N39.4838 W7.54774 - ALBUFEIRA DA BARRAGEM DO PÓVOA E MEADAS, PORTUGAL - Free

Bye, bye Monsaraz .

Just before we left today Mike saw a man with a basket on the wall, then he realised that the basket contained racing pigeons.

I had put in three possible destinations for today, none of them far from one another. As we were driving along, we saw in the distance what looked like the biggest rubbish tip you've ever seen. It was on both sides of the road. As we got closer we discovered it was a case of 'You should have gone to Specsavers'. They were the stone quarries of Borba (that's the name of the place) on the N255. They were enormous and like the rubbish tip near Laval, even had roads going up them.

We stopped for lunch in the parking for the bullring in Estramoz. Fortunately we were a few days too early as I think I saw bullfighting advertised for the weekend and I wouldn't have wanted to be there then.

Some of the roads we travelled were back roads, why - I don't know . We passed through some lovely villages but the ancient inhabitants must have been a quarrelsome lot. We've never seen so many fortified hilltop towns as we've seen today. Nearly every big village/town has a castle and the castle walls.

We continued on to Castello de Vide which is in the Parque Natural da Serra de São Mamede. Our parking space was supposed to be a relaxing space by the market place. Huh! SaggyNaggy left us in the lurch again (she's really not very consistent with her directions) and we started going uphill again and towards the cobbles. Don't want to go there again I'm saying, have been cobbled out! So rather than go round again, we ditched that destination and it was on to the next.

The next place was only 11 km from Castelo de Vide but it was all along what I would call single track road but you could pass with care. This was a wild camping place and was at the side of the Barragem. We turned into the space which had little tracks going off it . There was already one occupant. It was a German registered converted van and looked like the sole occupants were a girl and her two dogs.

I don't think I'm ready for the true wild camping. I definitely don't feel happy when we leave rough surface tarmac or concrete surfaces for rutted, sandy tiny little tracks.

The girl was having a clean out and by the looks of the dust she was banging out of a single mattress, she needed to. I hope that was the dogs' bed and not hers. As she'd got the only fairly level space, we gave her a wave and left her to it.

4 km further up the road we are where we've landed and we actually passed a house on the way!This is a mix of proper Aire (concreted area with sort of marked out spaces) and 'rough' park anywhere. Here there are toilets, a cold shower, grey & toilet waste and drinking water.

We've an English couple in a Bessacar next to us . They've been travelling since last May and are now heading back to the UK for a short while and then back to France for 16 weeks. They sold their house to buy their van and presumably finance their trip.

We were 'invaded' by three French hippy vans, two with couples in and one with just a man and five dogs between them. They came to fill their water bottles, walk to the lake with the dogs and use the shower. The dogs were extremely well behaved. They are obviously parked somewhere around the lake, probably down one of the little tracks I'm too timid to go down in case we get stuck

We sat outside and read, well I hung out my camping washing thingy with all the knickers I'd washed this morning on the bike rack at the back along with a couple of Mike's polo shirts. It's more discrete than hanging it from a window. If it continues to be hot, I'll do some more tomorrow.

Can you buy a collapsible spin dryer do you think? Like the collapsible buckets. One that won't take up space in the locker. The salad spinner is okay but you can only put a couple of pairs of pants in at one time!

Mike cooked dinner outside and now he's reading his book and I'm writing this and trying to make it sound interesting!