Algarve or bust!

[travelling man]

I'm back home now, ferry back from Dieppe to Newhaven week last Friday evening....8 April....

Returned via Andorra at the eastern end of the Pyrenees, this is now very easy. My Tomtom is set to route me via motorways but not toll roads as I am a known tight git!
Tomtom really is a revelation for travel in places that are new to you, particularly when travelling alone, so much easier that struggling with a road atlas on the passenger seat.

Joined the motorway just before leaving Portugal to enter Spain, then onto Seville, just north of Seville I was directed off to a different motorway towards the eastern coast, eventually joining the 'Autopista de Mediteranian' to run up the east coast of Spain. Motorway to almost 100 miles short of Andorra. Amazingly easy.

Two odd tales to tell of this part of the trip,
Most Spanish motorways are two lane, sometimes a 'crawler' lane is added for long climbs and some larger towns/cities have three lane bits as well. I was on one of the latter bits and had noted several lots of three Traffic Police motorcycles pass, all showing good riding skillz, then I noted that the two lead riders had numbers on the backs of their hiviz, but not the third, assumed two trainees and an instructor. About 7 or 8 groups had passed when I came upon a MLM in the centre lane...I noted three headlights in the l/h mirror so lifted my foot and kept my position 50 yards behind the MLM but in the r/h lane....the third Traffic Police rider pulled in front of the MLM, swivelled in his seat and gestured to the driver to move right. I pulled into the centre lane and regained my previous speed, overtaking the guy. Just short of the next exit the bike cop was on the shoulder, lights flashing, ticket book in hand, gave me a big grin and waved the MLM onto the shoulder. The two other Police bikers were observing from the exit slip road....

Where a Spanish motorway climbs into an area where poor weather such as snow and ice can cause issues, huge holding areas have been created. I was approaching one of these when all traffic slowed to a crawl, we were directed off the motorway and I could see dozens of Traffic Police in this holding area, roughly two thirds of traffic, including myself, were directed into the compound, then into seperate lanes, I was approached by a Traffic policeman carrying a carrier bag and a gadget....he gave me a plastic thing from his carrier bag, waved his gadget and said 'alcohol test'! I have a grip problem with one hand so struggled to extract the mouthpiece from it's sealed plastic bag, but we managed between us. And I passed....no usually I'll have a glass of wine with my lunch, but that day I had elected to brew up, lucky escape.....

Since Brexit, phone roaming has not been as easy as before, whilst my £22 Tesco mobile worked perfectly throughout my trip I had problems with mobile internet for my laptop. 'er indoors tends to panic if she does not hear from me reasonably regularly, so this has been a bit of an issue this trip. I bought a Sim card in Portugal, which worked fine just over the border into Spain, but then told me I was 'roaming from it's point of issue' next attempt!
So first night of the return trip I used a GALP service area who had free, unlocked, wifi, bit laggy, but I got an email off. In France, I was able to park close to McDonalds and pirate their free, unlocked, wifi at several of their places.

Andorra, why?
Cheapest, or perhaps least expensive deisel, of the trip at 1.562e/litre but also gin at 3.10/litre....liberated 10 litres that converted to just £26.14! Andorra is a bit high, people go there to ski in the winter and mountain climb in the summer, and there was still a fair amount of snow around, horrible dirty stuff on the shady side of town streets but crisp and white on the mountains. But the roads were perfectly clear with no issues at all. No problem exiting Andorra into France, the French Custums bods appeared to be on a smoke break as I passed the frontier!

The run up through France was quiet and uneventful, gave me the chance to experiment with speed/fuel consumption. My usual speed is an indicated 65mph, but dropping this to 50mph showed that fuel consumption dropped by a fairly large margin, 48.5 to 51 ish, the 'sweet spot' seems to be at 58/60mph, so this will be my cruising speed on future trips of this nature, the slight increase in journey time being rewarded with less spent at the pumps, giving more pennies for wine and gin!

Total home to home mileage was 3727 miles, once all credit card statements are in I'll try to remember to put up a pence per mile figure.

Next trip is already booked, out of Newhaven on 9 September.....

[Altransit]

Great blog, thanks for sharing, and glad you're home safe

[travelling man]

Great blog, thanks for sharing, and glad you're home safe

I took the van to the local Polish hand car wash to give it a treat, full exterior wash with snow foam and the inside of the cab windows....£20!

Then I painted the front bumper white, over my ownership it had collected a couple of dings plus the usual fading to a streaky grey, so sanded the dings, masked up, plastic primer and a can of Ford frozen white, it's a decent '10 foot' job!

Creeping up to 140k miles, so over the summer I'll change oil/filter and the air filter before my next adventure.

But now the garden is almost tidy again, attention shifts to my Broads cruiser, twin pre crossflow engines with a cooling issue.....

[metalworker0]

my main worry would be : does this s/h engine have wet belt or chain ..and what millage is on it .

all the best..mark

[travelling man]

my main worry would be : does this s/h engine have wet belt or chain ..and what mileage is on it .

all the best..mark

It's a wet belt, Mark, and was replaced by the guy who fitted the engine for me......so in theory I have 150k miles before renewal.....given that I became the 2nd owner at 108k miles and failure of the original belt occured at 134k miles I would suggest that ten years or 100k miles would be a safer bet for other owners based on my experience!
The shell of my van seems sound and rust free in the 'usual' places, so taking a punt on another oily bit seemed to make sense to me and saved me the hassle of swapping my camper interior into another van.

I will be swapping oil/filter before my next adventure starting early September, and may well do this before each adventure going forward instead of once a year.

Still undecided regarding what to buy next year when 'er indoors retires and will be travelling with me, the extra width of the Fiat Ducato and matching Puegot Shitron vans does appeal, but a French badged one would be de badged upon purchase! Recent Transit/Sprinter are narrow by comparision. The width thing allows bunks across the van as apposed to along the sides.