Rain. Rollerblades & Costa de la Luz.

"Sixty km and they do'nt have the right adaptor. What we gonna do now Tanya?" 

The Repsol garage in Marbella was right there in front of us Exactly as predicted by Mrs Satnav. 'You have reached your destination.' She helpfully added. 

"Thank you Mrs Sat nav." I say as we draw up alongside the LPG pump ready to replenish our gas supply. 

I walk into the service shop and the young girl, anticipating my request, lays out the adaptors on the counter. All bar the one I need that is. In her broken English she shrugs and says; 

"Yes. I ave want lots time Euro adapteur. Boss say manyana get one. He no do." 

In reply, and in my excellent Spanish, I say; "No worry girl. Gimme two wash tokens and two drier tokens for the lavada instead."

 Well it was raining, we'd come a long way and these lavadas (Laundrettes) attached to some Repsol garages have really good industrial type washing machines with a thirty minute cycle that seems to do a good job. Not being able to replenish my one nearly empty gas bottle was not too much of a disaster as we are headed Cadiz way where there is another refill point. Mind you if they have no adaptor Stevey boy could be in a bit of bovver then.

So; back to Algeciras for the evening with all clean clothes and bedding. A drive I was glad to see the back of as the rain was torrential. A few days earlier I had noticed cars parked on the river bed as I drove over the big wide bridge. That river bed was now in full flow. I presume the car owners were local and moved them. If they did'nt then those cars should be well on their way to Morrocco by now!

I've been hanging round the Gibralter/Algeciras area for two reasons. One is I need to decide whether I am going over to Morocco or not. Two; I have a rotten cold which has laid me low physically and mentally. I guess it matches the weather which, according to the charts is here to stay for a week or so and is fairly widespread, even to Northern Morocco. So there was no driving out of it. Best to just find a quiet spot and sit it out.

Today, however; which is Tuesday March 5, we have made a move. Not far but quite significant as we have moved from the Med to the Atlantic coast. Tarifa to be specific. We are wild in a parking area much favoured by Kite Surfers for which this area is a mecca. Wow! They are fun to watch and I would love to have a go. The area is a huge sandy Atlantic facing beach stretching for miles.

Tomorrow we'll take a bike ride into Tarifa itself. Who knows I might just enquire as to how much a beginners Kite surfing course costs for a doddery old UK pensioner. (nearly anyway .... only one more month to go .... is it 'whoopee' or is it ...  'omg! am  I really THAT old'!) If nothing else it will give some cool Spanish surfing dude the laugh of his life as he grasps fully the incredulous stupidity of the weird looking old British guy stood in front of him.

"Hey Juan, Juan, look look at this scruffy old hombre, he has a dog with a beard attached to him and he wants to skim across the foaming Atlantic ocean while hanging onto one of our rather large, but everso colourful, blow up kites!
Tell him Juan, tell him, I have no kite boards with bath chairs attached!!".

Exit shop leaving cool Spanish surfing dude and Juan holding each other up lest the uncontrollable belly laughter they are both exhibiting at their own joke should floor them.

-  -  -  -
Next day.

You know there is something very satisfying about waking up in a motorhome as it gently rocks in gusty Atlantic force 4 to 5' winds; especially after a night of sporadic, and at times quite fierce, squally showers. The experience is enhanced by a cup of tea, opening up the blinds on Sadie's panoramic windscreen and then going back to bed to watch the huge waves crashing and foaming in across the expanse of sandy beach laid out before us.

Well that was 2 hours ago. We are now up, Tanya has been walked, I'm showered and breakfasted and outside the Kite-surfers are starting to arrive in force. There is a large area of flat water between the shallow dunes just in front of Sadie and the the gentle convex hump of flat wave washed sand which takes the full force of the Atlantic fury. A couple of brave souls have crossed this divide and are out there amid the foaming mass of breakwater. The majority however, are sticking to the large shallow flat water strip and are skimming along at incredible speed.. There is leaping high into the air as well with somersaults performed while hanging beneath the colourful seagull wing shaped Kite sails.

I guess the bike ride into Tarifa is not going to happen. No laughs for Cool Spanish surfing dude. I think they are all out here anyway. There is a van with a couple being tutored just in front of me. A young fit couple. No sign of doddery old pensioners. Yeeeees! I think this old pensioner is quite happy to stay for today and watch the action.

"C'mon Tanya lets get the doddery old pensioner's wetproof gear on and go for a long trek across the dunes, which conveniently has a lovely walkway stretching away into the distance. There you are see, pensioners catered for as well!
-   -   -   -
About 3 days later

We've had a day of sunshine! Yippeeee! Mind you, right now, at 2000hrs here in 'Chipiona' North of Cadiz it is once again pishing down! My German neighbour tells me it is going to stay wet n windy all day tomorrow too. However; it is also 23 degrees which is OK!

Morocco is for next year. Not sure why really. Bit of nervousness, cannot be bothered, looked as bleak and wet as it was in Tarifa. Don't really know. All I do know is all of a sudden we moved and started travelling up toward Cadiz along the 'Costa de la Luz'.

Very different. Undeveloped, very 'Spanish' and not too friendly to 'Acamparcar' either with notices all over banning you from parking and indicating; 'this municipality has campsites which you are kindly directed to.' "OK" I thought I'll respect that. I did too until the first one I was 'directed to' turned out to be closed. So I wildcamped in the port area of 'Barbate' instead but got moved off that pitch by a very apologetic 'Policia Puerta' gentleman in a nice green uniform, peaked cap and sub machine gun!

I sort of expected it so was not too worried. There was a large area of open ground opposite the port so I moved there and was not troubled again. Interestingly as I walked Tanya the next morning we had to negotiate our way around a rather large pile of straw liberally dosed with elephant droppings in order to get to a forest park. Turns out just up from us was a circus in their winter quarters. When we left a little later large pile of straw also contained contents of Sadies Thetford cassette. I only needed two elephant doo daas to cover it all up. Brilliant!

We got to Cadiz today. The original intention was to park up somewhere in bike range of the city and spend the day there. Surprisingly it was easy to drive right into, and around, the centre and the attractive old city and port area.  What was not easy was to park a largish motorhome. We did find one spot but it was on a narrow street with a busy flow of traffic going by. I risked it as Tanya was itching for a walk and donning rollerblades we did, a first for us, a rollerblade walk along part of the 'Playa de Cortadura' seafront prom.

Yes Rollerblades! We keep ending up on all these wonderful long smooth promenades and seeing 'young things' rollerblading effortlessly along them.

"Well, its just as daft as kite surfing but on balance slightly more achievable" says I.

Also it was a wet and fed up type of day there at Algeciras next door to the huge retail park with a 'Decathlon' discount sports store just inviting us in. And there they were. Black shiny with easy whizz round wheels and all for €39.00 knocked down from €89.00. Fraid they very quickly became mine courtesy of Mr Mastercard!

Doing the Tanya walk was the most adventurous I've been on them so far. In fact I'm still a bit shaky on them really but they are good and I'm sure with a little more practise I too will be whizzing efforessly along all the wide and smooth promenades. Alternativly I could be ........ Nahhhhh! not really. I'm being everso everso careful. Honest!

Anyway back to Cadiz. We could not stay in the 'unsuitable' parking spot for more than an hour so we moved on till we realized that any suitable parking was so far out as to make a bike visit impractical. So we continued on to 'Jerez de la Frontera' where Mrs Satnav very accurately directed us to a Repsol garage with LPG AND the correct adaptor for filling. From there it was but a short hop to 'Chipiona' where espied on the seafront right by the harbour were three other motorhomes.

"That'll do us Tanya eh!" I said as we neatly reversed in at respectable distance from my neighbour.
-   -   -
Next morning.

'Gosh I am k k ker-nackered'. The sun is shining and we have discovered we are at the port end of about a 6km long smooth and well maintained promenade. Surfers were out, churchgoers were emptying out and strolling along and there, in the middle of it all was this foreigner with a pair of sandals hanging round his neck careering along on rollerblades with a little black dog trying to keep up with him. He was a bit wobbly at times too.

The good side to this story is I did not fall on my arse once. I also, at times, seemed to be whizzing along just like them there young things I mentioned earlier. The locals, curiously, seemed to love stopping and staring goggle eyed at this spectacle. They then repeated this goggle eyed scenario as 20m further on they came across a miniature Schnauzer with pink tongue hanging out trotting along on 3 or 4 legs, as is her want, trying to keep up with the crazy foreigner.

Ho hum. All things possible when living the life of a wanderer!!