2019 - A New Year - A New Adventure!

Magallon church (near Zaragoza)

On the Sunday between Christmas and the New Year, while most people were tucked up in their cosy beds we were up early heading towards Folkestone and the Eurotunnel heading towards Spain. We travelled (almost) Toll free over 5 days across France and Spain and the roads were surprisingly quiet as a lot of people were still on holiday, including the lorry drivers (note to self: use this time again to travel to the Spanish Costa in future!!)
We stayed enrouute on free Aires along the way usually driving about 300 to 400 km a day, we opted out of New Year's Eve celebrations, sleeping through midnight, just happy to be on the road again. We had a few cold nights - the temperature plummeted to -5°c during the night in inland Spain ( we were hopeful it would be somewhat warmer on the coast!)
It's a strange thing when you're travelling, at night you pull down all the blinds, go to bed and in the morning when you wake up you have to remember where you were when you last stopped so you know what to expect when you look out of the window- every day a different view!!

If you are a regular follower of my blog you will know we usually head for Castellon, we can fill up with water at the Free Aire then park up by the Aerodrome opposite the beach and the cycle lane that goes for miles along the coastline including our favourite Via Verde. We were shocked when we arrived- there were somewhere in the region of 100 vans there and we took one of the last spaces. We might have been squashed in like sardines but the sea, sunshine and lovely cycling more than makes up for it.
Until, that is, after a couple of days, we were joined by a troupe of New Age travellers ( do they still call them that? Our friend Paul called them Swampies!)
With their music, dogs and log burning stoves belching smoke we decided to move on the next day, so where to? We had decided we must try pastures new so we moved a few miles north along the coast and parked up on a scrap of land right on the beachfront.

A peaceful spot apart from the sounds of the waves breaking on the shore, our only fear was that we may be moved on by the Guardia.
Our fears proved to be unfounded, but we had another problem that we hadn't anticipated- our batteries ran low. The solar energy from our 2 solar panels, with the sun low in the sky just wasn't enough to supply
enough power to our batteries, the cold temperatures at night also affect their performance, as well as charging our bike batteries 3 days in a row - we needed to recharge with electric hookup. So where to go?
Find out on my next post!