photos that I have been intending to scan in and then get rid of and we’re still carrying them around. We were desperate to do some washing but with the weather I didn’t want to have it hanging around damp in the van, so that would have to wait for another day.

I have hardly been doing any “craft” stuff at all, as I said when the weather is nice and you want to be outdoors you can’t really get out all your “bits” as often they will blow away.

The other things I had intended to do, if you have read my blog from months ago, was to bake cakes.  I had thought that rather than making “stuff” that would clutter up the van I could make cakes and sweets and then destroy the evidence.  We’ll I’d done nothing. I had heard that the Remoska bakes cakes quite successfully so I had been carrying a cake mix with us for ages just to try it out.  So today – I baked a cake.  No I’m not feeling ill.  Actually although the cake mix was for cup-cakes I used the Remoska as a cake tin, which was a bit big so it was a bit of a flat cake, but hey it tasted good and didn’t last very long. 

In the afternoon we took a walk.  Now remember that I said the campsite was on the top of a hill, well whichever direction we took would mean a downhill first and then an uphill.  The views from up here are quite splendid and we found the Mollari mineral loading bay quite unexpectedly.  This is where for about 20 years in the early 20^th century the hematite was brought down the hills by a system of cable buckets and loaded onto ships off the coast.  We walked down to the exhibition area which had pictures and information that gave a good idea of how it all worked.  There is nothing there now except the support bases and the holding warehouse but it was still quite interesting. A cantilever bridge was situated on the farthest of the rocks to load the ships.

I'm still lagging behind but there's no pink rucksack in sight

 When we arrived at the site the guy in reception said "Nice car, we don't get many as big as that up here" then the following day this arrived, three slideouts, Spanish registered and driven by an ex-pat Dutchman.

With Fiat 500 in tow - at least they can go shopping

 The following day (Saturday) we forecast to be the best day of the next few weather-wise and we also needed to get some essential supplies, actually food for a change, not wine, so we took the coastal path down into the town.  As I said from here everything was down which meant that the way back could only be up.  We took two rucksacks with the intention of ONLY getting anything that was essential.

View from just outside the campsite

Part of the way into town meant walking on the beach which the dog loved. The town itself was very pleasant and the beach is the longest in the Basque area and is a surfers paradise.  We had a walk around and a well-earned beer and then made our way back up the steep hill to the campsite.  I have to admit that we had to stop a few times for a rest and we were very glad when we got back.  Even though she hadn’t refused at all on the way back, the dog collapsed on the grass and fell asleep almost immediately.  I do like a day when you actually feel that you have done something rather than just sitting around.

Pink rucksack again.

Shame about the lift, or is it a public toilet with a view

One man and his dog

Connie making the most of the local facilities

A surfers paradise

Spot the campsite at the top of the bright green, almost at the top

You can just make out the path up the hill

I stopped for a rest here about 2/3 of the way up

On (Sunday) the forecast wasn't good so we were mostly confined to barracks.  About 2pm the dog started her nag to go for a walk so we took her out.  Of course it started to rain (or were we just in the clouds) and I have to admit that it’s the first day since 29^th December that I had worn a coat. We had also forgotten what it’s like to have a wet smelly dog in the van.

We went out of the campsite and took the road, this is when we found the road that we would have come up a few days before had we not gone back up the way we had come down. It was very tiny and windy as we had thought it may be, but what surprised us most was the sign at the top saying nothing over 15 tonnes.

A church on it's own at the top of the hill

View down to Orio harbour. To the left is the road that we might have come up

 Then we took a look to see the route into town if we went along the road and also to have a look at the way down next week.  The photo below shows the route out of the campsite. I’d better not look again or I will be having nightmares about leaving.  I said we should stay here forever.

It will be very slowly down this hill away from the campsite

Whilst the weather isn't that bad, we must have got acclimatised to the warmth as we're feeling pretty cold. We've actually had the heating on to take the chill off the air and it's a warm 18 C.  Even the dog is feeling the difference and making the most of a warm blanket. 

The campsite itself if pretty big, although quiet this time of year and it is terraced with mainly small pitches. We suspect that during the summer this site would be rammed full with young people!!!! Yes, we haven't seen many of them during the last 5 months.  The beach is a real surfers paradise and apparently the population of the town swells from 23,000 to 60,000 in the summer - well they all have to stay somewhere and although it's a real hike to the beach, I'll bet this campsite comes alive during July and August.

We had some new neighbours who are also full-timing (G &A) and they have the luxury of a car with them. They very kindly took pity on us and took me to the supermarket so that we could get some supplies that weren't just the "essentials".  The campsite does have a shop and it's ok for bread and a bit of ham or cheese oh and of course the essential beer or two but that's about it, so unless you want to eat in their restaurant every night you really do need to get into town. We have eaten in the bar a couple of nights and funnily enough it's the same menu as the restaurant but with a couple of hamburger choices added.  This time we ordered their rationes which is a double size tapas and three of them between us was plenty for dinner.  I'm only including this in case anyone wants to come here, maybe I did the restaurant an injustice.

Having walked into town on Saturday we knew we would do it again before we left and looking at the weather forecast, chose Tuesday, the weather was great on Tuesday and it was actually a bit warm, so we decided to have a lazy day at the campsite and do the walk manana.

G & A gave us some books and one was To Kill a Mockingbird, now that's a book that I'd actually been keeping my eye out for for some time so I was straight in there. I read the whole book in less than 24 hours and was totally immersed.  I'm sure I'm the worlds most boring person when I've got my head stuck in a book, that's why I don't actually read that much.

Wednesday came, our last full day on the campsite and it was raining in the morning. Oh well it was our last day so we had to make that walk. After finishing my book it looked like the weather was going to pick up so we had a very early lunch and then headed off into town.  I really like walking but I just don't do hills very well and as I'd said before every direction from here is downhill, so it's uphill all the way back.  It's not that far into town, about 1 and a half miles and this time we chose to walk down the roadway instead of the footpath.  Now this is the downside of having a dog, we could have gone into town and got a taxi back - but the dog can't go in the taxi so it would have meant leaving her behind, but I have this sort of thing that if we are going for a decent walk then it's such a shame not to take the dog because she still needs to be walked when you return, so the only option was to get on with it and walk both ways.

It was pretty rainy all the way down but just after we got into town it poured. We got absolutely soaked and we had to also get back up that hill.  When I say soaked, by the time we got back we were wet through all layers.  The dog didn't look too happy either.  So it was a quick dry off for the dog and a change of clothes for us and hey presto the rain stopped.  Oh well.

So that's it, I'm totally up-to-date with my news.  Today we are off again, definitely back into France now on our way to England, no definite plan and as we've got to find a vet on route and stupidly two of the days we could use the vet are on Saturday and Sunday (you only get a 4 day window to see the vet) we might have to delay our return by a day or two, but the first thing we will do when we leave here is .................. you guessed it ..... get some LPG.

Oh and I still haven't scanned those old family photos.

St Jean de Luz to Zarautz – 22nd May - One we will never forget!

Still on catch up - 3 posts today, for chronological order read Valladolid to San Sebastian to St Jean de Luz, then St Jean de Luz first.

Enjoy!!!!!

Well I can only sum up this day as one of mistakes – too many.  No pictures today, no time to take pictures, just text – sorry it’s so long but it felt like a very long day - one of our shortest journeys ever and one of the longest.

We set off from out of the campsite with no problems – that’s about as good as it gets.

This was meant to be a short hop of less than an hour to Zarautz, just the other side of San Sebastian but felt like it took a month.

Just for a change we didn’t need to get LPG – even though we were now on reserve.  The nearest LPG station was in San Sebastian but we’ve done 90 miles on reserve before however I wasn’t sure actually when it had gone onto reserve.  Still we had half a tank of petrol so it didn’t matter if we used a bit – mistake No 1 – explanation further on.

Mistake No 2. I clipped a curb getting out of St Jean de Luz, it was one of those that just stuck out on a roundabout on a narrow road.  It was quite a clip and it sounded like everything in the van had bounced about 2 feet in the air.  Well you get used to what I call “settlement noises” as all the things that have been shoved into cupboards settle into a place and stop rattling, but this was quite a bang.  A little further down the road I thought I could hear a cupboard door opening and banging shut again.  Iain assured me that he had shut all the cupboards properly but I was convinced I could hear things dropping into the sink. A quick check revealed that the bang had caused the catch to open and indeed this was the banging noise.  No damage done, cupboard closed and on our way, but this had unsettled me.

We picked up the motorway and headed off.  I didn’t feel comfortable when we approached the toll booth but got through ok,  I just wasn’t feeling confident today and said so. I forgot to mention that I had cut up a log lorry a couple of days ago just outside San Sebastian and it had upset my confidence quite a bit.  When overtaking, I usually try to do so on a straight section of road, I pull out, get my line right and then go for it foot hard down.  I had become quite confident recently and even managed to overtake 3 lorries in one go a few days before, very successfully with no wobbly legs. However, when doing lots of ups and downs, if you are stuck behind a lorry you can be going very slowly on the ups, which makes it easy to overtake but it takes a long time.  If you wait until you start to go down then they start picking up speed and you have to go even faster to overtake.   Well when you are going around the mountains there are a lot of ups and downs and bends so unless you want to go at 40mph on all the ups you have to pick your times.  It was on an up at 40mph that I decided to take on the log lorry.  I pulled out but didn’t realise until I was committed that there was a right-hand bend coming up.  I just got the line totally wrong and came across too close into his lane.  He was not a happy bunny.  Lots of hooting and quite a loud shout from Iain and I moved over to the left very quickly.  Iain said after that the poor lorry driver had had to move over onto the hard shoulder to avoid me. Again no harm done but this was really the closest shave that we had had.  Now it sounds like my driving is terrible, well it’s not, it’s just that I’m driving a wide truck and unlike when driving a car, you have very little margin for error. I take my hat off to the long-distance lorry drivers that do it for a living. But it had shaken me and my confidence quite a bit.

Back to the journey, shortly after joining the motorway the SatNag became the SatNaff.  It had no clue where we were and thought we were in the middle of a field.  I always get nervous when this happens fairly near to where you want to go as you can go miles past a junction without realising it. The journey had seemed so simple when we programmed the SatNag so didn’t do the necessary cross checking with the map.

Anyway in a panic I decided to take the exit to San Sebastian – mistake No 2, especially as I was on the road to Bilbao and we weren’t going far from Bilbao. The SatNag soon realised that we were going the wrong way – and nagged and nagged.  Anyway it wanted us to go alongside the river for about half a mile and then turn left and left again to come back parallel to the way I was travelling. I had a view of the SatNag and couldn’t understand why it wasn’t telling me to turn left earlier,there were plenty of interconnecting roads.  Then we saw a sign post to turn left that looked hopeful but the towns mentioned couldn’t be found on the map (we really must get a better map next year) so Iain said we should follow the SatNag – another mistake. When the  SatNag finally wanted us to turn left it was a “no left turn”.  Then it re-programmed and wanted us to go a lot further down and cross the river and come back up the other side –but that really didn’t feel right.

So I took a left a bit further along and this unfortunately brought me into the city centre. Lots of narrow roads and “wing mirror in” times. However there were signs back to the motorway so at least we were heading out of San Sebastian.  I still (for some unknown reason) had it in my mind that I should not be on the motorway, so when the SatNag finally said – Keep Left – I could see that that would take me back on the motorway and for some other unknown reason I “kept right”.  So here we were again, this time going under the road bearing left, when we should have been on the road above bearing right.  Ok, keep calm, find somewhere to stop and then re-assess.

The SatNag was doing it’s best “turn around where possible” and we came up to a roundabout.  And of course it was another one of those London Underground sorts, but I was ready for it this time.  I politely asked Iain to stop shouting at me as I was doing my best and he informed me that he was also doing “his best” to stay calm. Safely around we headed back into San Sebastian to find the correct route out. Back to a roundabout that we had seen before, so around the roundabout and back to the point where the SatNag had said “Keep Left”, this time, although it took a bit of arguing I did “Keep Left” and we joined the motorway that we had previously left about half an hour earlier.

Stress levels had risen dramatically but at least we were back on the right road – for now – and that was just the warm up for what was to come. We had now been to San Sebastian 3 times and still hadn't seen the place.  I never want to go there again.

It was only a few junctions before we were to pull off so we didn’t really have time to recover.

Then we had to follow the SatNag to Zarautz.  We pulled off at the correct junction and that’s when it all went wrong. Crossing a roundabout I noticed some signs to some campsites but we did not recognise the names of the sites so we blindly followed the SatNag.  In fairness Iain was also following the directions in the ACSI book. We turned right at the roundabout and the SatNag then said to turn left.  BUT THE JUNCTION WAS CLOSED. Of course I had to go past and we heard the dulcet tones of  the SatNag’s  “Turn around when possible”.  Do you think I could find somewhere to turn around – not a chance.   Not only that but the road was getting narrower and suddenly we found ourselves on a 7% descent. One narrow lane each way and lorries coming in the other direction.  And with a sharp hairpin bend half-way down, with no extra space to be found either side. Terrified but safely, we reached the bottom and found ourselves on the outskirts of a town called Orio. 

I pulled over to the harbour area to the left and just stopped and turned off the engine to rest and recouperate.  By this time I was on the verge of tears and this was the first time I’d been that bad since France last year.  So I turned off the engine and said – “time to calm down”. We were only 3 miles from the campsite.  

Now what to do next.  There was a road alongside the harbour which was going in the right direction and that’s the way the SatNag wanted us to go, but I said to Iain that  whilst not being far from the campsite, I knew that the campsite was at the top of a hill, so it was likely that if we could get up there it would be a very steep hill the other side of the bridge we could see, probably with a narrow road.  Whatever there may be no way to turn around.

The choice was fear of the unknown, or fear of what we had just experienced. The only option was to go back up the way we had come down. So feeling brave I swung the motorhome around and we headed back up the 7% incline, with a huge lorry following us.

Now, did I mention that hairpin bend before? – coming down we were on the outside, but going up we were to be on the inside – at least we couldn’t drop off the hill from this side. However when approaching the hairpin bend, I slowed right down to be in total control of this large heavy machine and as I applied my brakes and I thought they felt really spongy.  I put my foot down hard and they were really really spongy.  OMG I realised that I had no brakes.  OMG I realised  that was because there was no servo assist – OMG that was because the engine had stopped – OMG that was because wait for it - we had run out of  LPG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  and it hadn’t clicked over to petrol but had cut out.

So here we were, stopped right at the apex of the bend, with a huge white lorry bearing down on us, or bearing up on us.  I quickly put the hazard lights on and set to what to do next.  I put the motorhome into park, applied the foot brake (handbrake on a car) and took a deep breath.  I turned off the ignition and then turned it back on and hey presto the engine started, it always starts on petrol  anyway.  

Now I just had to do a hill start on a 7% incline around a hairpin bend. I wasn’t sure how close the lorry had stopped behind us and knew that drive would still cause us to roll backwards a bit before I could get the revs up – so it was a handbrake start for me or alternatively a two footed start with one on the brake and one on the accelerator.  I don’t drive two footed so chose the handbrake start which I’d only actually had to do once before and not under such pressure.  The lorry driver was another not very happy bunny, blasting his horn at me,  but this time it was not my fault.  I managed the handbrake start without running backwards and off we went again.

Back to the roundabout that I’d turned right at and took the first exit which was the one signposted to the right campsite all along.

We knew that the campsite was at the top of a hill and was a terraced site (learned our lessons at Playa de Aro) so we knew that we still had more to come.  The hill was nothing though compared to what we’d just been through.  Even though there was a huge drainage ditch on the near-side I could do anything by then, this narrow road felt a mile wide.  Up into the campsite, we stopped at reception.  Iain asked me how long he should book in for and I said FOREVER.

The terracing wasn’t too bad and a very nice man guided us to our pitch on his little three wheeled scooter.  I parked up got out and Iain poured me a very large glass of wine, it was some time later before we could laugh about it or was it just hysteria taking over.

Why do we torture ourselves like this? Are adventures supposed to take you to the emotional limits? It should be so nice just travelling around enjoying the scenery and exploring some lovely places.  I just seem to live every journey in a state of terror.

Anyway we’ve booked in for a whole week – should be time to relax and prepare ourselves for the next journey, or will time simply heal the pain and we’ll actually forget how bad it was.

I must admit thought that writing this and talking through it with Iain we have been laughing at how ridiculous the "Day to Remember" turned out to be. 

Our first stop when we leave here will be to get LPG and where will we find it - you guessed it - San Sebastian.

When choosing a route we always avoid wiggly roads where possible, that always means a narrow road with sharp incline or descent, normally with a big drop on one side and a steep cliff the other. I thought I'd share with you an image of the road to hell and back.