Cars, caravans and catastrophes.

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We had had a trial run with our new hobby caravanning,, so now as experts we looked forward to a holiday without hitches?


However, when we joined the ferry queue at Portsmouth, we realised it may not be so simple, as Michelle noticed that our ferry had been booked for the following week. Terry advised her to start crying as this might persuade the man in the kiosk to look for a place for us. However, it was not necessary and the very nice man said we were lucky as he found the only caravan place left.

The boat and our cabin were better than we expected and Terry soon realised that, after Michelle, he was the youngest on board. Caravans were in abundance and the chat seemed to revolve round caravans, motor homes and how much money you had.

When we came off the ferry our GPS would not work telling us there were no maps on it. Never mind we can find our way to the first site and then we can hook it up to the computer and sort it out. As we left Santander,Terry went cold as he realised that when leaving the ferry he had put his credit cards, driving licence etc on the roof of the car; a quick look showed they were not there.

We unhitched the caravan and shot back to the port. Walked through security and passport control. A nice crew member took us back on board but of no avail. Whilst Michelle started telephoning the 4 companies we have cards with Terry drove back to the caravan looking out for the little wallet. By the time he had returned Michelle had cancelled all the cards. By now 2 hours had gone by and we asked the port for their phone number in case it turned up.

Then Michelle noticed a missed call on her phone from a Spanish number. The nice lady in the port telephoned the number for us and a man had found the wallet and had found our phone numbers in it. He said he would meet us outside the town hall at 9.45pm. We had two hours to wait so took the caravan to a local site and returned. By 10.00pm we had our cards back (although now useless) and were having a beer and tapas in a cafe. We were both drained and when we got back to the caravan collapsed in bed.

GPS sorted and Michelle's credit cards working we can now start on our holiday. We next stopped near Bilbao where it started to rain. That did not bother us ex-sailors, as we have brought our storm proof sailing jackets which repel all weathers,and off we set for Bilbao. Unfortunately, we found that Terry's storm proof jacket turned out to be high waisted trousers!

Bilbao is a really beautiful city and the people were very friendly. It must be nice when it isn't raining! Off to San Sebastian, through flooded roads and spray. Our campsite is nice and we set our caravan up during the lighter interludes of rain.

Next morning we found someone had stolen our hose which fills our water tank - welcome to Spanish campsites!

San Sebastian is another beautiful city with many old buildings. We could spend a few days here if only it would stop raining - just for a few minutes please.

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Photos

Happy on the Ferry
Little did he know the treats that were in store for him

Bilbao
During a small break in the rain

Beautiful Bilbao
During the rain

San Sebastian
With the statue of Sebastian in the background

San Sebastian
In front of the beach!!

San Sebastian
She insisted on taking her hood down in the downpour.

Comments

[Sue Duncan]

what a start.....
Your start to caravanning is terrible - It can only get better!!! I look forward to the next episode saying everything is going well! :o) xxx

[Jan]

Oh what fun
What interesting lives you both have, i suppose at the time it was a pain but i bet when you sat down with a glass of beer you had a good laugh. Another very interesting blog post, love hearing about what you do and where you travel to. Have fun.

[Michelle and Terry]

No
No we didn't we just cried ourselves to sleep

[debbie]

having a good time then !!!
perhaps caravaning is not your best idea i am just glad mic is there to keep an eye on you goodness knows what you would be like if you were alone xx