A bit of a windy night………..

When I bought these wind breaks I thought the idea was to break the wind (no not like that!) not break in the wind! Actually they had just fallen down in the overnight storm so no major problem!

Saturday 13th October 2018

The wind was still getting up a bit as we ventured a little further along the coastal path toward the resort of Âncora.

The waves were looking and sounding very dramatic. Kev and I had brought our wetsuits down as we were thinking of taking a dip, but we were ‘advised’ by our other halves that this would be foolhardy…………..we had actually arrived at this conclusion ourselves, I mean, after all we aren’t stupid are we ???

Jane and Val were finding all this exhilaration too much and had to sit down to admire the view!

Jane was a little miffed that the wind blew her hair out of place, I was a little miffed that the breeze blew my shirt out and made it look like I had a bit of a belly!

Kev managed to keep his hair under control by keeping his cap on!

As the afternoon went on the wind was getting stronger…………………

When we got back to the campsite, a Dutch guy on another pitch asked us if we had heard of  Hurricane Leslie  which was headed our way!!!!!!!!  We hadn’t, so it was all hands on deck to make sure everything was packed safely away……….our only worry now was that the caravans might be blown away!  The only way we were going to be able to see out this storm was to go to the local restaurant and get smashed!  The only thing we hadn’t really considered as we walked down to dine in the calm before the storm………. was how we were going to get back? At the end of the evening, as the rain lashed down and the wind was howling, good old Kev stepped up to the mark and bravely headed back to the campsite to get the car and save all us wimps from getting wet!  Thanks Kev!

Sunday 14th October 2014

Having survived the storm with nothing more than slight hangovers, Kev decided to take us all out on one of his Sunday afternoon drives. Valança was to be the first destination, a fortress town on the river Minho.  The river Minho is the border between Spain and Portugal.  Now you can cross a bridge easily between the 2 countries, but when the fort was built things were slightly different!  Getting in to this place was far more difficult than we thought, and we arrived at a very narrow gatehouse with a set of traffic lights outside.  Now if this had been in most other countries it would have been pedestrian- only traffic from now on.  This wasn’t the case, however, and chaos reigned as cars tried to pass both ways through the narrow tunnels of the fort whilst at the same time trying to  find a parking space and also obey another 3 sets of traffic lights!  If one car too many came through at a change of lights then no-one could move………..that’s 20 minutes of my life that I will never get back!

It was all worth it when we finally got parked, and after finding a couple of geocaches it was time to hit the shops!

I have never seen so many linen and towel shops in all my life!

After battling the traffic back through the fort we set off for Monçâo.  This place was far more chilled, with a lot less people and a calmer “vibe”!  It is great to see the cafe culture still in full swing with families out for coffee and cake on a Sunday afternoon, mums, dads, fathers and sons, grandparents and grandchildren all enjoying each others company.  So we joined them and had a selection of cakes for ourselves!