Departure day from
Barcelona dawned orange and cold. I couldn't
get out of bed. But Mike left the back door open so I didn't get much
choice.
It was worth it though, to eat my cornflakes out the back of
the van watching the sun rise.
Next on the list was to ferret out the
helpful older German guys I had greased up to the evening before who were
going to jump-start us...hopefully. So they came over, annnd...it
didn't work. The cables heated up and I think they would have jumped
into life before our poor dead battery. So, out of the boot of this
little hatchback, they pulled these heavy-duty cables, asking if
we bought ours in China. Well, what choice do you have in the middle of
Barcelona? Anyway, it worked and we were on our way.
We
had been hitting the track pretty hard since London (even in London)
so we agreed to find a campground a bit further south and chill for
the afternoon and next day. First was a lunch stop. Mmmm. More
circles, this time around a seaside town called Vilanova i la Geltrú. There were
no cafés
around, those we did find had no
parking, so we hit the supermarket bakery, had another forgettable
meal and carried on.
We
stuck to the coast, winding along seaside cliffs one minute and
through quiet (read: empty) leafy towns the next. We actually walked
on the beach at one stage, which was a bit of a novelty, with its random grove of palms in the middle.
The Costa Dorada coastal drive is gorgeous on a sunny day. It's
winding, cliff-hugging and visually stunning...when you can see
through the squashed bugs on the windscreen. We had collected quite a
few stubborn ones that resisted all wiper efforts of removal, so Ruby
was in for a wash.
(He washes my coach when I'm working, and his own car when I'm not :P... )
After a while
we had a spark of inspiration (where did that come from?) and dropped into a tourism office in
one
of these towns, Calafell, which
surprisingly was open. The girl there was so
nice and helpful, gave us a heap of maps, photocopies of campsite
info and facilities and, importantly, directions.
Finally
we started seeing campgrounds pop up along the way, most of them
backing on to the beach. Perfect. But, campsite after campsite
displayed a closed sign ('tis the season). At a roundabout I made a
split-second, last-possible-moment decision (I'm good at doing that,
poor Mike) to follow signs leaving the main road to “let's just try
this one”. It took us down some interesting streets but, I'm proud
to say, it paid off. The campground, Torre de la Mora,
was nice.
It was
really modern, had beach access, and all its sites and cabins were
terraced onto the side of a shady tree-covered hill. Gorgeous. The
security guard, who was for some reason responsible for allocations,
squeezed us into an uneven corner of the campground, next to a chest
high wall separating us from a rocky drop to the water on the other
side. From this point the sun rose and set over the ocean. We decided
if we went straight out to sea we would hit Nice. Great (insert
serious note of sarcasm here). East would have been Greece...some
fond memories for Mike :)
Dinner that night was
tacos. We just need a little more practice for toasting the shells.
The second batch was better than the first. And the campground had
heaps of washing up sinks! Everywhere! With hot taps! And lights!
Geez, the things we get excited about these days! In the morning, I
made a failed attempt at French toast. I dunno, too much wind, heat
not even enough...but it was disastrous. The next round,
egg-in-bread, worked much better. The washing up was not pleasant
though.
We actually got
to sit (or lie, as you generally need to do in the back of Ruby) and
enjoy the sunshine that day. It was a bit too cold for the beach, but
to just read a book was like therapy, especially for Mike. Until the
battery went flat again. This cost us €5 in a tip to the campsite
handyman (with his super
heavy-duty cables), and prompted a quick dash into town for a new
battery. Mike insists
“it shouldn't be going flat that quick, even with running the
fridge”. Okay, fine. “But we'll still carry the old one.” Okay,
sure. Space isn't already at a premium, no. Apparently, the old one
might come in handy one day.
But electricity
was becoming a problem in general. It gets hard to rough it in the
gadget-packed 21st
century. Mike and I were alternating phone chargers with the iPod
transmitter for the front socket, and I couldn't leave my camera and
laptop (I know, but if
I didn't have it, you wouldn't be reading this!) in any wall sockets
long enough to charge properly. So into the basket, along with the
new battery, went a cigarette socket expander (you know, multi
sockets off one?) and an inverter.
Genius. Now we can charge everything
in the car. And to date, at the time of going to print, we still
haven't had another flat battery.
One thing that
caught us by surprise (and it probably shouldn't have) is that it is
actually cold in Spain at this time of year. We didn't visit the
beach that day, and the night before had been really cold (especially
for Mike, I put a sleeping bag under my side of the sheet). So we
were also shopping for a doona/duvet
to put between the air mattress and the sheet. Well, finding the size
you want in the UK is hard enough in English, let alone in Spain in
Spanish. We hovered around the bedding aisle for several confused
minutes before I asked a fellow shopper, feeling hopeful but
resigned, if she spoke English. She spoke English very well, as an
Irish-raised Scot resident and was really helpful getting us what we
were looking for. So we set off from the shop the excited owners of a
warmer bed, and lots of electrical options.
Back at the campsite,
Mike cooked dinner, hamburgers. We were really impressed with how
varied, however simple, our meals were shaping up to be. All we
cooked on these things in high school was 2-minute noodles. And these
hamburgers were gooood. :)
