Day 16

We did not get up as early as we were going to this morning after a restless night sleep as it was very very hot last night. After a little deliberation we decided we had had enough of the blandness of Spain and decided to head to Portugal in search of a more eye pleasing sights and a bit of greenery. I seemed to be driving all day today as Spain is just road and road and road, there does not seem to be any pull-ins or picnic sites anywhere, where as in France they are every ½ a mile. We arrived at a city called Coimbra where we were following a guide book for free motor home parking areas. Kim was navigating leaving me the simple task of looking out for the Buses, Trams and kamikaze pedestrians, as per usual I was directed straight through the centre of the city at rush hour! After the fourth time past the same bus stop we decided to head for the coast where the hope was that their will be less options of roads to take. A further hour down the road and the sound of tummy rumbling was becoming distracting so for the first time in two weeks we succumbed to a Macdonald’s. The motor home guide sent us down to the sea front, unfortunately the fair was in town right where we wanted to park so plan B, the local campsite. As it was getting late the worry that we would find somewhere safe to stop the night was starting to set in and then the sight of the Campisimo. I thought that would be the last of it until we had paid the man and followed his directions to where to park up. To give you the overview the campsite was set on the side of a very steep hilly section of woods, the idea was to camp in these woods, small tracks in between the trees were the route to an area. The man suggested that we head left, so following his instructions we did. The track led us to the edge of the hill with a shear drop and a patch of sloping sandy mud about 10 metres square for me to do fifteen point turn on. At the one point we slid backwards as I was trying to move forwards, I really did not think we were going to make it out. Eventually we headed back to the tarmac road to try and find a pitch on if not close to tarmac. After following the road around the outer circumference of the camp site we travelled down a section of tarmac to an area supposed to be for campervans, the road disappeared and once again became sandy mud, I got out of the van to have a look and suss out which way to go next. I could see that a little further ahead was a lovely flat area with an electricity point perfect to stop by, so I turned back and looked towards the van. The van was positioned with a leaning tree to it’s right and a large ditch to its left, the gap was a little over 6 inches wider than the van, behind was more sandy mud, no where to turn around and about 50 metres to reverse up hill, so I decide to risk going forwards. As we approached the leaning tree I had to move over enough so that the van would lean at the same angle as the tree to get the 3 ½ meters of the van height passed the tree, in order to do this the van teetered on the edge of the ditch, there was silence in the van and a cold sweat pouring down my brow but we made it past. A quick Jack Daniels for medicinal purposes only then straight to bed, as we’ve got to get out of here somehow tomorrow.