Monday started as a chilly, dull, grey day and pretty much stayed
like that all day! We decided to move back to Alcacer do Sal for a day or two as we didn‘t really like it at the barragem, so moved on after readjusting the satellite. We managed to get the UK channels we wanted at the barragem and tested the same settings when we got back to Alcacer, it still worked! We had perfect BBC, ITV, etc etc both sound and vision! But by the evening, unfortunately we had less luck, we could only receive the vision (in a very pixelated form) and hardly any sound. So we’ll try again in the morning to see if we have any luck. So we’re back to watching Portuguese TV through the analogue aerial, at least there’s a National Geographic program on everyday at 9pm for 45 minutes which keeps Mark happy! By Tuesday we manage to get sound and vision again after some more tweaking. It’s definitely not a case of being able to turn the TV on and it works… that would be a luxury! Even when we manage to get the TV working, we’re very limited to how much we can watch it at the moment as we have to rely on how much our leisure battery is charged. As we haven’t been driving much lately, we are solely reliant on the solar panel for energy, and as the sun hasn’t been shining much lately we don’t get much charge! Luckily the sun shone all day on Tuesday so we had quite a lot of charge for TV viewing in the evening.
Unfortunately on Wednesday morning we find that the gas is low a couple of days earlier than expected, so we can’t even boil the kettle for our breakfast cuppas as the flow is so slow! So we fill up with gas, water, food and head on our way through the Sado Estuary Nature Reserve, through loads of pine trees growing out of the sand (pine kernals are one of the main crops grown in the area, together with rice). Cork oak is also grown and along the way we see lots of trees which have been partially stripped of their bark for cork.
We stop at Carrasqueira, an old fishing village with several traditional houses made out of rushes and wood, we have a bit of a wander round then head onto Troia, then Coasta de Santa Andre finally ending up at Sines late afternoon. Some parts of Sines are quite nice (the old town) but newer parts have quite a lot of graffiti. The next day is lovely and sunny and we go for another walk around the town, have
lunch and then head on down the coast. Much of the coastline of Sines is industrial (power stations
and petrol), but once a few miles down the road we entered the national park that stretches down to the western Algarve and the scenery was really beautiful. We drove past lots of secluded, unspoilt beaches until we reached Porto Covo, we parked up on the outskirts of the village along with 7 or 8 other motorhomes. We were up on
cliff looking over to the Sines on our rig
ht and Porto Covo on our left. We then went for a long walk into the town then back along various beaches. Porto Covo is a traditional village with nearly house painted in traditional white and blue, it's nice, but doesn’t have a lot going on, so we‘ll be on our way tomorrow.
On Friday morning we drive just 20 minutes down the coast to Vila Nova de Milfontes, which is partly on the coast and partly on the estuary of the River Mira. It’s a medi
um sized town which is well kept and has a nice feel, so we’ll stay here a couple of days we expect. There‘s quite a few motorhomes parked up along the sea front (parking overnight is banned but it looks like no-one takes any notice of that!). We had a long wander round the town and visited both of the campsites in search of a launderette. One of the sites has a self-service launderette and will let non-campsite users use it, so we’ll be heading there tomorrow. The last couple of days have been lovely and sunny, so the solar panel has been working well for us. In the evening we walked into town and found a nice bar with wi-fi, so have been able to upload the blog!
It’s now 4 weeks since we arrived at Dover ready to set sail on Saturday 13 December 2008. So far we have driven nearly 1900 miles and have followed to route shown in yellow on the map below.
like that all day! We decided to move back to Alcacer do Sal for a day or two as we didn‘t really like it at the barragem, so moved on after readjusting the satellite. We managed to get the UK channels we wanted at the barragem and tested the same settings when we got back to Alcacer, it still worked! We had perfect BBC, ITV, etc etc both sound and vision! But by the evening, unfortunately we had less luck, we could only receive the vision (in a very pixelated form) and hardly any sound. So we’ll try again in the morning to see if we have any luck. So we’re back to watching Portuguese TV through the analogue aerial, at least there’s a National Geographic program on everyday at 9pm for 45 minutes which keeps Mark happy! By Tuesday we manage to get sound and vision again after some more tweaking. It’s definitely not a case of being able to turn the TV on and it works… that would be a luxury! Even when we manage to get the TV working, we’re very limited to how much we can watch it at the moment as we have to rely on how much our leisure battery is charged. As we haven’t been driving much lately, we are solely reliant on the solar panel for energy, and as the sun hasn’t been shining much lately we don’t get much charge! Luckily the sun shone all day on Tuesday so we had quite a lot of charge for TV viewing in the evening.
Unfortunately on Wednesday morning we find that the gas is low a couple of days earlier than expected, so we can’t even boil the kettle for our breakfast cuppas as the flow is so slow! So we fill up with gas, water, food and head on our way through the Sado Estuary Nature Reserve, through loads of pine trees growing out of the sand (pine kernals are one of the main crops grown in the area, together with rice). Cork oak is also grown and along the way we see lots of trees which have been partially stripped of their bark for cork. 
We stop at Carrasqueira, an old fishing village with several traditional houses made out of rushes and wood, we have a bit of a wander round then head onto Troia, then Coasta de Santa Andre finally ending up at Sines late afternoon. Some parts of Sines are quite nice (the old town) but newer parts have quite a lot of graffiti. The next day is lovely and sunny and we go for another walk around the town, have
lunch and then head on down the coast. Much of the coastline of Sines is industrial (power stations 
and petrol), but once a few miles down the road we entered the national park that stretches down to the western Algarve and the scenery was really beautiful. We drove past lots of secluded, unspoilt beaches until we reached Porto Covo, we parked up on the outskirts of the village along with 7 or 8 other motorhomes. We were up on 
cliff looking over to the Sines on our rig
ht and Porto Covo on our left. We then went for a long walk into the town then back along various beaches. Porto Covo is a traditional village with nearly house painted in traditional white and blue, it's nice, but doesn’t have a lot going on, so we‘ll be on our way tomorrow.
On Friday morning we drive just 20 minutes down the coast to Vila Nova de Milfontes, which is partly on the coast and partly on the estuary of the River Mira. It’s a medi
um sized town which is well kept and has a nice feel, so we’ll stay here a couple of days we expect. There‘s quite a few motorhomes parked up along the sea front (parking overnight is banned but it looks like no-one takes any notice of that!). We had a long wander round the town and visited both of the campsites in search of a launderette. One of the sites has a self-service launderette and will let non-campsite users use it, so we’ll be heading there tomorrow. The last couple of days have been lovely and sunny, so the solar panel has been working well for us. In the evening we walked into town and found a nice bar with wi-fi, so have been able to upload the blog!
It’s now 4 weeks since we arrived at Dover ready to set sail on Saturday 13 December 2008. So far we have driven nearly 1900 miles and have followed to route shown in yellow on the map below.
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