Tuesday 25 February - Huelva to Salir

The traffic didn't stop until very late and restarted early in the morning. But that didn't matter because we were both up at various times during the night to see to a somewhat poorly puppy with a dicky tummy, needing to poo every hour or so. Or, well, trying to. He'd had very little to eat over the last 24 hours, not we hasten to say, an unusual occurrence, but maybe travelling again after a couple of weeks upset him. But he did eventually give us a couple of hours respite so that it was close to our normal surfacing time when we could no longer ignore the traffic noise.

No rush today as we haven't very far to travel so as there was nothing to hold us up we engaged TomTom and headed towards Portugal. But now, as forecast, the previously fine weather faltered and as we proceeded west it started to rain. We were also reminded yesterday that the roads in this part of Spain seemed to be suffering from some neglect as, although they obviously started out to be very good, many surfaces were starting to break up and we spent a lot of attention on avoiding the worst of the potholes, not all of them successfully, but we don't seem to have sustained any damage. Before long we crossed the huge bridge into Portugal, stopping to register with the automatic road toll system (though we have no intention of using toll roads, it's a legal requirement) then turned off towards the N125 coast road, well known to us from previous visits. With the weather unable to make its mind up we later turned north into the hills, climbing as far as the cloud base before dropping down again, our maps pointing out that this was a scenic route, with which we could not disagree. The rain eventually stopped with signs of the clouds clearing away.

John, Eds brother, lives in the town (well big village really) of Salir, well inland and north of Loule, itself north of Faro. A check of our camping apps showed a motorhome parking area there which turned out to be very smart and have all facilities, including electrical hookup, and very unusually was totally free! It even has a very helpful and laid-back, multi-lingual guardian who made us very welcome. The only restriction was that a visit was limited to 3 nights, plenty enough for us. It's difficult to see what the town gets from providing such generosity as it doesn't seem to have anything particularly going for it and is well off the beaten track. It is quite pretty however and the surrounding countryside very picturesque. Whatever, our thanks go out to the community and we'll try to put something back in. Meanwhile we selected a nice pitch and settled in, noticing that most of the 36 pitches were occupied - the guardian did say that it was a lot busier than yesterday, another good reason for arriving early in the day, it being around 12.30.

Lunch then a quick call to John telling him of our arrival and arranging to meet up for lunch tomorrow before getting the chairs out and once more soaking up some sunshine. The forecast is good for a few days so we'll make the most of it before deciding what to do next.