Travel Diary 7

Travel Diary 7

Hit the Mediterranean Coast at Valencia. Arrived mid-afternoon yesterday after an interesting two day trip from Aranjuez, just south of Madrid. Beautiful weather, sunny, a warm 30C the signs says (provided one is the sun and not shade!!) and hardly a cloud in the sky. Boy do things change once one comes down from the Sierra.

We’ve been looking for a replacement gas bottle. Out original ones are of German manufacture and have a specific fitting with regulator etc just like we use in Australia. When we collected the van, we were told here are some fittings you will need to buy gas bottles in other countries as they are not all the same and were handed a pack of four different nuts that screw onto the regulator hose. We ran out of the first bottle 4 days ago and decided to get a replacement. I asked at the Camping site about this and was told go to a Repsol service station, they have them.

We thought we’d check that out at one of the two service stations in Aranjuez. As it turned out neither were Repsol and we were told the nearest was 36km back towards Madrid. I was not too fussed about that as we were travelling in the opposite direction and did not want to add an additional 72km to the day’s trip.

Then I found out there was a Repsol Office in Aranjuez, so thought, there has to be one in the direction we were travelling and after a 3km walk, directions from a pretty police woman and a discussion via Google translator, found out yes there was one 15kms on the road we planned to drive along. So we headed off.

We eventually found this service station some 18kms down the road and some 6kms off the highway in a small town known as Orcana. And I mean small! No luck with the bottles. Ohh they stocked bottles but none with the fittings we needed. Anyway, we figured that one of the “many” Repsol service stations along our route would stock one surely. As we were just about to drive off, a truck pulled in with a load of gas bottles on the back. The service station attendant called the driver over and they spent 5 mins talking and shaking their heads and then looking at our setup in the Campervan. And then another 5 minutes talking and shaking their heads.

Then the driver decided that he could do something and went to is truck, got out a bunch of stuff including a new bottle and tools and proceeded to fit it to our system.

The first indication that this was not going to work was when I saw Butanol written on the bottle instead of propane which is what our system is set up for. But as he seemed to know what he was doing, we kept watching. After 20 mins of fiddling, much putting in and taking out of the bottle and unscrewing and screwing of fittings. He shook his head again and said “Problemo!” I said “Really?” He said “Si!” and began to pack up all his stuff.

By this stage another hour had gone by and I’m thinking “how do we get this fixed?” No seems to know what to do and we kept getting suggestions and people acting as if they has solutions eg go to this Repsol service station, but nothing was working.

Then the driver said something that basically meant “Follow me”. So we did and eventually arrived at his depot after stopping in town while he did the banking and his wife, who was in the truck, went grocery shopping for some bread sticks and other stuff! Kerrie and I just looked at each other stood at the side of the road and smiled politely.

At the depot, which was down a dirt driveway to an equally dirt covered depot floor and surrounds, he proudly waved us in and he set to work. He was determined to make his system of adjustment work and to help us. We kind of figured it wasn’t, but maybe, who knows! He cut lengths of hose, change fittings, swapped bottles, screwed up stuff and then proudly announced “OK”. 

He indicated I was to try the cooker. I turned it on and could smell gas immediately. So far so good. But when I went to light it, it flared everywhere! Burnt the hair on my hand, singed my jumper and I jumped back while Kerrie yelled. Turned it off immediately as you do. The driver just shook his head again and went outside to try and turn the gas feed down.

After much more adjustment and turning we got it working. Sort of. The problem was his fit out did not include a regulator and our system needs one. We both read the Spanish on the side of the fitting he had used and saw that it pushed gas through at the rate of 2.5kp to 3.0kp while our system worked on 1.5kp.

No wonder it kept flaring!!

In the end, we put it all back together the way it was before he started and after many “Mucho Gracias” and a lot of hand shaking and patting him on the back and saying too bad, “Problemo muy big”, and giving him E25 for his troubles, we drove off again.

He had gone out of his way to try and help and was very concerned for us. Which was decent and I seriously appreciated his endeavours. So worth the E25 even though it had really just proved what we thought we knew ie the fittings are specialised and we had either the wrong ones for Spain or didn’t have any for Spanish gas bottles. So much for McRent explaining things to us properly.

At some point in this exercise, Kerrie had pulled out the book that explained to us ow to run the van and the electrical system, the gas system etc etc. There was a section on resetting the gas, which just sauid “Reset the gas system so it works”. Unfortunately no explanation on how to do that.

There was another section 200 pages later which gave a list of what to do in each country in order to get gas bottles for the van. This includes ring a phone number and get bottles from Repsol. Rang the num,ber but of course, they were closed and there was a bunch of Spanish over the phone followed by a “click” and the call disconnected! Not much help either!

Along the route, we kept checking service stations and about 6  visits later began to wonder if we were going to get any from Repsol. So we decided to include non Repsol stations in our visits. This gave us more of the same - no results!

We had planned to go to a place called Belmonte to view the most perfectly preserved 15^th Century castle on route. At least that is what the Guide Book says. But Google couldn’t find the address and based on what we knew, it was in or near a town called Cuenco. So having driven to Cuenco, about an hour out of our way, but still sort of heading in the right direction, we asked around and someone said Yep I know where that is or something like that and with much pointing and a map showed us where to go. So after a bunch more ”Mucho Gracias’s” and “muy Buenos” we headed off again.

It was about an hour’s drive and some 80kms away. My attitude was stuff it, we’ve come this far, let’s do it. Kerrie’s was, forget it and let’s keep driving eastwards to Valencis. By this stage it was 3.00pm in the afternoon and with another 200kms to Valencia, I figured we were not going to make it anyway, but didn’t have the heart to say anything at that point. So I pretended this was anpother problem to be solved and gave it a lot of thought.

We arrived at Belmonte and I knew that the castle was alittle bit out of town, but there were no signs saying “Go this way to see the Castle”. So into a pub to ask someone where it was.

It’s always interesting walking into a local that only locals use. Especially in a small town and especially in a different country!

There were 7 men inside and no barmen I could see. They were seated at a couple of tables and three at the bar. They were dressed in rough workman clothes that needed washing. Each had large gnarled hands and appeared to be farmers or roustabouts. Probably local farmers or such. No one had shaved for at least a week and they all had longish, lank hair. In Australia I would have just kept walking to the next bar and not looked at anyone.

The room was small, dark and dingy and I thought “deliverance country”. However, I put on a brave face, smiled and said “Buenos Dias” even though it was about six o’clock at night and I didn’t know the word for evening as I had forgotten about “Noches”!  I just hoped that a warm, embracing “Dias” would do the trick!

Everyone stopped talking and stared for about a minute while I walked to the other end of the bar and stood there by myself. You could cut the air with a knife. The way they were all looking I figured I must be standing in someone’s spot but decided to wait there until the barman turned up. Which he eventually did. He walked right by me down to his mates then they all started talking again and looking some more at me. Was my fly undone? Did I look like an axe murdered? I had no idea!

Eventually someone got up and went for a gander outside, must have seen the campervan and came back in and announced it. Because they all relaxed and started drinking and talking again and the barman came up to me and I suspect asked what I wanted.

Just another silly foreigner who had probably come to see the castle and got lost! I confirmed that by waving the guide book at the barman and pointing out the picture of the castle while saying “ No hablo espaniol” in what to them would have been a strange accent and that provoked a torrent of Spanish and much pointing. I got the gist of it. Go down the road, there was a rondpoint I think it was, which I interpreted as a roundabout and go left. I thanked him profusely, smiled at everyone and headed out the door.    

Climbed into the van and while Kerrie looked at me hopefully, I rolled my eyes and said, “Lucky you didn’t come in with me!”

“Why not?”

“Don’t ask!” I responded. Then explained!

We drove on, had a quick look at the castle which is being renovated. It has a big crane in the courtyard to assist in laying sandstone blocks in place of damaged ones on top of the turrets. But being so late in the day, no one was working. Inside the living quarters, it was obvious a lot of work had been done in replacing timber and stone with as close as possible, original type material to keep it authentic. Big rooms, small arrow shooting slots, massive fireplaces, HUGE double poster beds and massive solid timber dining tables. Ceilings covered in paintings and carved alcoves and doorways. Some in what appears to be concrete, but isn’t and some in timber. Took 6 years to build apparently and by the looks of the couple of canons in the main courtyard, they had had a bit of use back in the day. Don’t think I would have liked to have been a Moor doing the attacking with those things firing at you!

Afterwards, we negotiated the back streets of the Belmonte village! Silly thing to do and not recommended. No footpaths, cars parked on one side of the roads and houses built right onto the street. No room for error and hence a maximum speed of about 10kph.

On the outskirts, we once again pulled over and I voiced the opinion that we had an option. Drive another 130km to the nearest campsite with no guarantees we would get in or that it would be open when we arrived. Or go to the nearest hotel some 35kms away and stay the night. We decided on the latter.

This hotel was about 20km off the highway, through a tiny village with even narrower roads if that is at all possible and a sign for the Hotel at every fourth or fifth intersection. We guessed and guessed and did one or two turn backs to check the previous sign and eventually found a one-way driveway leading up through the bush.  As the Hotel was listed as a rural getaway, we thought this driveway provided some possibilities, potholed and dirt tracked as it was. Probably deliberately left like that to make it more rural looking.

On either side of us was growing mainly patchy scrub with a few trees thrown in for good measure. Occasionally we came across a small field of grape vines just starting to sprout. But it was a lucky guess because after 8kms off the main road, we saw ahead of us the entrance to a large Hacienda looking place with two cars parked by the side of it in the parking space and the name of the place sprawled across the entranceway. Of course the entranceway had a massive timber beam across it at about 1.9m high. Too low for the van! Just another thing to add to the day.

After parking in the bush to one side we walked up and inside to the reception where a young man in broken English welcomed us. We checked in and asked about parking the van. As it turned out, this is a family run establishment and it was Dad who fronted and with a few pointings and micking of driving, indicated we should follow him as he led the way in his Four-wheel drive. So we jumped back in the van, did a four or five point turn and followed him down a pathway through scrub , a couple of other fences while dodging many potholes, around to the back of the place where there was the tradesmen’s entrance with no timber beam across it.  This led to the parking area and I was glad to shut it down for the night. I’d been up since 5.30am. Had driven what seemed like 500kms and was tired and hungry. No wonder it was 8.45pm!

The cook was preparing for two groups of guests arriving the next day for some big functions and prepared us a light meal which was delightful and very tasty. Ended up drinking red wine at the bar with the family and got on like a house on fire. New best friends. At 10.30pm they all trooped off for dinner and we trooped of for bed taking the last of bottle of red with us!

Before I left I spoke with the boyfriend of the daughter who appeared to be the No1 Boss of the joint as he spoke the best English and asked about gas bottles. He said he thought he could help and we planned to meet the next morning to see what could be done.

The next morning I was up at just after five, got dressed and went outside to check the battery system on the van. Maybe it would need firing up to recharge the batteries. I discovered the automatic selector on the fridge had stopped working. This meant that we had to keep it on gas the whole time to avoid everything inside getting too hot. And we had not been able to get electricity to the van the previous night. Fortunately, everything was OK.

As daybreak began to hit, I heard this almighty racket outside. Sounded like someone was being throttled slowly and with a lot of pain. Upon investigation, I saw three donkeys playing top of the hill and kicking up an awful racket in the process! The Hotel was situated very high up in the mountains and everything was covered in list, so you could only see about 40 paces ahead of you before the trees and bush disappeared. The donkeys were easily discovered by walking towards the sound! I stood and watched for a while, smiling to myself at the games they were playing.

After a light breakfast and packing the van, we were ready to go except for the chat with the boyfriend. It was already 9.15am and everyone else was up having breakfast, cigarettes and short black coffees and rabbiting on in Spanish.
Eventually I asked the daughter what time Jose would be up. Apparently he gets up at 7.00am Monday to Friday, Saturdays around 9.00am as he goes to work then as well but on Sundays, maybe 11.00 or midday or who knew! I explained what we had arranged and she said “Ohh I’ll go and get him.”

Half an hour later, we were still waiting and then he appeared, had some coffee, got on the phone for a bit of a chat and then wandered over to us. He had forgotten what we had arranged! Never mind, he was super bloke and went out of his way to help. We spent nearly three hours together and he phoned a few companies in Valencia and other people he knows to try and find the right bottle of gas with the right fitting.

In the end, he said he had spoken to Repsol Head Office in Valencia who had gave the addresses to four of their service stations would have what we needed. So armed with this, some printed maps and lots of instructions, we set off. It turns out he boarded for a while with over 100 Australians in a dormitory somewhere a few years ago and he thinks Aussies are a bit of OK. Weren’t we lucky!! What a nice guy! He got a Kiwi too!

The rest of the family are lovely people. No pretences and easy to get on with. Even Mum, who resides in Madrid and only visits Dad periodically at the Hotel, was nice. Madrid must hold some attractions that the Rural Hotel doesn’t!! For us, it held lots of attractions, not least of all a warm BIG bed and a big shower cubicle!! Must admit, the see through glass door into the toilet raised an eyebrow. What is it with seeing people go to the toilet??

So after goodbyes and a few “Happy travels” and “Mucho Gracias’s we were off. Down the 8kms of stuffed driveway hoping not to meet a car coming in the opposite direction. Onto the main road then feeling good in anticipation, drove towards the first of many petrol stations for the day.

I say many because it was about midday when we left and we had about 2 hours of driving straight through to Valencia. It actually four due to the many stops at all the petrol stations for gas bottles. None of them had any, but all thought the next one might!

The other reason is that when on the autovia there are signs that say, petrol, rest, toilets, food etc etc to let you know there is a petrol station or similar coming up. IN France when you see these signs, the actual station is right off the highway. Just a deviation off the main road there you are. Very similar to highway ones found in Australia. But in Spain, it is usually a few kilometres off the highway in the nearest village or town! Anything up to ten kms away. So our 179kms I am sure became about 250kms by the time we hit Valencia.

We had four addresses for petrol stations that the Repsol people at Head Office assured us stocked what we were looking for. One was closed and the others did not stock the gear we needed. We looked up and GPS’d a yard that sold campervans. That too was closed.

At the last petrol station we tried, we spoke to one of their customers who said “Follow me”. I was a bit worried after the last time I was told that. But he assured me he knew of a store that sold the gear so we gave in and followed.

We ended up at a place like a Spanish Bunnings. And after many discussions were told they didn’t have them either.  At this stage we said Mucho Gracias to the customer and he went on his way. Again really decent of him to do that.

Kerrie said she needed some to do some grocery shopping which is code for “we’re out of red wine” and as there was a large Supermarket next door in we went. Bought the wine and surprisingly, some food. Although how we were going to cook it left me wondering until I saw it was cheese, ham slices and other non-cooking edibles. So that solved that!

Back to the van and I spotted two other vans at the back of the Spanish Bunnings and went to have a chat with them regarding where to get these gas bottles. They had a different system to what we do and were no help. Never mind. Move on!

Last resort was head for the campsite and then I saw a BBQ shop. You beauty I thought, problem solved. After all, if you sell BBQ’s surely you’d sell gas bottles to run them. But no! They didn’t. The manager spoke good English and said he had bought his gas bottle from a … wait for it ..  a Repsol petrol station. I was very disbelieving at this pint but politely asked him to get me the address for the one he had bought it from. He obliged, so armed with this latest information we drove the 2 or 3 kms to it. Of course, they didn’t!

That was it! Off to the campsite about 6kms south of Valencia.

To this point in the four hours we had driven around Valencia, we had seen four Industrial Estates, a large number of highways where you can do 120kms, many tiny roads through suburban housing, and a lot of market gardens and poor dirty areas. Nothing of any note and I was thinking to myself if this is Valencia, you can have it!

BUT … to go the Campsite, Simon took us straight through the centre of town in the traffic! Bloody hell Simon! Four lanes going one way, full of traffic, all keen to go somewhere as fast as possible and as close as possible. I was just waiting for someone to collide with us. But either they or we were lucky. We managed to twist and turn, go around a million roundabouts, change lanes at the last minute when Simon said something and Kerrie wasn’t sure, cut off people trying to overtake along with the best of them. I did not take my eyes off the road for an instant and no trouble staying awake I can tell you!

No I know why they do not have camp sites close to big cities in Spain!!

Reached the camp site about eight o’clock and booked in. Parked the van and had a chat with the camp site owners/managers. The husband of the lady at the counter and chief chef, kindly nominated himself as our saviours in terms of finding a gas bottle.

He couldn’t. Not even after an hour on the internet. Maybe because it was in Spanish? Well I couldn’t make head nor tail of it!  It was all Greek to me. Eventually he decided the best thing for us was to get the correct fitting. Good grief!

Another 20 mins later and he said no one sold them in Valencia. BUT he had found on Spanish eBay being sold by a guy in Seville.

About 500kms south of Valencia or wherever! So I thanked him kindly and ordered a pizza for dinner. Ate that and crashed after a couple of red wines absolutely none the wiser. I should mention that when I bought the pizza a guy in the camp site heard what was going on and said that as he was leaving to go home in the morning, we could buy his gas bottle and cooker after he had made himself a coffee! Sounds like a good fall back plan and we agreed on the deal.

In the morning, I was playing on the internet and Kerrie comes up and says, you better go and have a chat with that bloke who wants to sell us the cooker etc. He now says the price has gone up from E50 to E75 or we could buy something different for E20. I had a look at the something for E20 and said no we could buy one of those brand new. It was of the variety that has recently been banned in Australia! So he packed up all his gear and left. No sale!!

Later that morning, I got talking to a lady from Belgium while washing the dishes. She spoke good English and I found out they had a camping van and I asked of course about gas bottles. At which point she took me to meet her husband who proudly me showed their setup. It was the same as ours.

“Where do swap the bottle over I asked?”. He didn’t know. Never been on a holiday long enough to have to do that!! But, he wrote down the names of the companies that produced the bottles and armed with that information I googled. And googled some more. And googled some more. The whole lot was in Spanish! No page translation! Was anything ever going to go right????

So over to the lady at the counter. She googled and checked and said no, none of the companies were in Spain! They were in Belgium which made sense seeing as the guy was from there. So back to tell the guy and as I walked up he said “Sorry I gave you wrong information. They are Belgium bottles!”

“Yep” I said. “Just found that out!” We chatted a while and when I left I went to the lady at the counter again and she tells me she is very good friends with a bunch of people from NZ. She’d met these people when the Americas Cup was held some years ago in Valencia and some of the NZ support crew or supporters had stayed at the camp site. She has been to Auckland and Sydney and thinks Kiwis are nice. Good! Because I was about to ask her to go online again and find me a company locally that sells and hires campervans! She did so.

So armed with this new piece of information, we will valiantly head off tomorrow in search of these bloody illusive gas bottles. It’s either that or we drive back to France quick smart!! Lord knows what it will be like in Italy, Austria and Poland where the bottles and fittings are all different again!!