We were meeting some friends in San Sebastien in Northern Spain as they were getting the ferry across the Bay of Biscay with their new camper vans! We then had a few weeks of convoy camping planned, following the waves and hopefully sunshine. What followed was a lot of rain and not enough waves sadly, and we all got to know ourselves and our vans very well indeed!

After two wet nights and a little surfing in San Sebastien we started heading South again. We drove cross coutry and stopped in Salamanca for the night. The sun shone for the following day and we had a look around in the morning, stopping to try and spot the famous frog, and have a drink in 'Spain's most beautiful square', then a final tasty tapas for lunch before continuing to the coast in Portugal.

Our first stop here was Peniche where the boys had caught some good waves before, and it looked like they might again, so we decided to make camp in a site near the beach for a few days. Steve & Sam and James had an opporunity to try out all their bongo van gadgets and put up their tents which apparently they hadn't realised you could hold a wedding reception in - they were huge!

It was nice to be settled for a few days, but if you weren't surfing there wasn't a great deal to do. I went out a couple of times and am happily getting to my feet on a long board, but some of the waves were too much for me, and I got scared after a big one caught my board and landed on me! I decided to spectate for a while after that day! The weather was changeable but mainly good, so we stuck it out, even though when the wind blew in the wrong direction all we could smell was the fish canning factory down the road!!!

We enjoyed some local delights such as piri piri chicken and the biggest seafood kebabs we'd ever seen, and of course the boys together got through an astonishing number of beers, helped by the fact that James had bought a large keg of Harveys from home, so once that had settled there was no stopping them! We also enjoyed van-cooking and barbecues shared between ourselves and the others which was great, and we even managed to find a newsagents selling English papers to relax with.

The camp site was pretty deserted and generally shut down facilities for the winter except the showers, but they did have a tennis court, and found some cheap rackets and balls at the Intermarche to use. Unfortunately after two sets we had split all of the balls!

Chris' long board got stolen from the top of the van as we were all on the beach which was a real blow as it was his first board so had a great deal of sentimental value. It was also the board I had been learning on so it meant it would be more difficult for me to pick up from no on. As the weather and swell deteriorated we headed South again, taking in the nice small town of Ericea for a few days. The Portugese surfers weren't quite as welcoming as the other people there but nevermind! The rain stopped play a little but we had a nice meal out before heading off again.

We seemed to be unable to escape the rain but kept heading South, this time stopping at a nice town called Cascais, near Lisbon. We had an afternoon in Lisbon, some surfing here, two curry nights which were a little disappointing as we feel we've nearly perfected cooking curry to our taste now, and lots more rain. This is where James managed to agree to take a young lady traveller from Canada with him as she needed a lift - a decision he quickly regretted but took a while to get the courage to solve!

As the others headed on again, we decided to stay put for one more night and enjoyed a trip to the cinema which had a few English films showing. It was nice just to relax in the warm and dry and watch a good film (and of course pig out on sweets!).

Lisbon, Chris thinks is reminiscent of San Francisco, with the old trams and the sea and large bridges. It's quite a pretty city and easy to walk around. We went up a tower in the centre to get a great birds eye view of the whole area.

We travelled on to meet the others in Arrifana where we parked on a clifftop and went for a run, enjoying the lack of rain (although the boys not enjoying the lack of waves!). Encountered one too many nude people on the beach on our run, but it probably made us go a bit faster up the hill back to the van! Once there we had a shower then went to the only local bar for a drink and played pool with everyone watching! A few drinks later we ended up at the only restaurant that was open and shared a big shellfish risotto which was lovely. A very windy, slightly worrying night later (given our location!) the weather hadn't really improved so it was time to keep moving South, leading us back into Spain...