Camping Torre del Mar

Saturday saw us back at the villa without Sophie who had been boarded out for a couple of days so that we could de-fur the place. All was looking spic-and span and we welcomed the Lawrences in the afternoon and then left. We picked up Sophie and introduced her to camping life again. It's odd camping in a place so local that we are here several times a month and think we know well. But of course we usually go home in the early afternoon and now we can enjoy the atmosphere 24 hours. It has a fantastic beach, although dogs are not allowed on most of it, but there is a little stretch at the western end where dogs an be exercised. The site is nice, clean and after the week end quite quiet, I'm surprised to say. Carol and Chris came to look it over and that was nice. Carol's mum is not well so they were going back to the UK for a few days to see her. The days seemed to fly by. We went to Comares on Wednesday and took Sophie of course. She has picked up an annoying habit of breathing loudly in the car and when she wants something. It was a very hot day one where car Air con is much appreciated. The problems with the Pajero continued and daily visits to the garage added to their already overloaded schedule and didn't resolve any of our concerns. So by Friday the Primera was destined to pull the van and us to the Cadiz area, our chosen destination for week two. But before that we had the Daimalos Fiesta. We went to it four years ago and for various reasons didn't make it again until this year. After many failed attempts to get Sophie looked after Eddie and Ennis (now without a car) agreed that Sophie could stay in the house they were minding if we gave them a lift to the Fiesta. It was a good fiesta and for such a small village.

Sunday we packed up the awning, all the other stuff ( took 2 1/2 hours) and set off for Camping Roche near Conil on the west coast of Spain. The bit that's washed by the Atlantic.

My Tom Tom said the journey time was 4 1/2 hours we took 7. There was a delay following an accident involving a large caravan (with Dutch plates) towed by a 4x4 (with Gibraltar plates).
The road was full of cars with French, Dutch and Belgian number plates and when we stopped at the services they all seemed to be occupied by Arabs ( judging from the dress and queueing to buy tickets to Tangier Or Cueta. We would like to know why? We eventually found the camp site we were aiming for, signed in and then the awful decision which of these 50 available places did we want? Large- yes, near the loo's -yes but not too near, on grass or dry sandy ground? N S E W facing? shady or not? Well we chose and were happy. UNTIL the next day no electricity!! The nice man turned it on again. 2 hours later it was off again. Well were used to this in the Campo. I now found out that the part of the park we had chosen only had a 5 amp supply, we should have been in another area for 10 amp supply!! With our water heater, kettle etc etc, we need a 20 amp supply! Decided to live with the problem and be careful rather than move. How Green are we??

Joe