Autumn 2024

Pamplona, Spain - 8 September 2024

08.09 - Pamplona, Navarre - Spain 🇪🇸

Decided it should be a driving day as it was raining when we woke up.

I took the first turn to drive. The first hour was spent faffing around - servicing Dave - at a campsite - was €2 for 100 litres of water. No tokens, not even real money taken - had to use the Starling debit card! Then decided we should stop off for diesel - as it’s Sunday and were planning on driving all day. Found fuel for €1.56 at Biganos - last chance before motorway prices!

Was a real concentration drive due to the rain. Also - why do some tarmac surfaces cause so much spray, and other seem to magically suck up the rain?

Had our ‘typical’ French drive - long straight tree lined roads. What was Hugo doing in France André?!

After about 3 hours , pulled into a lay by for lunch, and then Tintin drove.

Crossed the Adour River - it was quite busy and confusing around Bayonne. Good thing about driving on a Sunday - less trucks!

From having flat drives, we were then in the mountains - the Pyrenees. At the highest point of only 1,057m the view was sadly a bit rubbish because of the weather.

We entered Navarra / Spain without really even knowing! We were also on the Camino route - so saw lots of walkers and hostels along the way.

Was Tintin’s kind of drive - lots of hairpin bends!

Since when have the signs in Spain been pink?! Makes us realize just how little Spanish vocabulary we know!

Our ETA kept getting pushed back (again) due to not being able to do the speed limit because of road conditions.

Then our problems started - the satnav took us pretty close to the Aire - however - it was all closed until 18 September due to some kind of festival. Then, ironically our Spanish SIM wasn’t working, plus - think Tintin’s iPad had overheated - nothing was working - so no satnav! Tried using data from Tintin’s phone by hot spotting to my iPad - but that doesn’t have GPS! Eventually (well about 7 fraught minutes!) we found where I thought we were going in the first place! Someone had put the wrong Aire into co-pilot! Anyway - finally arrived about 6pm - good job - rum time! Pleased to say a re-boot and search for different signals restored our data, and some downtime has allowed Tintin’s iPad to recover!