Motorhome & Caravan holiday Blog

All night there had been light rain and there was very low cloud / fog when we got up. We packed up and just as we finished hitching up it started to rain heavily. At 9.30am we turned right out of Camping Igueldo  even though the sat nav wanted to take us left and back the way we had come. The fog / mist was thick and the rain made for a slow run down into San Sebastian. Through all the traffic lights and then on to the A8 motorway heading towards Bilbao. We stopped at the first service area to fill up with diesel, 1.089 a litre makes this the most expensive fuel so far on this holiday.

Back onto the A8 continuing towards Bilbao and the rain stopped, the mist was gone and we saw some nice scenery. We stopped for coffee and a madeleine at a service area just after 11am. As we are so long we had to park amongst the lorries.

Parked amongst the lorries.

After coffee we headed back on to the A8 and the closer we got to Bilbao the greyer it got with low cloud again. Around Bilbao and on towards Santander. Once past Santander the weather brightened up and rose to 24c. The ACSI book recommended that we leave the motorway at junction 264 but the sat nav wanted us to leave at at junction 258. In view of the problem in San Sebastian we decided to ignore the sat nav this time, wrong decision, and follow the ACSI book. Unfortunately the roads had been renumbered and as a result the marker posts were different. We drove in to San Vicente de la Barquera and over a lovely bridge that reminded us both of crossing onto Hayling Island in the UK.

The sat nav took us off the main road and up a small road through some restaurants and then up a narrow steep hill and back onto the main road. We had a great view of the wonderful wide sandy beaches. Along the main road and then the sat nav turned us right along a reasonable road which then narrowed and became a single track but well metalled. It would through fields past houses and meandered up and down, a good job no other vehicles were using this road. We were then told to turn right and found ourselves in a campsite but it didn’t look like where we wanted to be. We asked at reception and indeed it was the wrong campsite. Luckily we could drive straight through and down another narrow road where we met a coach just wanting to turn up where we were coming from. A few hundred meters more and we joined a main road turned right and our proper campsite Caravaning Oyambe was 300 meters further on. We turned in and parked up and checked in. The owners son showed us around the site and the first pitch he showed us we selected. It was very large grassy area with room for car caravan and awning a real difference from our last stop. We set up had a beer and then some late lunch.

Why the sat nav took us on the blue route on the map below rather than the red one I have no idea.

We went the opposite way out of the campsite today in the car and down into San Sebastian town. It was just like being back in the UK and driving in London, narrow roads, loads of traffic lights, pedestrians treating crossings like magic carpets and motor scooters wizzing here and there. We eventually found a Lidl and parked and just like the UK had to pay €2 for the privilege of parking for 50 minutes. The Lidl was pretty small and did not have everything we wanted and so made use of the sat nav to get to an Eroski at the other side of the town.

Got all the shopping done and made our way back to the campsite and had a lazy afternoon reading and starting to plan our next stop.

Stopped for coffee

After paying our bill at Camping Entrerrobles we left at 10am and followed the sat nav towards Logrono. This was a fairly slow road in places even though it was the N111 as it wound through the mountains. We stopped for coffee at a nice roadside bar.

After coffee we continued on our journey and once we reached Logrono we joined the A12 motorway and continued to Pamplona. The scenery and views along the whole of today’s route was spectacular. After Pamplona we joined the A15 motorway towards San Sebastian and were climbing and descending the western end of the Pyrenees. We stopped at a service area for lunch, a good job we did, more about this later. It was a very expensive for Spain roll and drink.

After lunch we continued towards San Sebastian eventually leaving the motorway and moving onto local roads. For some reason the sat nav routed us to the west of San Sebastian and then into a small village, we followed the directions and ended up at a no entry sign in the village of Usurbil. I had to reverse the caravan down a little side road to turn around and head back to the main road. Looking at the map later for some reason the sat nav wanted to take us down some very small rural roads (note to self don’t trust the sat nav even though it is supposed to be one designed for caravans). We rejoined the main road and I decided to head a bit further west and to see where the sat nav would re-route us.

The sat nav eventually turned us onto the coast road back towards the campsite. This road was pretty narrow in places with a couple of hairpin bends and we met several other vehicles coming the other way but we always managed to pass safely. Eventually there were signs indicating that we were heading in the correct direction to the campsite. We pulled into the campsite and pulled up to the barrier and a security guard told us we could not enter and had to park in the car park opposite and check in and then we could bring the caravan on site. The entry and the roundabout were too tight for me to turn round and another worker for the site told me to ignore the security guard and to leave the car and caravan where they were and check in which we did. The map and instructions on where our pitches were was not very clear and I missed the turning into our pitch and ended up at a no entry sign on a steep downhill road. It was too steep to reverse luckily the same worker told me to ignore the sign and to go to the bottom of the hill and turn round and come back up the hill which I did.

I turned in to the road with our pitch on. Mike had already parked his motor home in the furthest of the two pitches to make my life easier. This did not work out. The pitches were very small and with a motor home parked close to the roadside edge of his pitch I could not manoeuvre the caravan onto the pitch. Mike offered to swap pitches which we did but even still I had to park the van across the pitch as it was less than 7m deep and 8.4m wide and with an 8m long caravan parking width wise was the only option. This left no room for the car luckily I could park it next to Mikes motor home and he could still put his awning out.

We chilled out with a few beers and glasses of wine and then we found that unfortunately the cupboard door in the bathroom had come open and the liquid soap container had come open and liquid soap was all over the bathroom and this took some cleaning up. After an evening meal of cold left over barbecue and some more wine and beer we retired early for the night. A bit of a stressful day but everything worked out OK in the end with no damage.

After coffee at the restaurant at the campsite we went for a drive around the local area. We decided to explore around the large local reservoir Embalse de la Cuerda del Pozo. We stopped at a viewing point and took some photos of the lake and some of the many butterflies. We saw one stork soaring on the local thermals and several kites hunting for prey.

Embalse de la Cuerda del Pozo

Driving through Vinuesa we saw that the church bell tower had two stork nests with four storks perched on them but by the time we had stopped to get a photograph three had flown off. We checked out two campsites that were beside the lake / reservoir but they were very large busy and noisy, even though we like the area we won’t be staying at either of them. We did like the look of the wild camping site but that really isn’t practical for us.

We continued our circumnavigation of the reservoir and ended up back in Valdeavellano de Tera and took a couple of photos and decided to have lunch in the local restaurant. Unfortunately, it was closed but there was a small bar open and so we had a tapas lunch there, I had a home-made Wild Boar burger as did Mike and it was excellent. Then a quick drive back to the campsite via a new road not on the sat nav or map which was a much easier drive when we have the caravan on the back that the twists and turns through the village.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in the sun reading and sun bathing.

A quiet day at the campsite today just chilling and doing a small amount of maintenance to the caravan.

I installed drip strip to the awning rail to help prevent black streaks on the caravan from dirty rain. Not sure whether it will work or not. It was good to have Mike’s help to get it installed, it was a 2 person job apart from one tricky bit where we needed Ingrid’s help too. Her hair dryer came in useful to make it more flexible as the temperature was only 8c! I also moved the awning a little further forward so that the ‘wind blocker’ will clear the door when the door is open.

We also started getting everything ready for an early departure tomorrow as Bronchales is likely to be very busy with a large sporting event taking place this weekend.

Not quite this cold today but it felt like it first thing.