17th June - Toledo

Before I tell you about today, here's a quick commercial break.

 

We may be back in Europe, but this isn't the end of the blog!  Over the next few days we have some good stuff to post, including a video of the 101 cresting a sand dune at the fifth attempt, and some info about the various countries we picked up on the way.  It'll take a few days to get all this posted so please tune in for regular updates.

 

Secondly, Si has set up a guestbook.  We've had messages from all sorts of weird and wonderful people, who we never thought would see our blog, so we thought it might be a nice idea to find out who you all are.  PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take the time to click on the link on the right and sign our guestbook.  Thanks!

 

So, today we drove up all the way from the Costa del Sol to Toledo, which is (a) about half way to Bilbao, (b) a nice town and (c) has a good campsite.  Hours of motorway driving doesn't make for a fascinating blog, but the truck helped liven things up a bit.  Shortly after stopping I noticed the voltage gauge on the dashboard was flicking up and down like an ECG.  It's not supposed to do this, so I pulled over, before anything got fried, and got the multimeter out.  This showed a nice steady 12.8v at the battery, but with the engine running, the voltmeter on the dash was still up and down like a yo-yo.  The implication was that the battery had become disconnected from the alternator somehow, and sure enough, when I turned the engine off, the starter motor was dead, and our hazard lights went out.

 

I grovelled around in the dirt for a while (that rollmat we bought at Camping Sukuta has been worth its weight in gold) and wiggled some wiring, which brought the hazards back into life;  however, when I turned the key to start the engine, everything went out again.  After more waggling, I found that the big spade terminal at the end of the thick cable from the battery to the starter motor is a bit loose, and I think all the dirt we've driven through, plus some soot deposits from where it's probably been jumping across the bad connection, meant the connection wasn't being made any more.  It's not easy to get to to re-crimp, so I fiddled with it until I got a good connection which should last until the UK where I can sort it out properly.

 

The motorways in Spain are large, smooth and mostly empty, so when I get back to the M25 I'll have to remember to keep looking out the front window all the time, otherwise I'll probably pile into something I wasn't expecting to be there.  We had a spot of rain, for the first time in goodness knows how long, and chased rain clouds for much of the day.  Nicki dozed off in the back of the truck at one point, which is one of the benefits of lugging your home around with you.

 

Lunch today was a couple of totally underwhelming sandwiches from a motorway garage.  Mine was an Omelette Sandwich, which was the most vegetarian I could find, but it had ham in it, which rather defeated the point.  The bread was anaemic and soggy.  Nicki's wasn't much better.  Ah, the wonders of mass-produced, unimaginative food.  Give us a stale shrapnel loaf and some Laughing Cow & marmite any day.

 

We're relaxing back in Camping El Greco for tonight and heading to Bilbao tomorrow to stay for 2 nights.  We're about half way up the country, but have to negotiate Madrid in the morning;  luckily it's Sunday so should be quiet.