Off on motorhome journey

Ola

Up a bit later today but still plenty of time to pack to leave our Lisbon apartment and head to pick up our motorhome from Indie Campers Depot outside of town. But before leaving our apartment we shout ourselves to breakfast at a funky little cafe around the corner called "Flora and Fauna" - its got the same vibe as to The Farm cafe at Kedron. Excellent breakfast we share of toast , scrambled eggs, bacon, mushrooms and avocados of course!

"Flora and Fauna" Cafe for brekkie before heading off to pick up motorhome

First of all, we're told by Indie Campers that we could pick up after 2.30pm, but then it changed to 4.00pm. We tried for about an hour to contact them but couldn't get a human - only a bot. Oh well, let's take the punt and go there at 1.00pm and see if we can get an early pick up🤞🤞.

Alas when we arrive, we're told by the girl that “there's lots of pickups today, and we are off to lunch so come back at 2.30pm!" She says there's a supermarket up the road so we head there and luckily they have a cafe. So morning tea, lunch supplies and a toilet visit (helpfully located in the supermarket). We return to the salubrious (ha!!) waiting area - we're in an industrial park with a bit of shade cloth strung between to portable offices and some plastic lounging chairs with the dust from the v strong wind blowing all over us, but at least we are not alone with many others waiting to pick up or return.

4.00pm rolls by! Our van is being cleaned and prepped but with you soon! Finally 4.45 it’s ready but they haven’t fitted 2 gas bottles we've just ordered with the agent so back it goes to somewhere down the road. Oh and the shower door hinge is off and we forgot to empty waste water, so off it goes back down the road, again. Finally get our handover done at about 6.00pm and we are off - no stop you haven’t finished signing the paperwork. Okay sorted so we then head off for a half hour drive across Lisbon to the same campsite that we stayed in in 2019. Bob did a great job in driving amongst a fair bit of traffic - and me sorting out my left from my right to direct him.

We arrive and attempt to make up the bed - big mistake as we find out, the fitted sheet doesn’t fit!!! "Jury rig" a set up, unpack a bit, another late dinner at campground cafe with little choice due to function in restaurant, and to bed finally. Rest of the tale unfolds tomorrow 😧

First night with motorhome

Okay let’s skip the shower ( kind of have too) and go to IKEA to complete our set up. So we head to IKEA and spend 2.5 hours there, including brekkie, trying to get an oat milk decaf coffee out of the fancy coffee machine (!) and also talking to service staff to try to understand translation from Swedish to Portugese to Australian!! €130 later, we are out of there. By this time it’s after 1.00pm and we decide to hit the road.

Stop at McDonalds for late lunch (eek!), and motor on to Évora via the freeway and €18 tolls but it’s worth it to get there ‘early’. We also stop at local "Pingo Doce" supermarket and get our supplies of food, spending 2 hours working out what to buy, translating with Google as we go, and we are underway again to our campground.

But the address in my phone is somehow lost in translation, and we go around the block but still no campground- but Kerrie loads into Google on her phone and we find it quickly. It’s now 7.30pm - we set up our bed (everything fits!!) and cook up our turkey kebabs for dinner - mmmm not bad. And so bugger the shower again we are off to bed (it’s only 11.00pm 🙂).

But we are now ready to relax and enjoy 63 days of taking it slow!!!!

Bob with our motorhome

A word on the motorhome - not sure why it took so long to clean when we picked it up because the windscreen and windows are v dirty and a IKEA dishwashing cloth is needed with some elbow grease to make them good to see out of. We are 6.7m long so not too big but puts us into higher toll category not a ‘car’ which covers <6.0m, and will thus try to avoid toll roads when possible. It has inbuilt tablet screen so we can run Apple CarPlay seamlessly. Reasonably nice internal fitout in the ‘house’ in good nick.
Van only has 14,000 km on it (allegedly), and so drives well, but has a few scratches and nicks and bumps as a testament to a busy life already.
Learning all the controls takes a little time, and find that "Red" on the gas bottles is gas switched "ON" not "OFF" as we were told!

The driver has settled back in nicely to driving on the right (wrong!) side and is quite comfortable, with the main challenge being remembering to look to left at roundabouts for oncoming traffic, but easier with the left hand drive this time.
The Navigator (the ‘human agent’ of Apple/ Google maps aka Kerrie) has also settled in well to the role.

OK, off on our adventure !!