Tapp's Travels

Tenth off the ferry, we had been told to expect someone to check our temperatures and our hard won paperwork. And, naturally, very long queues!  Well, of course, there were no such health checks and consequently, no queue!  And could we get anyone to so much at glance at our TCS QR codes?  Of course not.  The immigration officer wouldn’t even take them folded in our passports.  If only he knew the blood, sweat and tears (and fibs) that went into getting them sorted!  Thanks Jeremy and Lucy!

Anyway, we were off!  And once out of Santander, the almost empty motorway towards Salamanca became almost deserted.  Just like the M25!  A really easy drive.  After a couple of hours down the A67, we hesitated in a very quiet picnic area.

One car, one lorry and us.  We were there less than 10 minutes.  A quick pit-stop and a stretch of legs and back on the road.  Ten minutes later a car pulled along side of us gesticulating wildly.  Apparently,  something was falling of the back of our caravan!  Instinct said pull over and check.  Common sense and Glenda said don’t stop.  It’s a con.  Matey boy drove ahead, stopped and we had to swerve past him.  He then passed again and got out on the highway pulling out a fluorescent tape from his car in front of us to try (again unsuccessfully) to flag us down.

VERY disturbing!

We had heard on the boat about highway robbers stopping unsuspecting foreign motorists on deserted stretches of roads and stealing from them. Anyway we continued towards our first campsite, but about 40 km short, we had a blow-out on a caravan tyre.  It transpires, that our tyre had been spiked at the rest area.  The man from the lone car did walk very close down the side of the caravan – but didn’t think anything of it at the time.

So that was a really nasty shock (from which we haven’t fully recovered several days later).  Very fortunately,  the blow-out happened 100 metres before a petrol filling station.  And with no threat to anyone, although it could have had really serious consequences.  It’s frightening to see how little concern these gangsters have for their victims and anyone else caught up in the consequent accident.  I managed to get us to a smoking halt on the forecourt of the Repsol filling station.  After that, I have to say I lost the plot – but luckily Glenda soon got us organised calling the Red Pennant emergency help-line in the UK.  Then it was just a two hour wait (as it got dark) for the RACE breakdown man to arrive.  Another British couple stopped at “our” garage in a dreadful state.  They had had a tyre punctured on the same stretch of road  as us at about the same time.  They had been robbed of everything – money, phones, tickets and passports.

Two friendly policemen pitched up, but it soon became apparent that our lack of Spanish was a total hindrance.  Eventually, we convinced them that we didn’t need any help.  For the record, we discovered later that there is an dedicated English-speaking emergency police number for Brits in peril in Spain!

Anyway, the short story was that Mr RACE got the spare wheel installed, told us to go slowly to the nearest campsite and get new a new tyre the next day.  By this time it was pitch black.  It was going to be fun breaking into our camp ground and setting up in the dark!

Next morning, with assistance of the campsite receptionist and Red Pennant insurance (who were brilliant), we ordered two new tyres from the local garage.  Every stage of the job takes so long to make sure the correct grade of tyre is purchased, that the wheel hub hasn’t been damaged and that the two new tyres are to go on the van and the remaining road tyre is transferred to the spare.  At least we seem  to be getting better with Google Translate.  We even know a selection of useful Spanish words (including new, old, tyre, this, pressure, black, waterproof, mastic and thank you!)

We had a half-hearted meander around the old part of Tordesillas while waiting for the tyres to arrive.  The town is situated on the North Bank of the River Douro.  The place looked interesting enough but, to be fair, we weren’t really in the mood for sight seeing!

But as Glenda keeps telling me, when you fall off a horse, you get straight back on.  So we are going to give it a go, but it’s taking a few days for us to recover.  I guess that’s the sign of getting older..