Furadoura - Club Campismo St. Jaoa da Madeira

Friday 12^th September

After breakfast and showers we emptied the tanks, waited for a long while for a Dutch guy to fill up with water, gave up, and headed for a camp site in Furadoura. The journey was fairly uneventful – then, as we were driving down a long road through tall pine trees I spotted what seemed to be a ‘Lady of the Night’ standing in a clearing, with her tight denims, makeup, and high heels. She looked very out of place. K didn’t notice her, so I thought that I must have been mistaken. We carried on – then I realised that I probably wasn’t mistaken when we passed a group of beckoning ladies sitting on deckchairs next to their handy transit. Middle of nowhere.

We ended up at Clube Campismo St. Jaoa da Madeira – which I am still not convinced was the one that we were heading for. It was five minutes from the beach though – so that was OK. Security here was very tight – we had to have individual electronic cards that let us in and out of the gate, which was supervised all of the time. We drove around a bit and found a level bit of ground to pitch. Then I had to ask to be connected to the power – the guy came and did it. We were under trees again, but these weren’t dropping things. The shower block was good – very clean with hot showers and ‘proper’ toilets. 

Having set up, we went for a walk to explore the site – there were hundreds of holiday caravans and small bungalows here - and to find the shop. K bought some white ‘Aperitivo’ port and some tonic – we were going to recreate the Porto drink that she liked. The free wifi was working near the bar area, so we checked the weather.

It took about five minutes to walk to the lovely beach nearby. The wind was up, and the waves were really crashing against the shore. Lots of people were gathered to watch them as they even came over the promenade in places. It was still warm, so we bought some ice creams and walked down the front where we found some shops and restaurants and market traders just packing up – well, it was getting on.

Returning, I cooked food and then we watched ‘Chronicles of Riddick’ on the computer before retiring to bed. Sometimes you just have to - not sure what triggered it this time, but I know it wasn't "seems a bit skittish".

Saturday 13^th September

It was a glorious day, really warm and sunny, so we decided to spend it on the beach. We prepared lunch, and walked down to find a spot. That was it, really. A day on the beach. We walked along the sea’s edge for quite a way at one point. We had lunch. Late afternoon we returned to the camp and showered, ate, and went to bed.