Distance: 7,453 miles / 11,994 kmTime: 223 daysFuel Consumption: 13.2 mpg / 21.4 l/100kmCountries: UK / Spain / Morocco / Portugal It was always our intention to have a shakedown trip before setting off on our African adventure. And we have learned a lot: about ourselves, about Big Bertha, and about overlanding. On reflection, BB is too big from an […]
Our ferry, the Pont Aven, broke down again and we found ourselves with six ‘extra’ days in Northern Spain. Inspired by the magical film ‘The Way’, we visited Santiago de Compestella and Cabo Fisterra – significant parts of the ‘Camino de Santiago’. We parked up in a town 7km outside Santiago, joined the many pilgrims and walked the Camino to […]
We were lucky to be in Jerez visiting friends at the time of the annual Jerez Feria del Caballo. It lasts a week and is very Spanish. We joined our friends, Douglas and Carol, at Carrefour’s caseta to watch people, fireworks and the ceremonial switching on of the illuminations. It was a late night! The next day we visited during […]
The Picos de Europa was definitely the highlight of our Spanish trip for me. The weather, scenery and roads were just stunning. The plains from there to Madrid were boring in comparison. We both liked Madrid – the Xmas atmosphere was lovely. The South East coast is very competitive when it comes to finding camping spots, and wild camping is […]
We learnt of the Caminito del Rey from fellow campers on Sunday and immediately decided to change our plans and make a detour. We parked up nearby and bought our tickets online for Tuesday. It’s a 2.7km hike through a tunnel and forest to the start at the ‘North Access’ and then a 3km hike through the Desfiladero de los […]
Whilst Bertha was having her “surgery”, we had a chance to visit the beautiful capital of Spain. I love Madrid, with its’ wide avenues, pretty squares and numerous green spaces. We stayed in a cheap, clean hostel, chosen for location, rather than luxury. If Madrid is the centre of Spain and Plaza Sol is the centre of Madrid, then our […]
We bought Big Bertha with a known problem… the front axle wheel hubs had a small oil leak. This required David to periodically top up the front hubs with oil, but unfortunately this has disturbed a second gasket and has caused a more severe leak. Our options were to replace these outer gaskets (cheap) and continue periodic top up, or […]
We had intended to make our way from Santander across to Portugal and then over to Madrid (we were due to fly out from Madrid). But we got to the Picos and just sort of stopped. Our first port of call was Lebeña, a small hamlet on the approach to the Picos. We had the camp spot to ourselves and […]
We recently had occasion to help out some fellow campers. It has been very wet in our part of Spain and it’s so easy to get stuck on grass in a front wheel drive camper; even on the level. And so it came to be the other day when a couple of campers ventured into the grass overflow carpark and, […]
So, we had a couple of months of waiting before we could go anywhere – waiting for Big Bertha to arrive, waiting for Dave to pass his HGV test, waiting for our belongings to arrive from Malaysia, waiting for Amazon deliveries to furnish our new home, waiting for the ferry to deposit us outside of the UK… But eventually we […]