Day Thirty 13.4.05 We left the dusty campsite at Espinho to drive along the coast to Figueira da Foz. The road we took (N109) was quite busy, it takes longer than the motorway but you see a lot more. One village merges into the next and a lot of the older houses in the village centres are perilously close to the roadside. Many are tiled in traditional ceramic presumably so that they can simply wash off all the road dust. We're sure that when the elderly residents (we haven't seen anyone under 80 yet) bought the places they never imagined eighteen wheeled trucks flying by at 60mph within inches of there windows let alone motor homes. We did some shopping at Intermarche, we've found its best to shop when you see a supermarket because chances are when you arrive at your destination there won't be one. We bought a huge amount of minced beef from the counter because a kilo didn't sound like much. I guess it will be spag bog for the next few weeks. We had lunch in Mira and then continued to Figueira da Foz. On arrival at the campsite which is part of a chain in Portugal called Orbitur we found that they specialise in dusty sites. We were just having a look around for a patch of grass as the lady said we could park anywhere when all of a sudden the van stopped. Will revved the engine but somehow we had sunk six inches into sand! What at first appeared to be an easy problem to rectify with plastic wedges designed to level the van on a slope turned out to be a bit more involved. The wedges got stuck and the van didn't move. A helpful lady suggested we tell reception when Will was halfway there already. Will came back and said the receptionist said give her five minutes and she will send for a tractor. It was a Portuguese five minutes and half an hour later the tractor arrived and pulled us out in seconds. Relief all round. Apparently it happens all the time, clearly nobody thought to improve the surface or fence it off. Finally we pitched up in a little less secluded area amongst the other campers and whilst unpacking William found the Grip System runners we had purchased to get the van out of sticky situations. We could have used them to get ourselves out of the sand! Hopefully they will stay in there packet though.