After not progressing too far up the coast yesterday, we actually managed to head off today by midday, just, so as to enjoy more meandering. 

We said our goodbyes to Jeremy and Deb, but the odds are we will bump into each other along the way as we’re generally heading in the same direction, and we very much enjoyed their company. We also said bye to our German neighbours, Thomas and Margret, and finally waved to the young German surfer neighbours in their iconic VW. 

Actually, I’ve just recalled our conversation last night when Thomas told us he was a metallurgist, after which, Sophie, who’d clearly misheard, asked if he could predict the weather for tomorrow. 

The services point was unmarked and 500m up the road, behind a football pitch, and was very good. As soon as we’d finished there the torrential rain hit. After that the coastline was pretty much obscured by the weather. Fortunately the rain didn’t last and normal coastal loveliness was resumed. 

As we approached Fisterra, Sophie noticed a panaderia so made me do a U-turn immediately. She had said she wouldn’t go and get the bread because of the weather, but the rain had relented and so did she. After returning to the motorhome we heard someone hooting and Sophie’s default reaction, as always, was what had I done wrong. As it turned out it was Jeremy and Deb coming the other way. They filled us in on what was in the Fisterra direction and then we compared notes about where we were heading, half expecting to meet somewhere else along the route. 

After a quick drive to Fisterra lighthouse, where we didn’t stop because they didn’t like motorhomes, we were then hot on the the heels of J&D. The roads then became single vehicle size, and sometimes narrower. At one point I was having my doubts about continuing and had pulled over to consider my options, at which point a very large double-trailered logging truck thundered past. This was the perfect opportunity to travel in his wake, so that any oncoming vehicles who had to get out of his way, would also be out of our way. 

After we lost him we did find ourselves on more winding narrow roads, but felt justified to be on them because the road signs were pointing us in the right direction, rather than our technology. We did see some fantastic rural scenes which helped distract Sophie from some of the steep drops. 

We found the first potential stop that J&D might have been at but there was no obvious sign of them from the “main” road, so we motored on. We then reached the town of Muxia, whose lighthouse we’d independently reckoned on calling in on. 

This was the first of our narrow street issues of the day. We’d tentatively crawled through the town, then reached a point where a restaurant owner had to pull in his awning to make passing possible. Then we were faced with a parked lorry, which made it out of the question to pass. We were fortunate enough to be able to use the ruse you can generally get away with when in a foreign country and that is drive down the nearest one way street if convenient and just get out of there, which worked beautifully, as always. I later learned from Jeremy that he’d had to mount the pavement to pass that lorry, just, which I’d considered but didn’t feel was viable for our vehicle. 

I’d identified a few other likely stops and so kept on going. At one point the Satnav lady was determined that I should go up a road that just didn’t look like a road to me, and she kept on insisting and I kept on refusing, and I finally decided to give up on those stops, choosing rather to have our lunch near the estuary before the start of Camarinas town. I thought I’d then check out those questionable roads on the satellite photos on Park4night and could see that they linked a whole series of giant white windmills, and so were effectively service roads. 

Park4night showed a decent looking beach stop at the town of Arou, where a reviewer had hinted to use the coast road because the Satnav will likely try and take through some narrow streets. I tried to use this insider information to access the beach by avoiding the town, but that wasn’t actually possible, so we squeezed our way through and finally came out the other side unscathed. Sophie’s response was half expected I must admit, and that was why would she want to stay here. 

Knowing she would not be keen to find our way back through Arou I told her that we could try the next spot at Camelle, which was only 2k along the coast road. Excellent. This road was particularly narrow, but we didn’t meet anyone else, which was handy. As we arrived in Camelle, it was blatantly obvious that we were simply not going to make it through their tiny streets, so we did a few tight manoeuvres and had no choice but to retrace our steps back to Arou and tackle that town again. Sophie then vowed that we would not do that again – some hope. 

So we persevered and headed for an area called Laxe, and it is rather lovely. We’re on our own, the Atlantic is spitting distance, as are the sand dunes and the mountains are forming the backdrop. Not a soul in sight, the thunder and lightning has been passing right over us and the rain is persistent, but it’s still lovely and bright, with sunshine on the sea, the rain hopefully beginning to abate, and we have everything we need right here. I now just need Sophie to be inspired to take some of that “everything we need right here” and form it into one of her wonderful meals. Here’s hoping, but I’m not holding my breath. 

Progress so far:

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