Jurassic Park and on to Valdovino

Friday 5^th September

By the way – I’ve been deaf in my right ear now for about a week – ever since going swimming in St. Jean de Luz. All I have is a constant ‘static’ noise, which is a real pain. K has to shout at me sometimes to get my attention – not good in company!

We emptied the van and made ready to go. We are heading for an aire in Gijon, which apparently is popular, so we need to get there fairly early. We headed off by ten thirty, and went via a cave where you could see real prehistoric cave painting. We arrived and parked up by a leisure centre only to be told that they were fully booked, but had a cancellation for one person at two o’clock (it was 12.30 then). They then had no spaces until the 11^th! We moved on.

Arriving at the Jurassic Museum about 40 minutes later we parked and made our way up the hill to be confronted by about twenty large dinosaur models, all of which we could freely wander around and take pictures – so we did. That bit was so good that we didn’t feel the need to go into the museum itself, other than the gift shop, thus saving 15 Euros!

We got to Gijon in mid afternoon, and took one of the two remaining spaces on the aire – close to a busy main road, right next to the port. It was free, so who looks a gift horse……. The beach started at the edge of the aire, so we parked and went for a walk then sunbathe – for about two hours.

Returning to the van we ate the remainder of the pasta dish that I have prepared the previous day, and then loaded up the National Trust Wine Carrier with some Muscadet, and headed back to the beach. We sat for a while and enjoyed the ambience. The sun was, however, soon going down and we wended our way back to the van.

After listening to an audiobook for a while we retired. The road was OK for me – I just had to lie on my left side and I couldn’t hear a thing. K said that it was a bit noisy, especially when there seemed to be a lot of lorries going through in the early morning.

Saturday 6^th September

We awoke to a sunny morning, breakfasted, emptied the van and were on our way south by 10.00 – something of a record for us. We became distracted by a Lidl, however, and after I had decided how to park – K’s suggestion worked – side on in the parking bay – we decamped to the supermarket, knowing that we only had three smallish bags, therefore could not buy too much…..

We emerged weighed down with goods – surprising what you can fit in three small bags - and I was pleased to find that the van was still there, and didn’t have a parking ticket. We stowed the stuff, and K took over driving our way out of Gijon.

A hour and a halfish later we stopped for lunch at Ribadeo bridge at the Asturias border and went for a short walk under the bridge to the information office on the other side – we thought – but couldn’t get to it, so returned to the van. 

We ate, and then I took over driving for the longer stretch. After another stop at a ‘Hiper’ Market looking for the possibility of toilet goods – but having much more in the way of cider, sausage and wine goods, we arrived at Valdovino Camping nearly four hours later, having picked it from the ASCI book. It’s a smallish site on a hill (more of a slope really) with enough shrubbery to worry even us with a smallish van – if you were bigger, you could find yourself scrubbing against the foliage. The pitches were level but lumpy – even had cut off trees about two inches high in part.

I booked us in for one night. K seemed dubious, but cheered up when she saw that the (Gaudi themed) toilet block was really quite nice. We both had welcome showers (mine hotter than hers for some reason) after I had washed her hair in the baby bath section, and settled in for the evening. We had enough of the sun to cheer us up. After food we played around with free wifi and then went to bed. The bay just down the hill from the site was spectacular – and obviously good for surfing – we seemed to have a surf school at the site.