Awaycation Summer 2024 - Spain

With the Norfolking About trip over I am now starting to look at the main summer holiday trip to Spain and France.

Altogether we are away for 22 nights. The first two will be spent on the ocean wave going to Bilbao.

I have the next two nights booked in a site on the coast at Laredo. This will give Reggie a chance to recover from the trip. He has been on a ferry before but only for a couple of hours. This crossing looks to be more like 30! 

What then? I have been looking at the "scenic" routes on the map book. These are lined with a green line. In particular the routes through the mountains taking in viewpoints and places of interest.

What looks to be long distances in the "AA Road Atlas Spain & Portugal" is in fact around 60 miles.

The scenic routes criss-cross the mountains and the Picos d'Europa.  

I am using Park4night and Search4Sites to get an idea where there are parkups and camp sites.

It does look like that area is well served with both.

After that? I am thinking of a loop around to the north of Madrid and towards the Pyrenees.

By mid to late May I expect the winter will be well behind us. I would like to head up through the Somport Tunnel, the pass didn't look 7m x 2.9m x 2.3m motorhome friendly when we went over it in 2022 on the bikes, and check out the scenery.

The only fixed date is the return Le Shuttle train home and the night before overnight stay at Guines.

We will have to get Reggie's worming and passport 🛂 stamped between 5 days and 1 day before we arrive on UK soil.

Where to do that? I like the vets in Cavignac to the north of Bordeaux. We have also used others in Abbeville and Neufchatel en Bray.

I am leaning towards Cavignac at the moment. 

It all depends on when we cross from Spain into France.

Neufchatel and Abbeville are a little too close to Calais and the already booked overnight in Guines.

More to follow as the trip gets ever closer.

Norfolking About! Day 3

A little rain in the morning and we were late setting off. we had over two hours to do about 30 miles and so we needed somewhere to stop on the way.  

The National Trust gardens at Sheringham Park was almost on the way. So once we had done the chores etc, I set that into the satnav and off we went.  This part of the journey was pretty much straightforward and we easily found the place and parked in the coach parking area.  There seemed to be space for two coaches next to the electric car hookup spaces. As usual, there were cars parked in the coach spaces! Why?  The car-park was about 50% empty but there were few spaces to accommodate a 7m long van.

As is our habit we tried out the cafe first and were lucky enough to get a seat under cover as it was still drizzling. There were plenty of people there as it was a weekend and also lots of dogs. Reggie ignored them all.....

We decided as it was drizzling to do the shorter "yellow" walk. The park is full of rhododendrons and other trees. The rhododendrons were beginning to flower but not all at once. Another bugbear is when you see a sign that suggests that dogs should be kept in a lead in the park, and you are constantly getting approached by dogs running wild, it does p*** me off. Not everyone wants your dog running at them or jumping up at them. Reggie doesn't like being crowded and looked over by bigger dogs! Rant over.

The second part of the journey took us from here to the coast at Sheringham and then all along the A149 coast road via Cley next the Sea and Blakeney. It's very narrow in places. It's very bumpy in places too. I think I handled it okay though. :)

I missed a turning in Wells and we went around the block and approached the harbour from the opposite direction but I don't think it costs us more than a minute or two. We checked in at Pinewoods about 1430.  After the barrier opened for us I went straight on into the static caravan and glamping part of the park. The left turn that the receptionist told us to turn looked like a car-park behind reception.  It wasn't!  DOH!

In the end we found out pitch, no3.  All pitches are fully serviced and so we have water clean and waste as well as electricity on the pitch.  I need to get a waste pipe to connect to the outlet on the van so that we can make use of the drains for the grey water.  It would save having to use the motorhome service areas and time. Note to self:  check that out!

We had lunch and then set off for a walk to Holkham Beach. There is a gate at the back of the touring park that takes the walker to a path alongside the nature reserver and to the beach. I had expected to arrive on the beach and then walk along the sand to the car-park on the end of the river and then get back to Pinewoods. In the end we did a curious loop and ended back on the same path we went out on.  If we go again, we'll know better. The cafe and shop at the public car-park was closed by the time we got there in any case.

Another night of eating and watching stuff on the Firestick.  We found a series on Prime starring Alfred Molina as a French Canadian police officer in Quebec investigating murders and the running story is that of the missing First Nation women and girls. A scandal of huge proportions along with the forced removal of children to be "educated" away from their heritage.  

Tomorrow, we are moving again. This stop was simply a taster for for site and we might come back.

Norfolking About! Day 2

Before we set off, the weather forecast for the weekend wasn't looking too good. On the way up it had rained until we left Essex and had brightened up. A little spit of rain as we approached Cromer but that was all.

This morning after breakfast we got our gear on, walking boots, and set off to find the beach.  It was much easier than we had made it the evening before.  Part of the route goes between two static caravan parks and there is no traffic, but eventually there's a 50m section of so that meant Reggie had to put up with the cars and buses!  There are bus stops right outside the site entrance and so with our senior citizens bus passes we could have used the bus for free.

East Runton has some shops and the de rigeur fish and chip shop and a cafe.  Ideal for the holiday maker staying a little nearer than we were. From the road there's a hill past the car park. Half of which has a height barrier (at the back) and the front half without. Guess where the cars were parked? Yep. In the bit where it was possible to park a camper over 2m high! 

At the bottom are a couple of fishing boats and the tractors that pull them from the sea. Talking of see. It was quite a way out and was popular with surfers and some swimmers. We turned right and walked along the harder sand, dodging the occasional wave that came up further. The walk to Cromer Pier is about 2 miles?  We didn't let Reggie off the lead, but he was on the longer 8m extendable lead should he want to run about. There were so many other dogs on the beach that we needed to keep an eye on him. As he has got older he tends to ignore most dogs unless they "rush" him.

Once at the pier we went on and found a cafe for a coffee and a sit down. It's quite a workout for the calves walking on soft sand. It was quite warm and the cafe had glass windbreaks that did an excellent job. Calire wanted to go into the town to look for an art cafe and so once we had "done" the pier and she had looked in the RNLI museum and shop we headed up into the town.   I had the Canon camera with me and took a few photos as we waited for her in the shop and museum.

(I'll add these to both blogs as soon as they are published and editable - this update is emailed in from my phone)

We found the cafe and while I waited outside she went in for a look. Then it was back to the beach.  We stopped and chatted to a couple who have a patterdale cross as well. Their dog was in their car as at 17yo he was already tired out!  Reg is only 13.5yo!

Walking back was more tiring than expected . The tide was still out but of course the damp hard sand of earlier was now drier and fluffier.

We basically retraced our steps earlier on our way back to Molly. Dinner and an evening of watching the TV using the Firestick.

Tomorrow, we move on to Wells next the Sea and another camp. Only for one hight to check it out for maybe a longer stay. 

Norfolking About! Day 1

Friday.  We finished loading the van up and set off about 1030 or so.  We had to navigate the Dartford Crossing and given that it was Friday, we were expecting a tough crossing.  

For some reason there are four lanes of traffic that approach from both sides. The Bridge coming south and the tunnels going north are also four lanes.  So why doesn't the traffic simply get in lane and drive through without miles of tailbacks on both sides?  There's a 50mph limit and that shouldn't cause any problems, but it does.  

Maybe the drivers that use it are too stupid for their own good!

Anyway although there was some traffic building up it wasn't as bad as we have seen it in previous occasions and we were through reasonably quickly. We usually stop at the services at Thurrock just after the Crossing but we had already planned a farm shop stop at one that had been recommended by The FrenchiesMotorhomies on YouTube.

To get there the Ohrex satnav had decided that we would take the M11/A11 route to Norwich and so this found us stopping for a comfort break at Birchanger on the M11.  It was okay getting in, but bedlam getting out as the roadworks around the junction allied with poorly timed traffic lights meant hardly anyone got out again onto the large roundabout each time they went green!

The next stop was that farm shop. The butcher's shop has some lovely local meat and we bought some of their Toulouse sausages and a pork pie. Some other bits and pieces including a local beer from the main shop.  Parking was easy enough.

Then we were off. The satnav then took us into the edge of Norwich on the laughingly named inner ring road.  Stop/start traffic until we got out to the airport.  We noticed that petrol and diesel is far more expensive here than at home. And that's unusual!

We eventually arrived at the Seacroft Caravan Club site at East Runton about 1630. Check in was simple and this is one of the sites that actually make a note of what  pitches are free.  As we were booked on a hardstanding but no awning pitch we had to look for a set of white pegs delimiting the pitch.  We had a choice of two.  We chose one nearest the entrance and less distance to walk through to the entrance and to the beach...

Once setup and the moho on the ramps and the electricity hooked up we had a cup of tea before venturing out to find the beach. We wanted to see how close it was for a day out the next day. In the end we managed to go the wrong way and ended up in a private area with the beach some 50 to 100 feet below us.  At least we knew now where we went wrong.

Tomorrow we will be out earlier and find the beach and walk along to Cromer pier and town.