Drive around Spain! (and a maindealer turns up trumps!!)

Hello everyone.

1,952 miles and two weeks later I’m back and hasn’t a lot happened!

I’m going to tell the tale of my driving trip to Spain – if you're not interested ‘go back’ now.

I’ll not bother with the scenery; the fine wine; the lovely beaches; my karaoke performance, I’ll put all that on my crochet website – sh1t I’ve let it slip!!!

Casual drive down to Portsmouth to join the Pride of Bilbao. Tried driving on the left on the M40, just to get a bit of practice in, it wasn't easy. Getting on the boat was easy peasy though and I’ve got to say the P&O staff throughout were very helpful and easy to talk to. Good entertainment on the boat too, the guitar player part of the duo on the way out was superb and she could sing a note or too as well.

First car bit ….

TOMTOM

What a god send!

I know that when you're in your own neck of the woods there's always a better way, I get the feeling that if its not taking you down a motorway there has to be a MacDonald’s, KFC or Burger King or the system wont recognise the road.

But when you have a wife who cant navigate; your concentrating on driving on the wrong side of the road; the road signs are in foreign; kilometres sneak up on you quicker than miles, the last thing you want is to be reading a map.

You can imagine my surprise then at the start of week two TomTom took me 30 miles along a mountain road where if anything was coming the other way each of us had to go onto the verge – assuming there was one and not the 2,000’+ drop part of the way. The road was steep and I mean steep steep – hairpin bends – rock falls – earth slides, I could have burnt out the drive bits on the way up and I’m sure my brakes glowed on the way down. The mountain setting on the steptronic gearbox must be set for poxy wee German mountains – these were big Spanish Picos Mountains!!!

It was a bit scary, not made less so by the occasional Spanish trucks I came across. Have you noticed that Spanish trucks look like real size versions of Tonka trucks? and I found out later that ‘Tonka’ is Spanish for ‘get the f out my way!’

Top marks to sat nav systems.

AIR CONDITIONING

Showing off my car to my Dad who I hadn’t seen for more than a dozen years. Hoods up, engine purring then all of a sudden the air conditioning lets go (I’d just had it serviced before I left?). Stinky white steamy stuff belching out all over the place. I didn’t mind the high temperatures, aye right. They even hit the Spanish news when we were there – a ‘cool’ 44 degrees. There must be some sort of emergency release valve because thankfully it continued to work after this. Can anyone confirm this?

PS 3 lighters exploded in the car, I was never in the car at the time. BUT I was in my jeans when one went in my pocket!!! OH!!!! that chilled the nuggets!!!!!

Just about first on and off the boat on the way home. Docked at 19.25, out of Portsmouth at 19.40, home 350 miles away at 3.01 am (and that’s less than 6 CDs worth) and better than the Stig.

ESSENTIALS

Well apart from the 4 fluorescent jackets (OK so we left the original two at home) they will be on ebay shortly!! …. if you're going to take a car over there these sun reflectors for the windscreen are a MUST and you maybe want to get one for the back too. And a decent sat nav system.

CAR SURPRISE OF THE TRIP.

This is a bit embarrassing! Before I went on the trip I read the manual to see how to change the headlights for continental driving. A post came up the day after from someone asking how it was done and to be honest I was not very helpful (the manual was in the car, the car was about 2 miles away at home) I replied RTFM but in my helpful way provided links to all the manuals from about 1997 – 2001 ….. the member found they were for the USA and we all know that most Americans only travel abroad on the instructions of their president to fight wars (oh, bit political there!!!!) so no headlight changy thingy. My apologies if your reading this.

Here’s the bit – my manual didn’t match my headlights!!!! I didn’t know what to do and this and found out the night before I was due to travel!!!!

Decided to bite the bullet and visit the local BMW dealership in Portsmouth, Snows. A very pleasant young lady directed me to the service department. A very helpful chap asked for the keys and suggested my wife and I have a complimentary cool drink in the café while he took the car to the workshop. 15 minutes later he put the keys on the table in front of us, said there was no charge, instructed me as to how to change the lights back and wished us a pleasant holiday. Well thank you Snows of Portsmouth I did have a super holiday kicked off with a pleasant surprise at your BMW dealership.

1,952 miles / 26.0 mpg

Anyone still awake?