5 December 2017 – Bilbao to Home via the Bay of Biscay

(I'm not very good at blogging the end of our trips. On the basis of 'better late than never', I'm finally posting this some 4.5 months after the end of the trip.)

Our trip to Spain at the end of last year ended with us parked up to spend the night in the ferry queue. It’s a common thing to do – there were lanes of motorhomes there overnight and I only saw one more arrive to check in on the morning of the crossing.

I don’t know how everyone else slept, but it wasn’t a disturbance-free night. Bilbao Port is not a quiet place, even after hours.

It was just as we were going to bed (11pm-ish, if my memory serves) that a horn started sounding. The sounding of horns in a collection of motorhomes is common (“Someone’s closing their blinds!” we often exclaim), but this one went on in such a manner that I wondered out loud whether someone was being attacked and were trying to attract attention. It wasn’t anyone close to us, though, so onwards to bed we went. Amongst the other night time disturbances were loud tannoy announcements along the lines of “You are in an unauthorised area, please leave immediately”.

I had heard that Calais migrant issue had been dispersed to places including Bilbao, but assumed that within the dock area (i.e. beyond the gates and fences of the check-in area) it would be safe and secure. Not so, apparently. When we got home I read online that someone in the queue that night had indeed had issues with a migrant repeatedly trying to join them in their motorhome.

Morning came, boarding operations commenced. We were one of the last motorhomes in the queue, and motorhome boarding was paused just before they got to us. For more than an hour we watched everyone boarding around us, wondering when it would be our turn. Right at the end was the answer. We were the third to last vehicle to board. Turned out to be a good thing, as we were almost first off at the other end, exiting Portsmouth Dock before most people had even been allowed down to the car decks.

As for the 23.5 hours between boarding and disembarking: it was fine! We couldn’t have chosen better weather for a crossing of the Bay of Biscay. For much of the time conditions were dead flat with only the view telling us we were at sea. The cabin was fine too – better than expected - even if it was a bit noisy being above the engines (but on the plus side, we were also next to the bar, so could pick up the free wifi from our beds). As an added amusement, we won the quiz too. A quiz that we’d had no intention to enter, but the timing of Mick deciding he fancied a pre-bed pint caused us to be coerced by the Entertainment staff.

Monday 4 December - Laredo and Bilbao Port

Where's Bertie? He's in Lane 11 of the ferry queue for tomorrow's 10.30am sailing to Portsmouth (rough location: 43.35378, -3.07035).
Weather: Disappointingly, some drizzle this morning after a fair start. Clearing to sunshine later.

In anticipation of not getting much exercise over the next couple of days, we forewent our rest day and ran this morning. 'Twas a nice morning for it.

Dawn view from the beachside promenade, about 30m from Bertie.

That didn't excuse us a walk into town later. Those postcards weren't going to reach their destinations unless we bought stamps and found a postbox.

Our language skills are improving, and today, despite fluffing my lines a little, I managed to ask for stamps in a manner that got me exactly what I wanted without confusion (previously I've pointed to the corner of an envelope and muttered 'sellos'). We didn't do so well in the pastelaria, mainly because there were no labels for us to even try to describe what we wanted. Pointing came to the rescue and we came away (piggishly) with two cakes apiece. All have now been eaten. Oink.

Brittany Ferries opens check-in from 4-7pm on a Monday afternoon, before the Tuesday morning sailing, allowing people to stay in their vehicles in the queuing lanes overnight. That gave us an obvious and easy place to stay tonight, which will avoid the need for an early start or any stress about getting here in the morning. With the 50km journey here behind us, we had completed in two days (i.e. from Santander) a journey of 100km that took us 11 days in the other direction!

I can't say that the signage at the port was particuarly clear, but we managed to locate the one open check-in booth, and here we are. The next motorhome to pull up behind us was a Hymer B444DL - remarkable as that's exactly what Bertie is, and whilst we've encountered many others from the Dynamic Line (DL) range on our travels, that's the first other 444 we've seen.


I'll try to remember to write one more post, once we get home, reviewing the trip (not to mention the ferry ride - provided that I'm not too traumatised to mention it...), but given my past performance in blogging laziness as soon as we reach home, there's no guarantee. In anticipation of failing to pen that last post, I'll just record here that it's been a very enjoyable trip and we're both looking forward to returning to Spain at some point next year.

Sunday 3 December - Laredo

Where's Bertie? He's back in the dead-end road/car park at Laredo, where he's already been on two other occasions on this trip (exact location: 43.4149, -3.42815)
Weather: Periods of rain.

We managed to run in the dry this morning, and it seems that Sunday is the popular day for the activity. Lots and lots of people were seen doing the same, although only one other woman. That explains how*, even at today's pace (it was Long Slow Run day) I managed to achieve the second fastest female on that circuit this year on Strava (Strava = a very popular exercise tracking app that I only got around to downloading last week).

By the time we had run, breakfasted, showered and all that gubbins, it was knocking on for lunchtime. Thinking we'd best squeeze in elevenses, the kettle was put on, whereupon Mick suggested we should go out for coffee and croissant instead. That we did, making it half way to the same cafe as yesterday before walking back to check we had turned the kettle off (of course we had!).

The cafe was heaving, and plenty were on the beach and the promenade too. Far more than yesterday. The result of shops being closed in Spain on a Sunday, thus there are few distractions in a nation that already likes its exercise and its social eating/drinking?

Had we not returned to Bertie due to kettle paranoia, we would have got our croissant. As it was, we'd just missed the last ones. We settled for the suggested substitute of toast instead.

After a walk back in the rain (didn't wear waterproofs today, hence it rained on us!), and a spot of lunch, it was mid-afternoon by the time we got Bertie ready to move on and thus a decision had to be made as to where to go. The short-list was: 1) to the other side of Santander to an Aire where a pitch and electric can be had for €6; 2) to Liérganes - a place we particularly liked but a bit of a detour; or 3) Laredo, again.

Laredo obviously won, although we could be anywhere as the weather is such that we have not stepped out of Bertie since we arrived. Hopefully it will be better tomorrow, for our last full day in Spain.

^{(*It's also probable that women are less likely to use gadgets, gizmos and technology to the same extent as men, but I think the main factor is the lack of women running in Santander. My lower standing on the 'leaderboard' for yesterday's much-faster run reflects that most people run around the park in a clockwise direction, so I had more competition; today we ran in the unpopular anti-clockwise direction.)}

Saturday 2 December - Santander

Where's Bertie? He's still at the Aire in Santander.
Weather: Showers, some of hail, but with some good sunny spells in between. The heaviest hail/thunder shower was at 2.09 this morning; gosh, it was loud!

The main reason we came back to Santander was because there's a really good place to run right opposite the Aire. This morning, we each did a couple of circuits of the parkland, in opposite directions, in a relay stylee. Mick, setting off well after me (he was still in bed as I was ready to go) managed to pass me the keys on his way past without either of us needing to break stride.

That was all good fun, and I only got slightly wet in one shower (Mick avoided all rain).

After our late breakfast, we opted for the beachside promenade for our next leg-stretch, but without repetition of where we went on our previous visit. This time we turned left when we hit the coast.


Last time we were here there were lots of bikini/shorts clad people playing a bat and ball game on the beach. There was no bat and balling today. The beach dwellers were instead mainly clad in jackets, hats and gloves - even some of these chaps who had installed two sets of goalposts (made out of waste pipes) and drawn a pitch on the sand:

Some of the footballers were wearing jackets, hats and/or gloves; one roughty-toughty was wearing shorts and a had a bare chest.

We had reached the end of the promenade and were just looking at where the cliff-top path went, when it came to our notice that the sky was going awfully dark again. An about turn was swiftly made and to a cafe we went. Over coffee and croissant, at a table with Christmas decorations, we looked through the rain-lashed picture windows, watching two chaps strip off their t-shirts and dive into the waves.

The rain was, of course, irrelevant whilst they were swimming, but, personally, I would want it to be dry when I emerged. But then I'd want the air temperature to be about 15 degrees warmer too.

I had good intentions to go back out this afternoon, to take some recycling to some communal bins and to find a Tabac to buy stamps. With showers coming through regularly, and with a trashy novel gripping me, I didn't make it. I absolutely have to get stamps on Monday; I've got postcards written, and we leave on Tuesday.


A rugged 4x4 Hymer (on a Merc base). Never seen one of these before.

^{(We've got a close neighbour again tonight. I nipped out and looked at the state of fullness: to our left there's a space, a van, then five empty spaces. To our right there was a space, a van, then four empty spaces. Yet, they opted to take the single space to our right. As I've said before, I've no cause to complain and they have every right to park there (and it's not as extreme as the van that parked right next to us in an otherwise empty 150-space car park in Comillas), but I'm fascinated as to why they would choose to park so close to two other vans, when could have had an empty space either side of them.)}

Friday 1 December - Santander

Where's Bertie? He's back in the municipal Aire at Santader, where he spent a couple of nights in early November (exact location: 43.47218, -3.80276).
Weather: Awful start, with rain, hail and high winds. Some sunny spells between violent showers (rain, hail, sleet) later.

We were rudely awoken early this morning by hail battering Bertie's roof. Along with rocking as if he was at sea, it was enough to have me declare "I'm not going for a run in that!".

It was tempting to ask the Aire owner if we could stay another night (the max stay is officially 3 days), but the lack of certain groceries was the push we needed to move on.

Grocery shopping and LPG filling proved trying. I'd wanted to nip into the Carrefour in Santander, but found its (and all of the nearby) car parks guarded by height barriers. So, we proceeded to a Lidl, where the car park was full and so tight that we would have struggled to squeeze Bertie into a spot anyway.

Temporarily abandoning our supermarket needs, a diversion was made for LPG, to the same petrol station we used previously. The decision to go back there was slightly against our better judgement, but the experience was even worse today. I'll gloss over a detailed description of the shenanigans, but just mention that this is a manned station, where an attendant fills your vehicle for you. That's not an unusual scenario in Spain, but it's incredibly inefficient as everyone is waiting around for one man to do all of the filling, then to write out a chit, to be taken into the kiosk for payment. The whole inefficient scenario is not helped by all of vehicle manoeuvring that needs to go on due to the poor design of this particular filling station.

Groceries were finally procured from another Lidl (bizarre, inefficient parking barrier system there), then it was just a stop for diesel before our errands were run. Yes, we could have got diesel at the same place as the LPG, but that would have required us to turn around and queue for another pump, and we had almost lost the will to live just in getting LPG.

On the bright side, that's the first time we've put any fuel in Bertie's tank since San Sebastian on 16 October.

Settled into the Aire here, we were just finishing up a late lunch when a patch of blue sky was spotted. Making the most of it, we dived into our waterproofs and went out for a leg-stretch, making one full circuit and one mini-circuit of the park opposite before the sky started looking too ominous to continue. Good call: I hadn't had Bertie's door closed behind me for more than five seconds before the rain came down.

Eeeh, that's another lot of wittering on a day when we have essentially done nothing!