Day 21 - Bakio to Santiago de Compstela (594kms)

We started the day probably a little earlier than our normal mid morning start, but by the time we went for walk through town and along the beach, we still didn’t get underway till almost midday.  The walk along the beach was a nice relaxing way to start they day and as usual fresh baguettes for brunch/lunch.

By the time we did hit the road, the cloudy start to the day had all but cleared.  The windy narrow roads continued until we reached the outskirts of Bilbao, where we joined the motorway that skirted the city to the south.  I know you can’t tell a book by its cover, but driving past Bilbao it looked like a very industrial city and we had no regrets as we kept driving.  The motorway then loosely followed the coast again, and there again were great vistas of the northern Spain coast as we drove.  At one stage we passed the Parque de Picos de Europa and even though we had read some good things about the park and hiking in it, we decided that we needed to forego visiting more mountains to get out of northern Spain before it is time to turn around and head back to Paris. 

Further on, beside one of the many viaducts that we have been driving over all day we stopped for a break in a park on the side of the motorway.  The viaduct over the Ria de Ribadeo had pretty views over a bay then out to sea, and back in the other direction views of Castropol and Ribadeo.  The first viaduct we drove over, I was like "WOW", but but now we have crossed so many that are so high in the air it is no big deal now.  I am more worried about how strong the wind might be and how much it will blow the camper van around!

Not long after our stop, the motorway to Santiago de Compostela turned south, inland, and over the mountains, when we encountered some warning signs.  The speed limit reduced, separation distance warning signs appeared and then the edge of the road started to light up with orange lights - like a runway.  We had seen a sign (like many before) warning us of frost or snow, but it was hard to image what was to happen next.  As if on queue, we entered pea soup fog that at some stages had the range of visibility down to under 100m.  We went from cloudless skies, to feeling like we were in a plane in the clouds , within a matter of minutes.  With all the permanent warnings, I’m guessing this was a typical day.  Pretty cool - except Kristie wasn’t too pleased to be going through it.  Then 15 minutes later, back to fine weather.  Freaky.

About 70km short of Santiago de Compostela the fuel light came on in the camper van and much to my annoyance not a service station in sight.  Not panicked at first, we kept driving as services seemed to be very frequent on the motorways.  But of course when you need one, there wasn’t one.  So after the second ding from the dashboard we got a little panicked that we were about to run out of fuel, and thats not a good thing in a diesel engine.  So I asked Siri (many a time in no uncertain language) to find me a fuel stop.  The closest one was 7 kms off the motorway so we turned off and were directed through a small town on narrow streets, with the streets getting narrower and narrower with every turn.  That was until we could go no further in the camper van.  The streets were just too tight.  So around we turned, I gave Siri a little more abuse and eventually another 20 odd kilometres down the motorway and off into another town, we found fuel, late on a Saturday afternoon.  Of course after we we filled up, we passed at least 4 more service stations on the short run into Santiago de Compostela.

The sun was setting by the time we got to the only caravan park in town, and while on the steeper side - literally and cost wise, it was a nice park with a swimming pool, restaurant and bar, and good facilities including WIFI.  After negotiating the steep skinny roads in the park, we were setup, kids did their homework, dinner and bed.

Unfortunately it was a very late night/early morning for us trying to contact the Commonwealth Bank back home, as we discovered that our credit card had been hacked and we had about 30 transactions - totalling up to more an $3000 on our account over the past week.  Funny thing was, the transactions were all in Sydney, not here somewhere. Domino’s, Vodafone, BeerBud (sounds good), and AfterPay.  Someone was going to town online at our expense.  The most frustrating thing was simply trying to get in contact with the bank.  AT first we waiting on hold for 10 minutes to speak with someone who refused to call us back given I was paying $1.50 per minute to call Australia.  The only method of calling from overseas was a reverse charges call, and surprise surprise, the Spanish telco does not offer collect calls.  I guess no operator to connect you in this day and age.  So via Facebook of all things, I PM’ed the bank and they called me back at about 2:00am local time and tried to connect me with the people I needed to talk to.  

All this involved cancelling our credit card and trying to arrange a replacement card in an unknown number of days time and I had to give them a fixed address to send it to.  That works well for us - NOT, when our vehicle is our home and we don’t know where we’ll be the day after tomorrow, let alone in 4 days time.  I asked if they could send it to a MasterCard office in a major city like Lisbon for us to collect, and they said we will only send it to us personally.  Good on you CBA.  We are changing banks the day after we get home.  We are now credit cardless for the remainder of the trip if merchants don’t take American Express.  It will make paying tolls fun!!!!