We’ve had a ball over the past six months living on the
sunny Spanish Costas in the RV at the Marjal Costa Blanca Eco campsite and the
time we’ve spent there has been more than eventful. So much so, that I’ve been
greatly amiss at keeping this blog up to date.
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| Marjal Camp site |
As you know from our previous posts, we’ve been out cycling,
doing some swimming and enjoying the first class spa facilities on the camp.
We’ve
been out touring around some of the interesting towns and villages in the
little IQ.
Last November on one of our first forays out on our cycles we
travelled through the really nice village of San Isidro, just a few miles away
from the camp.
It was a typical little Spanish village with some old parts and
some new. It had a central café called the Rincon that seemed to be the place
where all the locals appeared to congregate. I had made a passing remark to Kay
that this was an idyllic little spot that reminded me of a similar place that
we loved in Crete. It was somewhere we felt, we could easily spend the rest of
our days.
Gradually as we were nearing the end of our stay it became
increasingly obvious to both of us that we just didn’t want to leave Spain and
the thought of the journey back to cold wet old Britain had us feeling a bit
down especially as we started to wave bye, bye, to friends and neighbours who
over the next few days also departed for pastures new.
Towards the end of our stay we had the rally of the “Motorhome
Funsters” who arrived over the last few weeks of March and we’ve had a ball
meeting them and enjoying some of the party events that they had arranged.
Sadly the time came only too quickly for us to depart, as we
cleared away the windbreaks & tent, moved the RV, pulled up the green
ground mats that we had covered the complete pitch with, re-sited the RV and
visited friends to say goodbye and then prepared for the following day.
We were
up with the Lark and off followed by two fellow RV’ers who wanted to know where
the Repsol LPG place was that we used near to Alicante Airport, here we had
decided to bully the pump attendant into giving us FULL tanks.
A short journey later
up the AP7 and A7 we were filling the RV to the gunnels with gas (after we
managed to get the attendant to understand it was imperative).
The journey
north took us past Sax and Albacete on the A31 where we popped in at a known LPG
stop to see if they had some to offer. Sadly the pump was in pieces, so no luck
there.
Off we went onto the R3 and up to the south of Madrid where
we joined the M50, what godsend it was that Kay is good at map reading, the
Sat-Nav helped but it’s always best to double check as some of the Autopistas looked
like spaghetti junction.
We left the M50 north of Madrid and went up the A1
towards Burgos. We had arranged a one night stopover at a site called Camping Castajan
just north of Aranda de Duero off the A1.
We arrived and navigated carefully
through a forest of trees to set up for the night and gather a much needed
night’s sleep.
Up early once more and off, back up the A1 around Burgos via
the A62 & A231 then onto the A67 for Santander.
We had intended to stop off
at an LPG station at junction 167, at junction 168 we suddenly realised we’d
missed it; well the scenery was fantastic with snow on the mountains and all.
We had been averaging 60 Mph for most of the journey and we were amazed that we
were still on LPG! The old RV had managed over 400 miles on gas alone; we were
chuffed to say the least.
The warning beeper went off just on the outskirts of
Santander to tell us we were now out of gas and it switched itself over to
petrol for the last few miles.
We’d been worried that due to a general strike that day in
Spain, that we could end up sleeping on the docks for the night, but everything
was fine, the docks were open and we arrived in plenty of time to catch the
ferry home.
We also met some of the Funsters from Marjal waiting in the queue to
board the ferry and luckily for us all, the crossing over the Bay of Biscay was
like a mill pond.
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| Santander click to view in full size |
The following day we docked in Plymouth. Driving an RV with a
trailer on the back through that town is not for the feint hearted, though it
wasn’t long before we arrived at the Riverside Camping site on the town’s outskirts.
On the way there we noticed that there was panic buying of fuel and all the
petrol stations blocked with queuing traffic, what a welcome to Britain!!
We off
loaded the IQ and unhooked the trailer at Riverside then quickly departed to
Lee Mils industrial site down the A38 to fill the RV’s tanks with LPG at the
Calor Gas depot (no problem here getting fuel as we filled her up with 251 Litres
of gas at 78p a Ltr).
Now filled with gas it was back to Riverside to spend the
next two nights. We did pop into Sainsbury’s later to stock up on provisions
and while there filled the little IQ with petrol, not that it uses much.
Sunday the 1st of April saw us travelling up the
A38 through Exeter then onto the M5 and north to our next stop at
Burnham-On-Sea’s Home Farm.
So here we sit awaiting the visit of both our daughters and
our adorable grandson, though we did take a trip out to Clarkes Village
shopping centre at Street Nr Glastonbury and then onto Wilton Shopping centre
Nr Salisbury before putting our feet up for the night.
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