Basque country

Up at 7 and straight on the road. After a few wrong turns due to the Spanish system of the slow lane suddenly turning into a turn. But tom tom steered us on course – we both realised how essential GPS is and recalled our parents struggling with maps, our journey has been relaxed and easy because of our little TomTom... The only thing is when we plugged it into our cigarette lighter the charger started hissing and smoke bellowed out of it so we only have the battery, and then it needs to be plugged into the USB on this computer... makes for an interesting time when both batteries run out!

Our confidence is building with the van, everyday its less of a stomach churning nail biting “will it go?” moment. We keep having to say out loud “it has been overhauled, it is a machine, it works” and every hour that gets easier to believe. Its funny because the only vehicles we’ve spotted broken down on the side of the road are brand new, and as someone said before we left the older an engine the simpler it is, it has less parts to go wrong!

One thing that we’ve noticed with the van is how cool it is inside – so many people remarked on how stupid we were to go without air conditioning but we maintained that we didn’t need it. Air travels from the front windows through the van to the sunroof, so a constant breeze of cool air flows around us – as we travelled along I actually got quite cold and has to put on my cardie! Okay its not by any means the hottest part of our journey but its a good indicator of whats to come. In fairness I’ve never liked air conditioning much, I like windows open... smelling the air, feeling the heat of the sun on the metal as I rest my arm into the cool air.