SUNSHINE IN THE SALT PANS

FRIDAY 25TH FEBRUARY 2011 PRAIA DA LUZ

Spent 8 days at CABANAS near TAVIRA in the Ria Formosa National Park....,(GF takes over as he has to go and sort out the electricity in the Pate's chalet. So Cabanas a site rather like a car park but so nice and easy to get on and off the pitches, always a plus in my book. The actual pitches were very small, although we could have gone to an area where there were two or three together, but guess what ???
So we settle in and on Wednesday night it's BINGO run by Mr Personality himself. You wouldn't think it would be difficult to make a bingo session depressing......

And he ran the quiz nite which is why only 4 teams turned up and we came 3rd as every other question was a pop song+artist from the 80's - 90's and guess what.............Partnered Stuart & Thelma, the couple from Conil renting bungalows along the Algarve as they argue over which motorhome to buy next.)

The cycle tracks are great, if a bit rough and stony in places, and run through the salt marshes which have large salt pans and are a haven for birdlife. Flocks of Flamingoes, hundreds of Avocets ,,flocks of curlews,Stilts, Godwits......all of which took much thumbing through the bird book. Also discovered the name of the birds first seen last year that looked like a cross between a magpie and and a jay are in fact Azure Winged Magpies.

The village of CABANAS is lovely now that the sun has returned and our bar continued to charge 1€ for all drinks. TAVIRA itself is charming and about 1/2 hour by bike along the track. Took the train to FARO on Sunday ( 5€60 for two people return and it was 50 mins each way) but it was shut so we had a snack and a beer and went home.
Cycled to FUZETA to meet Paul & Marianne for lunch which was great fun. A great place with a campsite right in the centre of town on the beach and to which we will return to stay at length one day.(Campsite not well spoken -of as iffy in the past, but we had a look and it was very busy with french and germans and seemed ok-esp when you consider the location) Had Chicken Pirri-Pirri off a charcoal grill with all the trimmings, 2 litres of wine, desserts and coffee for 40€ (£36) at a restaurant on the front run by a very cheerful ( & large) husband and wife.

We explored the tracks through the salt marshes, found hideaways where vans are wild camping and seem to be tolerated by the local police who patrol the area but I could not persuade the GF to follow suit for a few days. The weather is brilliant and getting warmer each day.
The Pates, as mentioned, arrive later today to stay in one of the chalets for a week and we have put some goodies in there for them which necessitated having the fridge running .... turning on the electricity at the fuse box is apparently a man's job so Igor had to go and flip the switch from off to on, it being rocket science and all that........

I also realise that I don't like this part of the Algarve which I had forgotten. LUZ is FULL of Essex English and it's very depressing...and the prices are double those around Tavira. The beaches are still great but I shall bypass this area in future and after Tavira & Fuzeta go up country or the west coast.

WEATHER,GAS & PORTUGAL

Wednesday 16th February 2011

Finally left CONIL as the wonderful weather broke at last and a few days of storms set in but not before we managed 2 lovely days walking and cycling.
The walk was along the beach towards Cape Trafalgar, 11 kms away, and back on the footpath across the dunes, stopping for a picnic at the old watchtower.
The beach was almost deserted and the surf was crashing or doing whatever surf does and as the whole coastline is unspoilt the views from Trafalgar back past Conil are lovely, and the town , being so white against the sky and sea looks great.
WE finally completed the cycle ride to BAROSSA which ended abruptly when my motor gave up the ghost last time, by cycling on through the town after a coffee stop to SANCTI PETRI, a small ex-fishing village on a headland looking across to SAN FERNANDO & CADIZ and the castle island of Sancti Petri. This village has been abandoned by the fisherman and is just in the process of being developed by every type of water-based leisure venture imaginable. It still retains some charm but soon will be a huge sporting venue and marina and may well become a modern horror but for the moment it is a great place for a picnic.Great cycle path to it as well...27 mile round trip on the bikes.
Few drinks with Nick & Barbera, Dave & Geraldine to say farewell on Monday night and then the heavens opened for wind and non-stop rain. At 9 am on Tuesday morning we were resigned to not moving as though nearly everything was packed, it was decidedly unpleasant. The forecast was bad for 2-3 days though so if we stayed we would be there until FRiday, so when the wind eased at midday we made a decision to go even though it was still raining.
Off by 12.30, stocked up at the supermarket and left CONIL in the rain by 1.30. Rain stopped by JEREZ, sun came out at SEVILLE and arrived TAVIRA by 5pm in more or less sunny weather. Campsite busy, pitches very crammed but all hard standings, facilities fair to middling but hot water is dangerous.

Thursday 17th.

Wednesday a write off as storms swept in continuously;rain,hail,wind,thunder and lightning. Managed to walk down to the very pleasant village of Cabanas for a coffee. Still operating as a fishing community, the village nestles behind islands of sand dunes like the machair of the Hebrides. Look forward to trying some of the many seafood restaurants.
Having a problem with Spanish Butane gas which looks suspiciously like the regulator fouling problem suffered 2 years ago.Have used Spanish Propane for the last month without trouble, when it came to replace the cylinder I decided to switch back to Butane as it is much easier to find than propane in Portgal but when the bottle was connected the pressure was rubbish at the hob and fire. Discovered from neighbours that the only propane to be had was to go back to Ayamonte, just across the border in Spain and find a little petrol station down in the docks which had the only stocks to be had. A bit fraught taking the van down the cobbled streets of a busy little port but the excellent directions ( with dire warnings of avoiding getting sidetracked into old town with steep,narrow overhanging alleys) made it quite a pleasant trip and the directions of how to extract ourselves from the oneway system were most precise. So all sorted and propane gas working fine. On return shall switch to a Gaslow regulator from the second Trauma regulator that may be failing.....my last resort is to fit the spare that I carry but I am loathe to mess about with the gas system too much if I can avoid it .
A light bicycle ride pm and a glass of vinho in Cabanas at a very pleasant little bar on the front we have discovered ( mainly because it was the busiest) where every drink so far has been 1€.
The GoodFairy may be changing her opinion of the Portuguese as everyone round here is very smiley and very helpful and the area although busy with Northern Europeans is still very Portuguese.......unlike further along the Algarve - of which there will no doubt be more said when we hit Costa Skegness.

ALL GOOD THINGS.........

Friday 12th February 2011

Somewhat hazy about the last few days as they involved the consumption of a considerable amount of alcohol. It started with another top 3 finish in the weekly quiz although having tied on 2nd ( because I wouldn't listen to the Gf and put Wellington for Old Ironsides instead of Cromwell.....hey - he was the Iron Duke and I was on a roll after correctly answering Antartica for the location of Mt. Erebus,Johnny Cash as the Man In Black and Persia as the country of Xerxes so I did my bit) and then losing in the tie-break ( length of the Suez Canal - Paul immediately said 220 miles and I had no idea so went with it.......look it up yourselves to see how close we were) so we came 3rd, preserving our previous record of 1st,2nd & 3rd.
As there is a starburst of people leaving over the next few days-some home, some to other spanish sites and more to Portugal - 8 of us had lunch at one of the bars on the beach that started at 3pm, went on till 6.30 ( the bill was 108€ ) and ended up in the bar by the sports stadium where every drink is 1 €.
Friday was Paul's birthday and more alcohol was consumed and the final boules match when the men were firing on all cylinders, possibly due to alcohol, and ran out 3-0 winners.
And the sun keeps shining. We are off to Tariva on Tuesday, new horizons for us, and Paul & Marianne are off to Olhao on Monday but as they are not too far apart we intend to meet for lunch at some stage as there is a cycle track along the Algarve coast linking them.
Conil has been great, the weather nearly perfect so we will be back next year.

BIKES, BOULES AND BEER

TUESDAY Feb 8th.2011

The bike controller eventually arrived on Monday, having been posted last Tuesday ( but there was no delivery on Saturday, this being Spain ). Fitted in 15 mins with the help, advice and mastic sealing gun of Paul to make the housing watertight as the old controller looked definitely rusty round the edges - and rather more weather-worn than the new one considering we only bought the bikes early december. These controllers were higher spec ones than the standard fittings and so were changed at the point of sale.....mmmm was an old one used on mine ??. However I musn't be cynical since Eddie at the Electric Transport Shop has been more than helpful in sorting everything and is insistent that I go to Cambridge as soon as we return so that they can thoroughly check the wiring looms and replace the connectors I have vandalised in the 'diagnostic' checking. I cannot speak highly enough of their after-sales when it would have been so easy to say 'well come and see us when you get back to the UK and we'll have look at it'. If anybody reading this wants an electric bike ( and the GF says it is the Best thing we've Ever bought), go to the Electric Transport Shop....just look at their website.

So here we are and in only a week we'll be moving on to Portugal, probably Tavira for a week before heading to Lagos and Dave & Briony (and Derek & Margaret have emailed to say they are on their way). It has gone so quickly, mainly because the weather has been so brilliant and we have been out and about so much. We have played Boules every afternoon bar one, taking it in turns to provide the beer; a raucous evening after Nick & Barbera arrived when we invited everyone round for pre-dinner drinks; tapas in the sun after shopping in the market for olives and nuts; a terrific sunday afternoon when we walked down to the beach with Paul & Marianne after the re-scheduled fiesta parade to enjoy beer wine and tapas in the sunshine and surf at one of the beach bars....and the sun still shines and we still have things to do...

Roy, the token (and broken welshman, land-of-my-fathers plastered all over his van) wandered past and stopped to inform us that he had just booked our pitch for Jan-Feb next year. As we were going to re-book the same pitch for next year the GF called him a very rude name, calling into question his parentage. I then discovered that everybody had started making reservations so I popped down to the office and found I could book the pitch next to us, so done deal ( advance bookings were very ..er..advanced). Took great pleasure in telling Roy that we would be neighbours next year and that I would take great pleasure in gloating about Wales having made an early exit in the World Cup.....hopefully I won't have to eat my words. The campsite has also dropped the requirement for a deposit this year making advance booking even more attractive.

Nick & Barbera......the story of their 3 week trip to Conil was harrowing and costly. They have reported the first garage to the RAC ( who seem to have been rock-steady in their support,unlike the AA last year, even providing translators) for charging them 860€ to replace a fuel pump which Fiat said had not been replaced in their opinion. Having got here however, they have no running water as there is an apparently incurable leak if the system is switched on. Again much advice been offered but the pouring of water from beneath the sink remains impervious to new o-rings,jubilee clips, plumbers tape and even gaffer-tape, the motorhomers' answer to everything. Hymer have been contacted for advice.

Sitting in the evening sunshine,under the awning with a glass of Rioja, a bowl of spicy olives and watching FRance stuff the Scots has an awful lot to recommend it, especially when England had a great win over the Welsh last night........watched by happy band of brits in the camp bar and one very sad and morose welshman who took it on the chin.

LATER......and the bottle is empty......actually, the scots put up a plucky fight ...3 tries to the french 4 is pretty good going although they never really looked like troubling the french too much. With Ireland sneaking a very lucky last minute win in Italy this could be a great 6 nations... england - france should be a cracker.

AND IT WAS ALL GOING SO WELL.........

Tuesday Feb.1st 2011

Well it was going well until we had cylcled 12 miles to Barossa on Monday morning in the glorious sunshine. We pulled up at a cafe for coffee on the promenade but when we came to start off again my motor wouldn't start. At all. All the lights were on but nothing happened. This has happened before and seemed to relate to a sensor on the brake lever which cuts power to the motor when either brake is applied. If a lever doesn't return to its proper place then the power remains off so I had tightened and adjusted various screws and this seemed to have cured the intermittent failure of the motor to restart after stopping. Until monday morning. Nothing would get it to start so I had to ride back under pedal power and the apparently flat roads suddenly sprouted an astonishing amount of hills. Upward. Heigh-ho so we will be getting fitter.
When we got back to camp I emailed Eddie at The Electric Transport Shop (as they are closed on Mondays) with details and being the kind of guy he is he picked up the email and rang me straight away. He said it would be a faulty brake sensor so told me how to isolate the sensors which I did. Still no power to the motor.Too late to continue so he emailed to say he would ring first thing Tuesday which he.As we have two bikes the same he talked me through swapping connections between them until we could find the problem. Cut long story short, discovered lack of power at a connector bloc-when connected to F's bike my motor worked so not a duff motor. By now, half the campsite is giving advice and listening to Eddie on the phone. Wires were traced with multimeters and it seemed that the connector block itself was not making a connection so it was removed and the wires reconnected with a cable connector block. Switch on....nothing. deads as a dodo. So the only thing left was the heart of the system, a blackbox cpu which all the wires came out of.Making a management decision I undid the 4 screws holding the cover on (hoping I wasn't invalidating the warranty as Eddie had disappeared at this stage) and found a little molten mess of burnt out diodes and transistors.I emailed the shop with details and they rang back to say that they would put a replacement in the post immediately if I gave them the address which was done.But they are concerned as to why it has happened and it may be down to a suspect cable that may have been trapped during assembly in which case it will happen again....and this component has never failed before. So now its Friday and I'm hoping it will arrive today.

Having said that we went out for a bike ride on Wednesday with Paul, Marianne,Tony and Sabena and I was fine so the absence of power is an irritation rather than a disaster.......and it'll make me fitter.

WEdnesday quiz came FIRST with Paul & Marianne with a near perfect score of 48/50. A lot of beer was consumed followed by a vast amount of brandy back at their van and he and I very duntish on Thurs morning........