Lead up to the departure... Delay's :(

Scott works in the Oil Business - we all know and expect things to not quite go as planned in terms of timing as things do happen which need attention without delay (There are $ Millions & Billions at stake)..  that's just part and parcel of that business.

So, as you know we leave the UK on the 10th at mid-day - Scott expected to be back on the 7th which would have given us enough time to get everything in order without breaking sweat (we still have things to collect ect, last minute stuff).

Personally I expected bad weather to throw the 'preverbial' into the works but it hasn't worked out that way.

Scott was unexpectedly called 'Offshore' (floating on a boat of some kind) for an urgent job (something to do with a major well thingy they seem to think highly of).. My initial thought was that it may not go as planned and cause us a slight delay but as things turned out they were as efficient as they usually are and things went as planned - Great, we are in luck (or so we thought until today).......

It turns out that our Scott is on dry land again (In Sunny India 'KakiDorm') in his rough 'Diggs' but loving every moment as he tends to do with the occasional Aperitif each evening (in strict moderation of course) - all should be well in terms of our trip you would think eh ??

The deal Scott has is that he works 'Back to Back' which is like two people sharing the same job (I think they do have their own mugs though for tea etc) - so, it turns out that his 'Back to Back' buddy has been delayed by 24 hours (Flights) and now it seems that our Scott will not be on UK soil until the 9th.. this is the day before we leave and also the day we need to collect the parts package a local 4x4 company has agreed to loan us!

They tell me they enjoy enlightening music together - HERE is an example, we will be enjoying lot's of this music during the trip.

Things are indeed tight as on the 8th I am in hospital for, let's say 'An in depth investigation' into a slight problem I have been having since I was 10 (I will be 40 on the 30th Sept), so I will need to recover from that 'Quick Sharp' before we can proceed.

With Scott's delay and my 'Pre-Trip Slab Session' it seems that we are off to a great start and in exceptional health for the 'Trip of a Lifetime'.

Scott = Delayed :(Flights)

Early start as Scott awoke with a bit of excitmenet and promptly emailed me, we left 2 hours early.
After a while we stopped at a Little Chef, as satnav was giving us duff information - we were looking for burger King as they are known to have wi-fi.
Little Chef do indeed offer wi-fi but today it didnt work..

Just had a call from James Boston 'our LandRover Specialist' wishing us well (Sorry about my fone always being off) - Thanks James :)

The wireless stopped working which was a bit of a blow as in the silence I got to thinking about our journey so-far.. all we have done really was get some Euro's from the post office - I was lured there by their offer of commission free exchange.. well, after seeing a page Scott had printed showing the official rates I realised that their exchange rate was less than favourable and it had indeed cost me 20 euro..

Just checked into the Tunnel, its self service at a toll style configuration.. that was WEIRD - we drove toward the system - looked at a screen which showed our details.. how did it know it was us ?

Well, we are on the train as I write this bit, It was a quiet moment again and I decided to check my TomTom to see if I could locate the camp site on the new GB, Iberia and major roads of WE (Western Europe).. well - I couldnt, it seems like when we arrive at the other end (my ears are popping) we will have no idea where to go.. never mind - worst things happen at sea (well. lets hope not as we are under it!).

The TomTom map I 'Found' starts at Spain.

So, we stopped at the first service station we saw and bought a good old fashioned paper map 'Scott feels comfortable with these all over the place'.

We eventually found the intended camp site at 21:30 - we had to wait for somebody else to come out and lift the barrier as we couldn't raise any 'officials' via their intercom system (I think they must have heard me but decided not to let the Brits in.

After driving around the entire site looking for a good spot we came across a 'Portly' gentleman not looking too pleased - Scott got out.

The chap was decidedly unhappy, we all eventually went to the office and we paid our pitch - it was 13 Euro.. he had no change so we gave him 15 Euro as a tip for being miserable.

Oh and we covered 530 miles today :)

I cooked and we retired at 22:30..

So, the 'Jolly' portly French chap asked us to pitch at what looked like a nice spot (in the dark) so we did, and retired to bed as explained in the previous post.

I didn't sleep a wink all night, not a wink - we were next to some kind of pump, maybe it was the sewage system for the camp but it kept coming every ten minutes for five and then going off again.. this went on all night until we officially woke.. then it stopped.
What made this worse though was that during the silent moments our fridge (below us in the landrover) started it's little routing so between the Two pumps I had a sleepless night.
Scott on the other hand snored loudly as usual (when we do trips this is usually the thing to keep me awake all night).

Another thing that made it a bad night was the fact that we had not opened at least One of the tent windows so there was no way of getting any fresh air into the tent - it was like sleeping in a plastic bag (or at least how I imagine that would be).

So, Scott was  up at 5am but I waited until 07:30 as the big sign in the communal sanitation unit said no hot water from 10:30 until 07:30, I duly collected my toiletries bag and made my way to freshen up.
Started the shower (it was one of those button affairs where you got a shower for a set amount of seconds before you had to press said button again to get another spurt..
Cold, it was cold - So I made my way to the sinks where I 'made do'.. with chest out and in mid 'Wash' a fellow Brit walked in, she wished me good morning and went about her business.

I am not sure if this is a French thing but we haven't seen any toilet seats yet - they have the contenintal style bowls but no seats!

Another thing which I was less than pleased with was the way in which the toilet flushed - again, another 'Button' to push but this time it sent a jet of water directly at your legs.. I cant help but wonder if this was meant to double up as a Bidet?

Time to start the travells for the day, after a light breakfast we left - I was at the wheel.

The French haven't cottoned onto the fact yet that people travel around looking for a place to stop to eat and get internet access - it has been hopeless so far as we havent been able to get online since entering France..

I am partly to blame for the slowness of the blog updates as I didnt install the driver for my Mobile Internet Dongle before we left (I had just put Win7 onto my netbook).

I have since installed the Dongle software but dont have Intnl roaming so am out of luck still - I write this sat in Mc Donalds in the SOuth of France where it is VERY warm...

So far today we have been forced to take another toll - this time is was 26.5 Euro for about a 20 mile stretch on the way to Tourres.. I can't see a way around this 'toll trouble' yet but I will be happy to get through France - the country is great but everything else is less than adequate.

After a quick break (and I managed to find a cash machine for the first time) Scott is at the Helm - as we can't get a good radio reception Scott elected to put on one of his 'Wee' CD's - now we are hearing some kind of 'Hard Core' dancemusic... yeah...

I really do miss Radio 2.

A Little LATER.....

Well due to still not having a map of France on the TomTom we drove around frantically again just as the sun was going down looking for a camp site - we did the usual again and asked the locals.

I know your going to make a comment about the following but they are all French - they dont seem to have any knowledge of English.. I was under the impression that just about everyone in Europe was taught English as their second language, I know the Greeks are.
But it seems not and that makes things difficult as neither Scott or I have ever had the need to learn any French.. hmm.

So, we just found ourselves in a Chateau - we saw a sign for camping and came in to a deserted but very well looked after place.. after knocking on a door we   found a very helpful woman who told us we could pitch anywhere and it would cost us the pincely sum of 6 Euro all in.
Remember last night when we spent 15 Euro on a much less pleasent place with that grumpy portly chap?

I must learn to suppress my urge to speak to the French in Greek.

We awoke again very early this time after a very good nights sleep (with the tent windows open) - the sun was just rising as I poked my head out of the window to see scott, red eyed - he had been checking the vehicle oils (this could very well be a sunday morning rutual for him).

So, I emerged like a butterfly from it's pupae into the world - the Sun was  out and we were in a Chateu near Bordeux.

After a nice cup of Tea I went to shower etc.. The facilities were great - a proper shower.. this was not a mass commercial affair so was more like a home bathroom setup - I was pleased to have a hot shower and get the rest of my ablutions done in a nice environment.

We noticed that the chateux offered wine for sale (well, it might not be a shock to you but it was for me as I expected their stocks to be long gone).

My first words to the woman when she came to see us were "Le Sanitaire is Extrordinare" (meaning the bathroom is great) and then we got to business as we wanted to buy some wine.

After lots of pointing we were invited into the 'Inner workings' for a tour of the wine factory - see below:

After a few minutes a light came on in anonther part of the factory where we were confronted with a display of wines - quickly Two glasses were placed in front of us and the wine began to flow.. bear in mind that this was 9am on a Sunday morning !!

We were tasting wine.. what a start to the day!

Scott and I purchased some bottles and as we left the lovely lady offered us a gift bottle..

We packed up and left feeling very happy indeed (Scott even did some washing up which proves the 'Happiness' level)..

After a few hours driving we fouund ourselves in a long tunnel going through the Pyranees, it was overcast as we went in but as we came out (In Spain) it was sunny and hot.

We decided to stop to obtain the image below just for you:

But the BEST bit of all was that the TomTom had started to work - no more worries about where we were or finding a camp site for us now (I am extreemely happy about this as I can't stand those paper maps everywhere).

After a while we found ourselves getting low on fuel, also at the same time the TomTom had a bit of a fit.. it quickly became clear that the road we were curently travelling on was quite new and the map in the TomTom (the one I 'Found') was a bit old so didnt cover this new road..

Not to worry - it soon regained it's composure - we were soon directed to a BP service station which was yet to be completed (still not built, but a Spanish chap turned up to use the pumps so answer that one!).. and what was the TomTom thinking??

A quick stats update, we spent a week in Scotland a few months ago and we travelled 1250 miles - in the last Two and a half days we have so-far managed to cover 1328 and that's in a Land Rover:).

So, back to it..

We joined a traffic queue 15 kilometers outside of Valencia.. this was a Sunday night!! what the hell were they trying to get into this small fishing town for anyway?

Ol trusty TomTOm said there was a campsite very close so we went for it.. it wasnt there so we went for the next closest.. it didn't exist either..

As you can imagine after the past few days this got a little frustrating, I tried to ask at the local police station  (well, that is to say an operative in there) but even though the light was on the gate was locked so that was a no-go.. hmm.

Fortunately there was a group of older Spaniards on the street who had seen me try to get INTO the police station, I asked them where the latest mysterious campsite was and guess what! they knew exactly where is was and after a session of pointing I went back to the land Rover to get a pen and paper - soon after we were armed with a comprehensive map to the venue..

Ok - so we eventually found it, it was next to the nudist beach (Obviously).

Scott alighted the vehicle to approach the reception where he found a happy Spanish gent - he wanted our passports (to copy and hand back of course - never surrender your passport) and gave us a map of where to pitch.

Internet access was available at a cost (So I decided against it).. We thought this place would be expensive but it turned out to be 12 Euro (no problem).

Before we erected our accomodation we visited the very close (15 meters away) bar/restauraunt for a Sea based meal - I am not a big fish eater but there was no English menu and all we had to go on was what the rest of the clientell had in front of them.. we both had a pasta based dish but found squid, Octopuss, a massive prawn and muscles amongst other delights (this must have  come in a huge bag) as the kitchen didn't look too well kitted out.

We am sitting here in the said establishment as I write this - we have a beer each (San Miquel of course) and are soaking up the atmosphere with Germans, Greeks and of course the Frence (I saw some Albanians earlier too).

We almost came to greif today on the roads, we thought that it would be best if we had an accident to just post a one liner on FACEBOOK to let every body know what had happened: "Crashed!!" but after tonight's meal we might just have to post: "Poisoned !!".

I can now report that we are all well today.. We just passed Benidorm :)

We arrived at the Hotel after getting hoplessly lost following the TomTom as it guided us the wrong way around Spanish one way streets - my 'Found' map didn't help the situation I feel and at one point Scott wanted the 'Voice' turned off which caused even more errors..

So we settled in and I found internet access.. updated a few things on Facebook and went down to the pool area where we met other trip members, Mike and his Kiwi wife Sally and Ian and Sue were milling about looking happy.

We quickly introduced ourselves and I realised that so-far we had a nice group of people.

We had already met the trip leader, Mr Reader.

Here we are celebrating with our first beer: