Portsmouth:

Could the lovely Spring day in London yesterday last? Not a chance…

It rained all night and we woke to heavy fog. The drive down to Portsmouth through Hampshire gave us a pretty, if misty, view of the western part of the rolling South Downs, past Chawton, Jane Austen's village. Later on we passed the little village of Wickham and I couldn't help but wonder if Ms Austen had used the name for a character in Pride and Prejudice - is there a village called Bingley perhaps?

The further south we travelled the more the cloud broke up and the sun desperately tried to shine through. At the campsite, about a 30 minute drive from the ferry terminal, it shone!

Up to now we have been a bit worried about the paperwork for the van. One particular document is very important to get us over the border into Morocco - it is a re-registration document and had not yet arrived in the post for us to take with us. We had contacted the tour leader in Spain and he made a suggestion which we thought might be worth trying. We discovered there was a local DVLA office in Portsmouth not too far away and so it was there we headed to try and get some sort of paper in person. It all went too smoothly for words! It was not in a high traffic area, there was parking on site and it was suitable for a motorhome, and there wasn't too much of a crowd waiting. After only about half an hour we had some suitable documents in our hot little hands that cost us a whole £3! Relief!

And we even managed to sit for an hour in the sun.

The ferry terminal was easily reached the next morning and loading was pretty fast. Our cabin, though inside and therefore windowless, was quite roomy and we spent the rest of the day reading and watching the sea and the ships on it from the lounge. The trip was smooth and we docked on time at Santander exactly 24 hours after leaving Portsmouth.