I think this is our 10th or 11th winter trip to Spain. We have enjoyed many smooth crossings over the Bay of Biscay coupled with some fairly unpleasant ones as well. But never have we boarded a ferry in the middle of a named storm packing Hurricane Force 12 gales. Storm Goretti arrived on the South West coastline shortly after our drive to Portsmouth and barreled along the English channel.
Boarding the Brittany Ferries LNG powered ferry, “Salamanca”, was on time and we then spent a pleasant evening / early morning in the Commodore lounge with some fellow travellers heading to our campsite near Cadiz. Sleep was easy to find and the first 10 hours of our journey were most relaxed – we hadn’t left the dock at Portsmouth!
The rest of the journey was pretty horrible. Moe was fine and made the most of the Commodore lounge food and Tapas. Myself, I found the cabin bed to be the best place to spend the next 24 hours… Needless to say, access to the Premier lounge was totally wasted on me.
Despite the delayed departure, the Captain, whilst navigating close to the UK South coast and then the French coast, managed to avoid the absolute worst of the storms and in the end, we arrived into Santander only 2.5 hrs late at 10:30am.
A very pleasant drive on excellent, quiet roads had us arriving at Caceres shortly after 17:30. Dinner at the restaurant and a 09:00 start on Saturday would have us at our final destination mid-afternoon.
This included a stop at services north of Seville to give the caravan the quick once-over.
A couple of beers at the Rosaleda bar and many of the usual suspects are already here at Camping La Rosaleda.
Another busy day today setting up the awning and all the toys and accessories. Finally, by the evening we are finished and ready to enjoy a couple of months in the Spanish winter sunshine – hopefully…
