The Adventures of Paul, Sadie and Daisy Moo too!

We took our time going the short distance across the base of the Estrela mountains as we wanted to see a bit of Portugal, so we stopped at a little campsite next to a river and a Y shaped bridge called Pont das Tres Entradas. The campsite is run by a Dutch family that speak perfect English, sell very cheap beer and have basic but clean facilities, but over here campsites are a bit like Easyjet, you add on everything at the till so it’s never quite as cheap as you first think it is! 2 people for 2 nights in a motorhome plus hook-up ended up being about £30 but it did mean we cleaned ourselves and the van from top to toe…..I even straightened my hair! Our next hosts, Rich and Lisa, had agreed to meet us at the local football stadium in Lagares da Beira, as it wasn’t far from the end of their track and this meant they could guide us down to their land as apparently it gets a bit narrow. This track was extremely bumpy and Daisy ground and scrapped her way down the hill following

After a smooth crossing we started the French leg of our journey by heading to the city of Rouen. Everything was going so well until we watched in the mirror, as our fridge vent flew out of the side of the van and smashed into a million pieces on the road! We stopped to assess the damage and decided that there was nothing to do but press on to Rouen and see if we could patch up the hole in the van. A bit of cardboard, a plastic bag and some packing tape later we had bodged a makeshift cover and started frantically googling places to get a replacement. We stopped the night at free parking by the Maritime museum next to the River Seine, which was just a massive carpark near some major roads but it was relatively quiet and we were way more concerned with what our next plan was and how expensive it was going to be! The next day we decided to continue on and either find stockists and fitters in Spain or worst case scenario get parts delivered to our hosts in Portugal. As we were