Sagres & Carrapateria

Thurs 8^th

Sunny again, so another day spent relaxing and basically doing nothing but chatting to our neighbours and walking on the beach!

One of our fellow Brits makes Norley motorcycle frames and was out here exploring with a view to moving the business from mid Wales over to the Algarve. Bit warmer over here in Portugal.

Fri 9^th

Yet another glorious sunrise so we packed up and drove out to Cabo St Vincente the most southwesterly point in Europe. It was windy and definitely cooler as we walked out to watch the mad cliff fishermen perched on rocky outcrops. Mad.

Cabo Sao Vicente

fishermen

This was the last piece of land that the Portuguese sailors would see as they left to sail across the Atlantic. Sir Francis Drake ransacked the original fortress in 1587!

It really did feel like the end of Europe, the waves pounding in straight from the Atlantic. A very open and somewhat barren landscape with dramatic cliffs and coves.

16th century map - copy

We then headed up the west coast which immediately felt much more sparsely populated with only small villages scattered about.  Our free camping spot was on the beach at Carrapateria  another surfer / hippie location. It was a large carpark right by the sand dunes and river flowing out to sea. The distant waves were huge and really pounding in with lots of noise.

Carrapateria

huge waves

tiny fishing port

islamic fishing village

As we were getting ready for bed disaster struck – the loo cassette blade had disappeared! This is the part that seals off all the nasty smells, so quite important. 

Head torch on, cassette out and taken to pieces to find the problem. Simple really, the pivot had broken off. JB weld to the rescue!  We cleaned the 2 parts up and I used JB (a very strong type of 2 part expoxy adhesive) to “glue” it back in place. Taped up it was put on top of the heating boiler overnight to cure. Fingers crossed – or should that be legs crossed if it doesn’t work?