Friday 14 March - Sao Pedro do Sul to Sao Pedro do Sul!

The rain did indeed clear up during the night and we awoke to a beautiful crisp, clear, sunny and dry day, but it was a bit parky! Nevertheless it did warm up quite quickly and after breakfast we were on our way again - no services here but we're fine for now. Following the problems we'd had sorted before we came away we'd checked oil and water yesterday and before leaving confirmed all was still okay. To be honest we've been neglecting this but don't think it was contributary to what happened next.

Making our way up the N228 towards Castro Daire and climbing quite hard the water temperature warning came on and the engine started to feel a tad rough. Pulled up outside a fuel station to investigate and discovered coolant pouring out from underneath and down the nearest drain with a strong vibration from the motor. Shut everything off but couldn't see where it was coming from. Fortunately the garage had a mechanic so we enlisted his help and he discovered a plastic pipe had broken underneath the radiator and completely drained the cooling system. He couldn't do anything to help - to be fair we think he was just a glorified tyre fitter but at least he was honest. So with uneasy recollections of last years debacle we called the RAC, our European breakdown service provider. This time they seemed much more switched on, explaining they would get a breakdown truck to us as soon as possible and once the problem was diagnosed we'd look at our options. Called a few minutes later by the Portuguese breakdown service who said 30-45 mins.

Now we were pretty sure of our location and the fact we could tell them the name of the garage should have helped but an hour later another phone call that their driver couldn't find us. No wonder, he was 100km away! By now we could offer coordinates, What3Words location and more but she was eventually confident she'd now got the right location and would send another truck, 45-60 mins. The RAC chipped in here and said they would help the Portuguese company as from the location details they described what we could see out of the window, so higher confidence. Alas, being lunchtime, we were not surprised when nobody turned up, even with more communication with the RAC. But at least it wasn't raining.

Around 4.00pm a breakdown truck arrived with a really good mechanic (named Rui), who spoke excellent English, and he instantly spotted that we had more problems than a broken water pipe - all the bolts in the offside engine mount had sheared off and the motor dropped. This was getting serious but after a short discussion and a couple of telephone calls he loaded us up (left Jamie in his cage in the van) and took us to his own garage - in Sao Pedro do Sul! He also agreed that it would be fine for us to stay in their compound in the van and we could plug in electric and get water if needed, until the breakdown service found us a repairer, probably now not until after the weekend, which we were resigned to. After unloading he carefully watched a colleague put Bertie over a pit in the workshop area, we thought to get a better look at what was going on.

A few minutes later we noticed Rui and his colleague had started taking things to bits, okkaaay! When I asked he was looking for a replacement water pipe and was having no luck, but had an idea for a workaround. As for the engine mount his intention was to remove the snapped bolt then drill and fit helicoil inserts. They worked at it until 7.00pm until the place closed. Obviously the gates were shut, meaning we were locked in but not a problem and with the electric plugged in we were comfortable enough. However their last action was to release the two big guard dogs to roam during the night. Now they were not particularly nasty just very inquisitive, as are most dogs, and persistent, having discovered Jamie, who was having none of their attention. We managed to quieten him down but one of the two guardians came around the van barking several times during the night. Jamie actually did ignore it so we did too!