Day: 8 October 2015

Journey from Bilbao to La Manga – Day 1, the sunflower trail.

IMG_0752Ferry arrived on time and we didn’t have to wait too long before we disembarked. This is our third time of doing this and with Lesley in charge of navigation we made short work of any potential sidetracks and headed on our way towards our overnight stop at Camping Pico de la Miel.

IMG_0744All together we drove 211 miles, an easy drive helped by the fact that the weather was excellent the roads superb and the traffic very light. The first part of the journey is through very green  and luscious landscapes, undulating and very pretty. Further on and there is a definite change to the landscape, it is now much more open country side, the trees disappear and there are huge areas of agricultural farmland, a prominent crop seems to be sunflowers. At this time of year they appear to be dead and I assume they are waiting to be harvested for their seeds. IMG_0730The hills when you get to them are big, at times we are in excess of 1500m.

Apart for stops for lunch and fuel we drove straight through arriving at Camping Pico de la Miel at about 6:00pm.IMG_0732IMG_0746 IMG_0731

Ferry: Portsmouth to Bilbao

imageAfter a good trip to Portsmouth we queued up (in first place) ready to go through check in in the morning. 4G signal at the dock (in fact most of the way to Portsmouth) meant that we had pretty good internet access so were able to access emails, our blog and social media. The ferry, “Cap Finistere” was the same one we have travelled on before and it’s okay, nothing fancy but nothing missing either. Wifi is free but not very fast. It’s still impressive when you think we are moving and must be locked onto a satellite to get it.

There is a small cinema on board showing a selection of films throughout the journey. We opted to watch “Tha Man from Uncle”, it was absolute rubbish, but on the plus side the seats were very comfortable and we had a good view of the screen.

We had dinner in the restaurant and the food was very good, I can’t remember the names of the dishes Lesley had scallops followed by Sole for the main course and I had serrano ham and a poached egg followed by a sumptious pork dish. Unfortunately as it was now dark and the boat was rocking a bit I started to feel a little off. Lesley had taken some sea sickness tablets and was feeling fine. We decided to watch a bit of telly as a distraction but at 9:00 decided it would be a good idea to go to bed. I felt better lying down and slept quite well. The restaurant’s Petit Dejéuner was basically the full English, it was very nice and should set us up for the day. No delays so far and the sun looks like it could be there for us as we arrive.