Sun 29 Oct 11° Cabarceno, Northern Spain

Quiet night after next door finally got their sliding camper door shut after about 5 attempts.
Sparkling sun on the lake and dappled light on the autumn leaves thru the trees, cast a golden glow on the grass and the orange and yellow leaves scattered around.

A good magazine on the ferry with suggested places to visit in Northern Spain and along the coast to Santiago de Compostela so did some planning for next few days.

The clocks went back last night.   After lunch we walked to the cable car entry and got a map, can drive or go on the cable car €30 each all day. Went back to Bessie to drive in and to the car park.

Got on the Gondola,  5 stages up, accross and down through the park. Very good, better than driving, as see more and gives Tony a break from driving.  It was well worth it, we went around twice.

Hypos

look carefully and you can Bessie in the car park

Elephants

Amazing rock formations

Back to Bessie and drove back to the car park, had a wee warming dram as weather turned to a cold misty drizzle 2nd time round....are we back in UK ? 🤔 No its Northern Spain,  we have been told it will warm up once we start heading south.

Venison sausages, little boiled potatoes,  Brussels and carrots in a cheese sauce for dinner.

Sat 28 Oct At sea Bay of Biscay to Santander Cabarceno Wildlife Park

Grey smooth sea and white sky, gentle rocking to wake us up.  With all good intentions we went up on deck for a walk to be greeted by the aroma of cooked bacon and coffee.........after not much deliberating we opted for 2 cooked breakfasts  £4 each, 2 eggs, 2 bacon, sausage, hash brown and baked beans.

After some fresh air we went down to deck 7 for a virtual under the sea reality experience. A 3 minute video with goggles on, it was amazing just like being a diver under the sea, fish, ship wrecks, Whale and the sea floor was like an underwater snow capped mountain, incredible .

Then we had bingo, but again no luck...later they had deck quoits at 2.15, Tony was leading most of the way but was pipped at the post but he did win a pen.

We had a late lunch after our big brekky , I had a fruits de la mer pasta in creamy sauce, heated up in the microwave Tony had a sandwichand croissants.

We went up on deck and saw the first sight of land and the Picos de Europa mountains.
The was an Osprey flying and gliding around us.

We packed and readied to be called. The skipper negotiated the exit through the huge port area onto Spanish roads , he is very good at this just like a duck to water, a very smooth transition. Drove slightly south and up a narrow winding road to our park at Cabarceno Wildlife Park.

Very popular about 30 motorhomes and more came it was just about full, Tony spoke to a Brit who thought the park was closed as this area is usually full of busses and cars, the smaller area is for motorhomes with the waste dump .

Crackers for a lite tea after our late lunch on the ferry. 

Fri 27 Oct 9° Portsmouth - ferry to Santander Northern Spain

A lovely sunny day, after lunch we drove to the ferry terminal via Shell for LPG......none in Portsmouth!

We got a front row view of all the port ferry activity, huge trucks, containers being loaded on by small swivel cabs engines that can reverse the huge containers but once swivelled looks like they are pushing it on. All shapes and sizes of cars....ohhhh a Porche ....we are in good company haha.

Our turn to drive on and up a r.r.r.a.a.m.m.p.p. very juddery then round a corner and tucked in amongst boats and other motorhomes.

We found our cabin, good size central window, we went up on deck to explore and there was a really nice welcome with free Tapas and Sangria.

The sun was shining as we sailed out of Portsmouth into the setting sun, a grand finale to our UK adventures as we now head to Santander for our last leg of our retirement adventures.

We went back to our cabin and had a wee celebratory Blair Atholl single malt, that we bought in Scotland with Pat and Les.

The TV was showing the Catalonia Independence crisis in Barcelona....glad we are up North away from it all.

We are on the Cap Finistere, the smallest of the French Brittany ferries, there are 2 restaurants both with identical menu's and a cafe that you can buy a meal and heat it up in the microwave.  We opted for the restaurant with the waiter service, same price as the other more casual dining area. Very nice 2 course meal £20 I had seafood entre with a main of crab and linguistine lasagne in creamy sauce Tony had duck entre and main, yummy treat.

Into the main bar for a quiz night got 2nd,  followed by bingo no where near ticking all the numbers, never mind it was a bit of fun.

A very smooth crossing, hardly know you were moving.