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The evening in the Ibis hotel, was a relief for everyone, it gave us all a good opportunity to wash the sand of us, and it also meant we could drink a cold beer in the bar. An option we all took up, although we did go for a McDonalds for the evening meal. Whilst Simon and Pug, insisted that they would cook there own food. This did get them a lot of weird looks cooking up in a car park, surrounded by BMW's Mercedes and Audi, there were 2 guys covered in sand and mud cooking an evening meal in a pressure cooker. An image I won't forget in a long time. As we all retired to our own rooms for the evening, we all suddenly realised we had a TV, so we caught up with the news on SKY, we didn't realise that the Queen Mum had died, since we were away, we only found out now - about 2 weeks later. None of us really wanted to get up in the morning, as it had been the best nights sleep we had, had for about 2 weeks. We had a quick breakfast and then checked out, again we had bemused looks as all our bags were covered in sand, whilst everyone else had posh suitcases, but we didn't care. The rooms only cost us £20 each, a bit of a bargin we felt. It also meant that our tempers were less frayed for the long drive back to Ceuta. The days driving did drag on a far bit, and the weather had turned much more European, it was now rain fairly heavily. The closer we got to the port of Ceuta, the more westernised the country side was getting. In a way we were glad to be heading back, but we also wanted to stay for slightly longer, unfortunately this wasn't an option, as we only had a pass to be in Morocco for 10 days, and this was rapidly running out.
We made it back to the border, to be greeted with what looked like a mass scrum to get out of Morocco. The sight of a line of Land Rovers, did nothing to enhance this image. By this stage we were all thoroughly warn out, and what did help was some French Woman, trying to push in front of me, needless to say, she lost that battle as I just drove at her, she wouldn't move, so a quick blast on the horn, and she jumped out of the way, swearing at me in French. She then tried to back into me, but I pointed out the rather heavy rear cross member to her, she gave in at that point. Just reinforced my opinion of the French though. Just before we boarded the ferry we all took the opportunity to stock up on some cheap fuel, before the mad dash to the ferry. Once safely on the ferry we all reflected on what we had been through on the last 10 days. Once in Spain we headed back to the Casa de Barnados Hotel, the same place we stayed at during our last night in Spain, we all sat down to a T- Bone steak, and met up with Pip and Becky to compare notes. We all pretty much crashed out by about 11pm, as the drive that day had been very long and tiring. In the morning nobody had any real plans, except to move on to the next camp site in Spain, for the journey back to Northern Spain, but as we had 5 days to kill, we thought we would head back at a much slower pace. The rest of the group opted to go to a campsite high up in the Sierra Nevada mountains, whilst I wanted to go to Gibraltar. We swapped phone numbers and went about our separate ways for the day. My plan was to visit Gibraltar, and then meet up with the others in the evening. The others kept telling all Gibraltar is, is a big rock, maybe, but it seemed a shame to come so far and not take the opportunity to see it. We were waved through customs with no problem, and set about exploring, this little piece of Britain in Spain. It felt just like being at home, and so did the prices. All the street furniture is British, and it has the same shops as back home, M & S, Burger King ETC. After spending a couple of hours wandering around it was time to leave. To leave Gibraltar, you have to go through Customs, and the Spanish try and make it as awkward as possible for you, by searching every vehicle that leaves, they looked at the Land Rover and contents and just waved us through, I don't think they could be bothered with a search, in a Land Rover covered in mud and sand. This did get us suspect looks though from everybody else leaving Gibraltar.
We the headed on up to the campsite in the Sierra Nevada mountains, easier said then done, as we had lost our Spanish map on the way down through Spain. So we were relying on a European road map, it showed us roughly where we heading so was good enough for the time being. We met up with the others about an hour after they had arrived, and set-up camp. As the camp site seemed very nice we decided to stay here for a couple of days, rather than just for the night. After booking in at reception, and having a quick evening meal, we all turned in for the night, as the lack of sleep over the last couple of days was beginning to catch up with us. The following morning, we just lazed around for a bit, and then wandered off into town, not that we were after anything, but we fancied escaping the campsite for a bit. The rest of the day was spent yet again, trying to remove sand from the Land Rover, a battle I was determined to win, but I think the sand had other ideas. The day seemed to fly past, so towards the evening we made plans on where we were going to stop tomorrow night. We decided rather than try and do battle with the traffic around Madrid in rush hour, we would stop just south of Madrid. It seemed like a good plan. James also decided that as he was the slowest in the group he would head off early and we would catch him up on the drive to Madrid. With the plans made we all turned in for the night, after spending 30 mins watching the stars in the sky. James left at about 8.45 am, and we left at about 9.30 am, thinking we should catch him up very quickly. But as we all stopped for fuel, and to readjust our loads we didn't catch him up until lunch time. We made good progress through the day, and decided to keep heading on up through Madrid, to give us less distance to drive tomorrow. Halfway round the Madrid motorway system, a call came in over the CB saying James was having trouble, we pulled in at he services and diagnosed it as broken propshaft, that was dropped out of harms way, and we continued on. We saw a sign on the motorway for a campsite, so due fully followed, what we were greeted by was a campsite from the X files. There were caravans left all over the place, but they were from the 60's and 70's, and there was a watch tower. Needing somewhere to crash for the night we paid up and parked. Simon and Pug wandered back to the shop and bought some red wine, apparently the Land Rover could run off it, it was so good. In the morning we didn't want to hang around so we left fairly sharpish. This campsite would have to be one of the strangest places I have ever stayed at. The plan for today was to head Bilbao, or as close as we could get for the night, as tomorrow morning the ferry leaves to head back to Portsmouth. The trip to Bilbao was very eventful, but we all kept an eye for a Supermarket to buy the last minute items for the ferry, namely chocolate and alcohol. This was spotted by a sharp eyed passenger as the drivers all tried to concentrate on road. After a quick purchase of Chocolate and booze, we headed of to find a campsite. We found a very nice one of the Spanish coast, with it's own beach. We all pitched the tents and headed off to the beach, it's amazing a bit of sea and the child came out in everyone. In the evening we all headed off to the bar, to sink a few drinks, before turning in for the night. We didn't have an early start in the morning, but most people were up early, for what seemed like no reason what so ever. I think we all just wanted to get onto the ferry and forget about having to drive for a couple of days. On the way to the ferry port, we all made use of a local garage yet again, by filling every container with cheap European fuel, and then headed off to the ferry port. We arrived early and meet up with some friends, we had seen on the ferry out. The ferry left at 12.30pm, and headed north. Around the bay of Biscay the swell started to get up and most people were beginning to feel the affects of it. I was fine until we went to watch Oceans 11 in the cinema. I sat down and watched about the first hour, before having to leave, as the swell had got to me. I spent the rest of the evening in the cabin asleep. The next morning we all got up fairly late, and headed to one of the restaurants for lunch, were we ordered steak. I was now feeling fine, but everybody else started to suffer from the swell of the sea. The rest of the journey to Portsmouth was very pleasant, just sitting down watching the Channel Island go by, and then the Isle of Weight. As we were first on the ferry, we were the first off, on leaving the ferry we all went our separate ways back on up to Guildford. The most scary part of the journey, was joining the A3 as we had all become used to less traffic being on the roads. On the way back to Guildford, I decided to phone work, only to find out that my boss had decided to take redundancy whilst I was away, so I ended up going to New Malden instead and going to her leaving do, I eventually arrived home at around 9.30pm that night. If I ever get the opportunity to do the trip again, I would jump at it, as it was such a fantastic time. If anybody has any questions on the trip or you are planning on doing something similar, please email and I will answer any question you have, and give advice on what you do and don't need to take with you.
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