Monday, January 08, 2007
Sunday 17th December – Olhao, Algarve, Portugal
So arrived in Portugal and having learned from previous experience we left the caravan at the entrance and drove around the campsite looking for a good spot. There weren’t any! All the sunny spots had already gone, mainly to large RV’s parked haphazardly All the large pitches had also gone. We eventually managed to squeeze ourselves onto a pitch but alas it was not big enough for us to erect the awning. Never mind we would cope! We discovered the next day that the site never got so much as one single ray of sun throughout the entire day and therefore it was also pretty cold.
We did not reckon much about this site, however it had one fantastic feature, the play park was really good and entertained our boys for hours on end. Yes I am afraid we have relaxed into this way of life and are quite happy to have the boys out of our sight for hours at a time without supervision. This is mainly down to Max. Despite being noisy and generally destructive he has a keen sense of right and wrong and also in self preservation that also extends to his brothers. He also particularly enjoys being in charge. Therefore most mornings we set them off walking to the play park, all three walking hand in hand, don’t get carried away it is only 1 minute walk, we are not that irresponsible you know!
On the second day, when Jon went to collect the boys from the play park he was accosted by a lady called Rita. She wanted to tell Jon what lovely boys we had, especially Max who made sure they all crossed the road properly to go to the toilet and looked after his brothers. Rita is married to a Swedish man called Kent (this is probably spelt wrong) who gave us some maps and good advice on travelling to Sweden, Norway and Finland. The Scandinavian countries are the places I have been most exited about visiting and Kent fired us up again.
Wednesday 20th December
Off to entertain the boys at Zoo marine. It was blooming freezing and we needed jumpers, coats and gloves. Of course we made sure that Zoo marine was actively involved in conservation etc before we visited, duly satisfied we set off to watch animals perform silly things to entertain people. So, aquarium, Manatee, two tiger sharks, lunch, birds of prey, seals acting out part of Peter Pan, a ride on some fairground attractions, dolphins, a 4D cinema about conservation, parrot show and then home. All for 15 Euros, which we thought was pretty good.
Thursday 21st December – Ria Formosa nature park, Algarve, Portugal
Next to the campsite there happens to be a natural park, Ria Formosa, so we decided to take a walk. It took literally 5 minutes to walk to the entrance of the park and the boys were complaining that they had walked a long way and when would they be able to go back to the caraban, as Jory calls it. In the park there are some kennels for Portugese water dogs. The owner spoke very good English and told us the history of the dogs and what her dogs do today. The dogs themselves were very friendly and the children enjoyed playing with them. Their hair was thick and curly and according to the lady they didn’t moult. They were truly lovely dogs and Jon and I have decided that when we settle down again we will have one…..
Much to the boy’s consternation we carried on walking and to our surprise came within 10 feet of a Griffon Vulture. The vulture was standing on top of an aviary eyeing us suspiciously but did not fly away, instead held his ground. Bearing in mind that we were walking in a natural park do you think we packed:
a) the binoculars (a recent purchase in Gibraltar) or
b) the camera (also a recent purchase in Gibraltar) or
c) none of the above?
Correct C) none of the above. What a fantastic picture we could have had of the Vulture.
Friday 22nd December – Tavira, Algarve, Portugal
We decided to visit the Ostrich Farm at Tavira today. The information in the booklet we had picked up at the local Tourist information was scant in the extreme. We drove around for a while on a wild Ostrich chase looking for the tourist information in Tavira. However, we ended up driving out by the salt pans, damn where were those binoculars again? There were lots of wild campers here, and what a beautiful place to do it. We spied a british camper and pulled in to ask them if they knew where the Ostrich Farm was. They informed us that the farm had closed 2 years ago and that the booklet we had was notorious in having out of date information. They also informed us about an interesting camera that we should visit if we had an hour to spare.
We eventually managed to locate this camera that was housed in a disused water tower. Through the use of mirrors that were projected down onto a 2 meter diameter disc we could see 360 degrees of the city as it was moving about today. Therefore from our vantage point we could see cars driving over the bridges etc. We were given a history lesson of the town, which if we could have listened properly instead of telling the children to “be quiet” or “don’t touch that”, “don’t kick that”, “you will sit over there if you touch that again”, would have been quite interesting.
On the way back to town we stumbled across some Moorish castle remains. You were able to climb to dizzying heights on stone steps open on one side. When we went up or down these steps it was one child at a time holding onto both of their hands as we descended very slowly, especially with Cadan who has to be the most accident prone child around. You would never be able to do this in the UK! After this we had a leisurely walk around the town that was most pleasant with cobbled streets and small shops. The square was open and modern with a tranquil river running along side it.
Chrismas Day – Olhao, Argarve, Portugal
We decided at the beginning of the trip to not haul Christmas decorations around Europe for a year, but obviously we wanted to make the caravan look a little Christmassy, so for the past week the boys and I concentrated our efforts on making stars, angels, snowmen, bells, snowflakes and paper chains. We also made a big paper Christmas tree to hang on the door with glitter balls and other decorations.
On the day the boys had their Christmas pressies hidden around the caravan spread out through the day. OK they did not get lots of toys, but they had chocolate, drawing materials, a car and a dvd each but this was all they needed, they had a great time and enjoyed the presents they were given. There were no questions about where are the toys or why didn’t we have a such and such. They were happy with what they got.
Christmas dinner was minus brussel sprouts and mince pies, but none the less was festive. I had a bit of a shock when preparing the chicken (the turkeys were all too large to fit in the oven), I had not been expecting to have to cut off the head and the feet. Jon was a little worried that I would lose a few digits especially as I was doing it with my eyes closed! It was a reminder on how much Britain camouflages the reality of the meat source in our supermarkets. In the Spanish and Portuguese shops little is left to the imagination with skinned rabbits and lambs, with heads etc still intact and small piglets all on display. The boys amazed me further, instead of being repulsed or upset, they were simply curious about it and had many questions. Anyway I digress. So a full festive roast later and we had a traditional Portuguese Christmas cake. We had a Christmas day walk with the usual chorus of complaining and then watched one of the new DVD’s, supper was followed by Christmas pud and custard (mainly due to the lack of any Cornish clotted cream!)
