N37.100802 W8.355048 - ARMAÇAO DE PÊRA - 1.50€ per night. Rustic services.

Melt-down day for me today but let's face it you have to have at least one good melt down a holiday or at least I do!

We went and woke Kim and John to day goodbye, they were sleeping in after a late night last night .

Set off for MONCHIQUE (N37.3159 W8.59304) - Free parking at the Observatory. Two motorhome spaces, no services.

We'd been messing about with the SatNav to find our home co-ordinates for John and Kim and after quite a few kilometres I suddenly realised that it was still set for home! Instead of 35 km we now had to do 63. Monchique is in the mountains so we were heading up these narrow, very twisty roads with Mike enjoying the twists and turns and he looks at me and gets a surprise - I am leaning in towards him trying to get away from the edge of the road and the horrendous drop on my side. That made him laugh.

We finally arrived at the Fóia Observatory which is the highest point in the Algarve and the view is stunning. My photos won't show it at it's best because, although it was beautiful sunshine it was still a bit hazy.

We had our lunch and, me, my meltdown . I'll not go into it but suffice to say it was the usual storm in a teacup.

We decided we wouldn't stay the night - it would be very windy up there so we left by the same route - or so we thought! We came from Monchique and we had to return via Monchique so it was logical we'd go back the same way as we came.

We're driving down the road thinking 'I don't remember that', 'I don't remember that water on the way up' and 'I don't remember the road being this narrow'!

Also, when using a SatNav it pays to watch the route rather than just listen for new instructions, so we carried straight on to this gravelly, loose chipping, deep-rutted track downhill and me then saying I think we need to turn around. We could turn around a bit further downhill, which we did, then we couldn't get back up the hill for skidding and slipping on the gravel. It took Mike two attempts at getting up . The first was unsuccessful so Mike reversed back, dropped into first gear and we managed to get up with a bit of effort. I sat there twisting my thumbs together, anxious that we'd be stuck there, in the middle of nowhere - FOREVER! Although Mike was quite nonchalant about the whole thing.

We did eventually get back to Monchique and headed towards Portimao and back to Pêra. We have come down to the car parking at Armaçao de Pêra and have been told by the lady collecting our 1.50€ that it's okay to stay the night. We'd read in loads of different places that the police had stopped the parking here but there still appears to be quite a few vans settled for the night.

21:51hrs - have just come back from a very nice restaurant. 12.50€ each for a three course meal (except Mike didn't have his dessert) plus a bottle of wine. Time for some reading now.