Meetings – the non-work sort

I want to record this ‘meeting’ with John and Sharon from Cardiff, to remind myself of their hilarious stories of breakdowns that they dealt with in their initial days of motorhoming. Indeed tribute must be paid to their ability to deal with all the uncertainty and stress of such situations, their relationship with the AA, and their undeterredness, (is that a word?) evidenced by their continued travels in their latest motorhome several years later. Their work, doing financial review/reporting for 2 months in every 6 months, and then in effect supply yoga teaching, respectively, means that they spend much of the rest of the time in their home on wheels.

They were very helpful to prevent me from doing the hour thing in reverse – https://lifeinnewlanes.com/lagos-cycled-too-far-and-gained-an-hour/ – given that I had once again not clocked the hour ahead of Spain vs Portugal and ot having any schedules in place, could have carried on like that for some time.

Unfortunately don’t have a photo, unless they send me one.

Enjoyed their company in the wine-tasting and after, hearing about their 2-year travelling break started in January, to eventually go east all the way to China via the ‘Silk Road’.

Their home is Gertie, a converted Landrover Defender which they bought from the army with only approx 40k miles no longer needing it presumably as an ambulance; running on diesel, and solar panel to lithium battery; also has a pop-top

Briefly met these guys from Gibraltar, who’d just bought a Ford van 2nd-hand from the UK and had driven it all the way through France, Spain, into Porto and heading back to Gibraltar within a few days. They’re going to customize it exactly how they want.

They have given me a recommendation for a lovely lake in Spain which is on my way from the Douro valley to the Picos de Europa, so a campsite visit there is now planned in for later this week.

I met Karen and Ivan from Beverley on a campsite at Olvera. They have been travelling since January, getting down to the Rio Jara campsite outside Tavira, to observe the returning bird migration from Africa. It was great to see the vultures nesting via their fantastic telescope, and learn more about birds and animals given that they are passionate naturalists. They recommended this campsite, so I sought them out, and really enjoyed more time in their company, as well as loving the site and location. Cheers Karen & Ivan, plus fellow canine van inhabitants Rio, the irrepressible puppy who they rescued from the river, but came from the campsite, and the elder statesman Bailey, a 10yr old Papillon.  Grunol is the Spanish word they use to describe him – grumpy.

Carol and Dave, a couple of New Zealanders spending a year travelling round Europe in their british motorhome which they bought in the UK for the purpose, and which they’re going to ship back to NZ, so need to get back to the UK for this by mid June. I met them on a local village tour, Rustiques, from a campsite near to Carcassone, discovering that they are more or less doing the same route round Spain/Portugal. Unfortunately we kept leapfrogging each other, and we were not able to synchronise visits. They are leaving the UK slightly earlier than planned, so bon voyage.