Portugal 2015.

Well, truck is 99% packed.

Setting off at mid-day on Sunday, heading for Plymouth and the overnighter to Santander, then head south-west to Valladolid, Zamora and finally Braganca.

Initially aim to be in Braganca for maybe 5 days, then possibly down to Monteines (Mountains!!) for the rest, or maybe stay at Braganca, or something.

Ive got tapatalk on the phone, so will try and put up a few photos as we go along.

Ive also got a gopro so maybe put together a video if my daughter helps me....

pete

Good luck pete

Hope you have a great trip Pete.

have a good one! lots of reports please, might take off myself in a few weeks!

Have a great trip. Look out for a one life adventure trip, the will be moving up through Portugal the next 2 weeks


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Made it to the ferry My mate steve in an old series 3 currently getting the customs rubber glove treatment....

grief look at that lot!
I hope they are not coming here

you are leaving a year early looking at the title

All ready at the campsite having a nice cold beer before I cook steak and chips

the campsite is empty

just me, one car, electric hook up, one medium tent and wifi for 10 days 98 euros

Have a great trip. Look out for a one life adventure trip, the will be moving up through Portugal the next 2 weeks

Click to expand...

Saw them on the ferry I was on, did try to talk to one of them but was a bit off putting, mybe because a had a crap landrover

Hope he pay a lot of money for trip

when he can do it for free

What was this person driving, since most of them are in landies and one I landcruiser and a patrol



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Ferry was super smooth.

Drive down from Santander was 6 hours of deserted motorways!

Arrived at Cepo Verde, new tent took some thought, fortunately it rained which made us work faster

Great nights sleep on the king goanna stretcher.

Morning is clear, bit damp - and mountainous.

Trip to town to stock up, then first lane planned for this afternoon.

Oh yes, 27deg in Spain, cooler in hills though.

First day here spent setting kit up, stocking up on essentials (learnt last year to shop at this end.)

Diesel is €1.35 a litre, and I got €1.22 euros to the pound, so about £1.10 a litre.

Did a 40km track in the afternoon, got up to 1290m, where it was raining......came down to 800m where it was raining....seems its start of monsoon season

2-room tent ideal though, we sat a listened to the gramophone last night, nice and dry.

Heading over to spain today, hopefully another 40k.



Oh yes - dashcam has packed up, took all the spare fuses to work it out, shame but have gopro to use.

Second off road day completed.

About 40k - quite possibly my best day ever offroad.

Mostly forest driving, with some very rocky tracks, couple of small river crossings - finished in Spain.

Torrential thunderstorm on way home, bit scary at 1200m with lightning around!

Truck faultless today, very comfy ride on some bare rock roads.

May be going into National park tomorrow, not sure yet.



Ok - the last two photos......

We are driving a track, which becomes a tarmac road, which is completely unused !! The brown stuff on the road is sheep poo - you will see it is uncrushed, a road no-one uses

unused roads mmmmmm

looks like fun!

Today was slightly different - decided to drive lanes in the area of the campsite, so no routecards.

Sat with google maps and 'scouted' a rough plan.

Morning was A1, unused tracks much smaller and knarlier than the previous days, much more like UK laning, in fact, exactly what UK laning should be like!

In 3 hours did about 12 miles, pretty intense.

After a break we set off again, but found some lanes inaccessible, so decided on a spot of sightseeing instead.

Decided on a visit to Chaves, about 94km away (didnt know that when we set off, its only about 60km in a line, but 94km on mountain roads!)

Lovely place, well worth the trip.

Dry all day, now torrential downpour.

Truck all fine, Discovery has had new brakes and Series 3 has leaking petrol tank.....

Day off today, springclean the tent.....

Sun out at the moment, but thunderstorm from 2pm, aiming to be in a bar somwhere.

So, get all my warm kit on, its been 25deg all day, best day yet.

Low point was finding a scorpion in my tent

Routes planned for Sat, Sun and Monday.

Two french trucks turned up at site last night, a Mitsi Shogun and the above 100 series, they were using a baroud roof tent.

They are doing the north to south west route, very close to ours from last year.

Have a route to vila flor planned for today, looks like it will be warmer.

Well, today was a bit of a non event.

Drove to Vila Flor, to do a route back to Braganca - found a motorway been built over the first 30km

Got back onto the route, after about 8km gind its on private land when we get to the *inside* of the locked gate.....

One of the lads fell down steps at the campsite and in some pain, so we came back by normal road.

On the plus side, its been a lovely warm day, and ive found a way of viewing all the 1:25k military maps of portugal i had saved a couple of years back, so after a few beers all is now well

Have extended tomorrows route to compensate, and we are going to reverse the Spanish route and drive it again, it was outstandingly good fun the first time.

Campsite virtually deserted now, roads even more so.