You're driving me in Spain

Once in a while, when I’m not tramping round random hills or taking pictures of a kangaroo for like the millionth time, an opportunity arises for a true adventure, a journey into the unknown, with risks and dangers, such as other people’s driving, funny language and the YMCA in petrol station forecourts. Proving travel is as much about the journey as it is the destination, somehow a 10 hour drive across Spain followed by a rocky 20 hours on a French boat from Spain to England across the Bay of Biscay formed a memorable and impressionable highlight.

There was some warm up for the journey, and when I say warm I mean warm... a joy to behold following rainy English send offs. Shorts and sand and seafood by the beach at La Mata. Enlivening enough to get me to put my trainers on and go for a run, anticipating the ridiculous amounts of saturated fat still to come.





On the Wednesday morning then it was adios Quesada for me and the folks, my one block of Reblochon, a crate of wine, some stinky fags and several fancy dress outfits and accessories. Comfort in the fact that if we got lost we could have some cheese and wine by the roadside and play dress ups. But we wouldn’t get lost with a trusty sat nav, right?

The journey up towards Madrid sailed by without much of incident or excitement, arid hinterland mountains giving way to even drier dusty plains, the occasional now wilted field of sunflowers popping up in between random towns with random castles on random lumps of rock. In parts the landscape was a bit like the inland of Australia, the bit where expanses of golden grass meet a few clumps of green bush before it turns into red sand. Unlike Australia though, wind turbines and solar panels were far more common and these, along with the magnum ice cream from the service station provided some respite from the boredom.





More common than wind turbines however were traffic cones and roadworks, entire sections of the road all the way up to the north being re-laid or widened or swept or just giving some Spanish people some employment. You would have thought though, with 20% unemployment, they could have used a real person instead of a mechanical dummy to wave the red warning flag.

Over four hours into the trip, things began to get interesting, approaching Madrid and with it, more roads, junctions and traffic. Just the time when you want the sat nav to do what it’s paid for and just the time for it to talk in the general vague air of a teenager and make up fictional roundabouts and roads. “Turn left if you like. I think. Then follow the thing round like the gay bull sign. Grunt, whatever. Add me on Twitter.” And so, on the equivalent of the M25, it was up to us to shout and panic and get lucky with turnings as we successfully bypassed the capital.

Through Madrid and a breather for lunch in a service station that seemed to enjoy blasting out camp disco favourites across its forecourt. Stale baguette with leftover bits of French cheese for me, the last of the delicious Comte. Meanwhile the whole car was beginning to smell like ripening Reblochon as we embarked on the second leg into the north. Immediately out of Madrid, high mountains and something greener perked up the camera shutter a bit, before more yellow plains and wind turbines and traffic cones all the way to Burgos. The afternoon coffee a blessing in its quality and exquisite timing.







Burgos was something of a milestone, clearly in northern Spain and surely Santander would be a jolly jaunt down the hill to the coast. Two hours later we made it, a two hours of dramatically changing landscapes as hills rose, yellow gave way to green, blue gave way to grey and Spain became all Alpine for a while. The rain in Spain does not fall mainly on the plain, more accurately the northern ranges and valleys.



At Santander we found a pleasant enough hotel for the night near the beach, a dinner of leftover sandwiches, cold pizza and chicken followed by a mini pub crawl in order to avoid watching and not understanding one iota of Spanish TV in the hotel room.

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Morning and hello Atlantic, with your proper waves and water giving weather fronts, inspiration enough to rise early before breakfast and run. Run downstairs and take my camera out with me for a gentle walk to capture the beauty and enchantment that is daybreak by the sea.





Already, in this dim light, I was liking Santander and I think primarily this was due to its Australianicity. Take out the older buildings and cluttered city and this could be any number of coastal towns along the NSW coast. Surf beaches with cafes and bathing pavilions curving around to a rising headland and its lighthouse, the waters sweeping in through the sandy banks and bays of the estuary, flowing below gentle ridges and peaks of the mountain range. Slightly surreal, it was like a little reminder of Australia within the hubbub and eclectic surrounds of Europe.

After breakfast, Mum and I explored a little more of this on foot, taking in the headland I spied earlier in the morning glow. We could have gone round in a little tourist train, but walked both ocean and estuary side on what was turning into a rather fine, warm day.







The town part of Santander itself was less inspiring, much less Australian, but pleasant enough nonetheless, with opportunities for gentle ambling and nice food. One of the good things was that the port, and docking point for the ferry, was right in the heart of town and you could park the car up and leave it to explore on foot. There’s only so much exploring you can do though, pacing a few streets before some yummy lunch. Worryingly for what lay ahead, we were summonsed inside due to windy gusts blasting the coffees and patrons alfresco.

Now for the most boring part of this adventure, but very apt for leaving Spain and reacclimatising to Britain: queuing. Sat in the car waiting and waiting for boarding of the Pont Aven to commence, there was little to do other than staring, fiddling, thumb twiddling and changing radio stations at every available opportunity.



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Welcome aboard me hearties, or actually bienvenue monsieur, we are heading from Spain to England but speaking French and not retiring at 62, even though we work less than everyone else due to endless striking anyway. Thankfully working today though, leaving late afternoon and a perfect time to sit back on deck with a beer and watch Spain disappear. It was brief, but the taste of northern Spain leaves me wanting more; less Britified than the south, green and bounteous and – yes – slightly Australian, slightly French, slightly Cornish. For others, Spain – and its blue skies – can’t come back soon enough.







Now, not being a cruising type, what do you do for 19 hours on a boat? Play pirates? Wear a bow tie and mingle with seamen for dinner? Stroll on deck in white slacks, beige polo and yellow jumper tied around my shoulders? Swinging in a hammock with a G&T sounds good to me. In reality, exploring the ferry took about 10 minutes. Being a French ship, there were some promising food options, but dinnertime coincided with some nice swell from the Bay of Biscay, and the wise choice was a bland baguette on deck. Mum was feeling the worse for wear, I found G&Ts helped and all we could do to keep dinner from returning was concentrate on the sun falling into the ocean. Beyond that, darkness and lurching through the night, the clunking noise of the ship eclipsed only by never-ending snoring and, in between, sweet dreams ahead of a placid sea and the city of Plymouth greeting me in honorary sunlight.

Raining on the parade

Time to put a stop to all this continental nonsense and get back to Blighty, where, apart from a few ‘celebrities’ engaging in a spot of Cha Cha Cha, men are real men and women are usually binge drinking while watching X Factor Xtra X on ITV6+1. There are always mixed senses coming home, at first taking in things from a distance, dare I say, quite critically at times, but then falling back in love with some of the titbits and bigtits and wotsits of British life. I love, for instance, how the BA air hostess thanked me for showing my boarding card by telling me “that’s smashing”. I wish I remembered to use phrases like that more in Australia. Less lovely, but still very typical, was the very British farce at Heathrow Terminal 5, the terminal built to increase capacity, but one which seems devoid of spare aerobridges or any bridges whatsoever, leaving us on the tarmac with jolly irate Captain Roger Swingley-Buxombottom giving them a right old talking to.

I still have a sense of belonging here, it just takes a while to resurrect itself. Much like my passport, battered and bruised from seven years of junkets, which failed to scan and for a time got a little part of my head thinking ‘ uh-oh, cavity search’!! Like my bankcards, which on the first few goes, failed to give me any British Pounds Sterling. Like my oyster card, which required a top up, only to be made effectively null and void thanks to an absence of Piccadilly Line trains. But, as with the British battlers before me, I eventually made it and arrived in London Paddington Station for the umpteenth time, set to see how the capital was coping with financial meltdown, substandard coffee and a government of Etonian prefects led by a somewhat smug head boy.



Not much had changed with the weather. Greyness gave way to drizzle which gave way to a downpour which gave way to me buying a rather fetching umbrella emblazoned with ‘I Love London’. I hope to think the thousands of other people trudging around the capital saw the same sense of irony as me (they probably did, being British and all). Mercifully, the British boozer with warm ale was alive and well, prospering as things get more miserable than ever. With the rain teeming down and squelchy trainers, the best bet was to dive into any of the hundreds of proper pubs or other. In such times, a pint of warm ale is far superior to a frigid schooner of undistinguishable pissy liquid. Alas, offsetting this one cultural highlight was the continued bombardment of lame chains and their crappy coffees. An apparent innovation (a ‘flat white’ now available in some places) let down by the, er, taste and complexion... so pretty much everything you want in a coffee. Still, regardless of fluid highs or lows, it was nice to be inside, sharing them with old friends.

Not every one of those friends was as old as me however, as I struck another birthday on my second day in London. Like me, the day was bright and sunny and rather pleasant, spreading a warm glow over all around. I’m sure Caroline, who showed me around the sights of Hertfordshire, was dazzled by my radiance! It was, for a birthday, a rather nice day in fact, getting a dose of olde England at St Albans and Hertford. There was even a proper(ish) cream tea involved... proper cream but not much of it and a setting to die for, or more likely, die in.





From quintessential Englishness to North London Turkish, with a lurverly dinner with pals in the evening, despite the birthday candle and lights off dessert... one of those things which you hate at the time (“I don’t want the attention or fuss”) but secretly love (“gimme attention and fuss now, it’s my birthday!”).



Now feeling incredibly old, it was a battle to rise the next morning and get on the Northern Line once again for the cheery and breezy jaunt through the ground to Waterloo. It seems historically inappropriate that Waterloo station should include a Delice de France, but then I’m forgetting this is one of those chains likely emanating from somewhere such as Burnley rather than Bordeaux. Or Basingstoke, which was where I was off to next.

Down in Rainingstoke the weather was doing its best to confine activity to eating, napping, trips to Morrisons with Dad and avoidance of Strictly; alas there was a clear slot on the Saturday and perfect opportunity for southern England gorgeousness (minus zillions of roundabouts on the way).

Corfe is a lot like Corfu, in so much that it shares the first four letters. Other than that, it is a quaint, slightly twee Dorset village strategically situated in a gap in the rolling ridge of the Purbeck Hills. Here Land Rovers, tweed jackets and big green wellies concealing twin bore shooting sticks seem – unlike in most places – not out of place. In past times, buxom wenches would likely be serving you flagons of ale from the nearby castle, but today the castle is just a ruin (with no buxom wenches). I say just a ruin, but in comparison to other ruins, say, for instance, Peter Andre’s music career, it is up there with the best of them.

For a start, the setting is pretty much exquisite. Whoever built this castle knew a prime piece of real estate if ever they saw one: expansive views across the fields to subjugate the peasants and marauding invaders, protection atop a heavily banked hill (or in real estate parlance “superlative private setting ideal for flinging hot tar and dead animals at the French”), pub down the road (quite possibly with buxom wenches)...







Unlike some other ruins, much of the castle is still intact, meaning you don’t have to be the most imaginative genius to picture the scene a thousand years back. So this is the kitchen diner, here is the outhouse...oh look mummy, here’s the torture chamber. Splendidly, once you have paid the man in the tweed jacket and green wellies, you are quite welcome to wander around the ruins at your own pace, from room to room, crumbly old brick to crumbly old brick.



Leaving Corfe Castle, it’s not like you are exactly thrust straight back into 2010. Sure, there is some traffic around, people with iPods and news of more savage spending cuts, but the village of Corfe itself seems to hark back to the good old days, when the British were all stiff upper lipped, eating tripe and onions and catching steam trains to the big smoke. A land of hope, a land of glory, a land of Thomas the Tank Engine narrated by Ringo Starr before it got all high tech on us. Down at Corfe station, Dad, Sonia and I were like the wooden figures boarding the train to Swanage as Ringo told us in his Liverpudlian drawl of another busy Saturday down at the station where John and Paul were yet again getting all the attention the talented b*stards youse...



There were no dramatic incidents requiring the intervention of the fat controller on the journey to Swanage, itself a town harking back to glory days of seaside holidays, deckchairs and saucy postcards with Mr Whippy. However, there was an air of refinement about the place, a nice light and tranquil setting spilling down from the chalk hills along Poole Bay. A very British beach with a modest pier, arcade machines, and, oh yeah, fish and chips.

Fish and chips: the litmus test (or, on Purbeck, perhaps the isthmus test) of whether I am British or Australian... the contest you have all been waiting for... which fish and chips are better? Well, friends, Britain wins chips quite comprehensively, there’s no way a pile of salty fries can compete with chunky lard fuelled potato with malt vinegar and salt you add yourself. With the fish, it’s closer. Freshness and quality is generally good in Australia. Quantity better in Britain. And, since I am fast becoming a fat b*stard, Britain therefore wins. Hurrah, I am still British, and pledge my support to England in the forthcoming Ashes clashes!

And with that, via some very British rain on Sunday, I am once again patriotically leaving these shores for the continent.