That Was The Week That Was

27th Nov

Stay

Well we decided to stay a few days at the site, and Sam went to the office this morning and paid up until Sun. This will give us a few days to chill and relax
The site has everything we need it is very large but has enough toilet/shower blocks dotted around.

We were told at the office I could get a data card for my Huawei wifi device at a shop called Worten at a hyper store on the outskirts of town. I was told you can walk it and was given a map and we set off, We weren't keeping track of the time it was a nice walk along the coast, and over an hour later we arrived at the store.

I was able to find a chap that spoke English and asked him if they sold such cards? Yes thankfully was his reply and he took me over to where they were on display! I had walked past these several times and thought they were phones in the boxes and not containing a micro-sim "definitely over the top packaging"

A bit OTT for a micro-sim card

I also bought a 16GB penstick to back up our photos, and then I went into the hyper store and bought quite a lot of groceries not thinking about getting it home. An hour later I emerged happy with myself and loaded up with about 6 carrier bags full "mistake"  the bags were cutting into our hands we transferred some into better stronger bags that Sam had in her handbag fortunately, as some were already breaking! Further down the road we stopped at a bric a brac shop and purchased some garish but purpose built carrier bags and transferred the shopping into these and we could then hoik these over our shoulders and it was a lot easier.
We stopped and had a coffee and got back to the van about 3 1/2 hours later totally worn out and we then chilled for the rest of the day.

28th Nov
A lazy day, so some Stats to date...
We have been on the road 17 days, drove 1800 miles at a cost of £395.00
Spent £99.00 on drink (£5.82 per day) not bad including bars and £154.00 on food

This is the best thing since sliced bread in my opinion, and it has been a blessing when we have been unable to get fresh milk

It does what it says on the tin, and to taste it, it is like full fat milk! remember gold top? great on your coco pops


29th Nov

Take it Easy

Yesterday was just a chilling day nothing much to report so Sat morn I get a call from my Brother, he informs me that the GPS co-ords I am posting on the blog don't work when he cuts and pastes them into google maps, we have a good chat for 20 mins and he says he will look into the problem (he mailed me later with some info)
and we realise we are using an apostrophe ' instead of a min ′ so we had to edit the last two posts and re correct, we also decided to hyperlink them, which enables readers of the blog to click on them and it will take you into google maps to the position.

As is customary for me on a Sat I had a full Welsh complete with Laverbread "I had not had a cooked breakfast since we hit the road" truly scrumptious. With that done we went for a walk to see if we could get to watch any football on TV unfortunately we drew a blank so I was consigned to watching my phone for updates on the Rugby and the Swans v Palace game

Full Welsh Breakfast
 

Wales beat the boks and Swansea drew "poor ref decision once again" so in all not a bad day P.s England won their rugby game also against a tired Australia

The Sun sinking after another glorious day

30th Nov

Sunny Afternoon

Today it has been quiet a lazy sort of day, just mooching about the van chilling.
I was able to fix my rear view camera that had stopped working "it turned out to be a loose connection" since we first started off. Sam has cooked a whole chicken piri piri, and I am now following the footy on the net while Sam is doing some laundry.
Later on we will make a decision on our next move? Do we stay a or do we move on whatever the outcome it will be at a more sedate pace from now on. We will try and hug the coast down to the Algarve stopping along the way. We will eventually like to find a place we can hole up for a while over the Xmas period then in January we will meet up with some folk from the MHfun forum and enter Morocco on the 8th

A couple of views from the campsite

Another fantastic Sunset

 
1st December

Cold December Night

Well it's Dec 1st and we walk along the beach to visit the Intermarche to get some bits and pieces! However when I go in I always come out with sackfull of gear, and today was no different. We only had the one large carrier bag with, us so it was I that had to lug it home on my shoulder, and by the time we got back to camp my shoulder was killing as the bag straps dug into it. So it was a stop at the bar for a frosty one and relax for a while.
This morning we paid for another day here, it's nice and chilled we like the area and the beach, at times we were the only ones walking it this morning. The weather was once again warm and sunny

 It's a fantastic beach, you can see the town in the distance

 

Max at full pelt

So we are undecided at the moment whether to pull out or stay a few more days "such a decision" we have made some plans of our next stops and will be heading down to the Chicken Run Campsite to see what it's like? If we like it we will stay for awhile around there, it seems to tick most of the boxes for us!

Goan Chicken vindaloo for supper tonight! another of my specialities...

Goan Chicken Vindaloo with a side of Tomato and Onion salad and a glass of Vinho Tinto

As I write this the wind is rocking the van like buggery, it was so windy we stayed in and skipped the happy hour now that is windy !!!
Nb. We have been in Portugal 6 days, and last night was the first time we had a drop of the local grog

Woke up this morning to an empty bottle (not bad for €4.69)

2nd Dec

Good Morning To The Night

The storm blew over and we woke to another glorious sunny day albeit a bit chillier than yesterday, it was still 16⁰ but a tad more breezy. We went on one of our exploratory walks after our breakfast "branflakes yogurt n honey" today we walked the other way along the beach coast towards the peninsular, about an hour later we arrived at the tip a place called Baleal, and stopped and had coffee and cakes and watched the surfers.

Graffiti in the men's toilet !! in the little café we stopped at

Billy Bridgend what a Prat

 

We have seen lots of surf shops here in Peniche but had not seen any surfers (it's called the wave capital) or realised how popular it was until today? it seems the best waves were where we ended up, there were dozens of VW / campervans in the car park French, German, Dutch and Portugese and equal amounts of surfers! I googled it later and found this linky.. The beaches here are fantastic, it has also one of the biggest fishing ports in Portugal.

 

 

 

So we wandered back along the coast road, the road pavement also doubles up as a circuit training run with the metres marked every 100 we started off at the tip at 3400 there are exercise things every few hundred meters "step jobbies n situp thing's" did not find a smoke bench though, and we got back to camp an hour later. In all we walked about 5miles or 8Km...

and so it was to the bar to check in, to let people know who may be worrying about our abstinence last night, Learning to Fly by Pink Floyd was playing on the radio. We stopped for awhile

We also decide at to stay another 2 days!! WHY?  We wake up to glorious blue sky's, a beach on our doorstep and everything we were looking for, when we started this trip weather included. As I have said we have plenty of time to head further South, but at the moment it's nice to chill, we feel like we are on holiday now, and we are in no rush "Sorry to the people that just like reading about driving and roads" 
Today we were cut off by our phone provider!!! Good old Vodaphone
We had our phone unlocked before we left Horsham, and we quit our overly priced contracts, we were told in the shop we could go into any shop abroad and get pay as u go sim's, thus enabling us to keep our numbers.
We have since, whilst travelling received an email saying our sim;s will be posted to our home address?  So now we have no phone between us hopefully we can sort it in a shop over here, or by customer services!! Good old Vodaphone grrr

3rd Dec

Some Sunny Day

Another day and not much to report except that the mighty Swans took apart Harry's star studded jet set crew from London last night "QPR" I had the game on the net, and to be honest could not see how we had not scored until Ki broke the deadlock in the 78th min all credit to their keeper Green. Next up big Sam's hoof it in the air seals at West Ham on Sunday "a lot riding on this game financially"
We found a Vodaphone shop in Peniche on the Internet, so into town we went to look for it! after some time we unearthed a whole plethora of shops we had not found on our jaunts into previously, it was like a maze as we winded down the side streets Santander and other banks bric a brac shops pretty much everything. Sam went into the Vodaphone shop there were 5 people in the queue and just one person serving on the sole desk. After about 15mins we gave up and decided to come back early tomorrow and try our luck again.

 Fish factories many of them
 

Peniche town
 

One delicacy of Peniche and most probably Portugal in general is salt cod, they seem to sell it everywhere. We passed the Port on the way into town and saw the fishing trawlers and fish factories, we will endeavour to purchase and sample some fresh fish while we are here .