Team Basil finally managed to wrench itself away from Camping Playa Taray. The campsite would not be everyone’s cup of tea, but we enjoyed its quiet, small, laid back feel and the fantastic dog friendly beach and forest walks.

After waiting an age for the campsite to unlock our electricity cable (why they are locked in, I’ve got no idea) and then having to queue to fill and empty, we finally got our way and after all of 2 miles we stopped again at you know where to top up Basil’s empty cupboards.

Another 11 miles brought us to a complicated double entry gate system to access an excellent aire on the marina at Ayamonte (37.210597, -7.406723). It’s €9.50 per day but is pleasantly quiet with only half a dozen vans. The other aire we had considered, across the river Guadiana in Portugal, we can see has fifty or more motorhomes on it. We prefer quiet.

We popped in to the ubiquitous Tourist Information office to pick up a map of the town and set off to explore. Ayamonte turned out to be a little bit disappointing. There are a few pretty streets and squares and dozens of restaurants and bars but when you stray from that small central area most of the shops are derelict and everything looks a little run down.

It is also the most British centric town we have visited thus far. There appears to be several British owned bars and many of the menus around town are written in English. We even spotted one place offering all day English breakfast!

Tomorrow we are going to perform the trick of visiting Portugal without moving Basil. We have discovered that there is a ferry running across the river to Vila Real de Santo Antonio every hour so we plan to cross the river and spent a couple of hours in Vila Real.

P.S. I did write a longer and better post, but for the first time in nearly 500 posts my software, although it said the post had been saved, appears to have lost it.