outdoors

Communing with Deer

| Mairead

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(There’s a big map in reception showing the path through the park)

I woke up early this morning to birdsong. The rain had stopped and I had an idea. Before I could change my mind I had popped on some shoes, my furry fleece and was standing outside the van recording the sound. We’re still parked at the Parque Biológico de Gaia so imagine a lot of birds. I walked for a few paces to position myself where I thought the loudest birds were and turned on the recording app on my phone… Before long I was mesmerised but then I noticed something move in the park behind the trees.

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(Look closely)

It was when Fernando was taking me on the tour of the park that I realised the motorhome parking overlooks the deer enclosure. There’s a line of trees between us but at certain points the trees thin out and you can see part of the enclosure. Their area is quite big so the deer were off in another section most of the time we’ve been here but this morning as I listened to the birds I realised the deer were less than a 100m from me.

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(The lighter coloured deer by the fence was very cute, from time to time she used to put her head through the fence and nibble on the green plants and then wriggle her head left and right to get it back inside the fence)

There were no one around just me and the deer and it was awesome… There are lots of signs around the park telling you that the animals don’t like noise so visitors should be quiet and respectful. Well I just love rules and boundaries, I see them as guidelines for a happy life. So I was more than happy to stay quiet and this morning I was rewarded by the company of deer. They are so calm and gentle and slow and focused and standing with them I felt calm and focused too.

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(I promise you that fuzzy bit behind the branch in the middle of this photo is a red squirrel, you can just see his little ear)

My phone was still recording sound when I noticed something moving in the tree above me. It was a red squirrel, he mustn’t have noticed me because he squirreled (you can’t call it running, can you?) towards me and then stopped to shake his tail and squirrel away again out to the edge of the tree’s expanse on the tiniest of branches. Until he jumped to the next tree and was gone from my sight.

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(I know its hard to make out but…that one in the middle, that’s a stag!)

When I looked around again, there was a stag in with the deer. With huge antlers. Walking around. Just over there, over the fence, across the path, over the other fence. A stag!

I love this lovely life, Mairead.

It’s not a Zoo!

| Mairead

2018 1

(He’s in a bit of a hurry)

Turns out the Zoo I thought we were staying at is more a nature reserve with botanical park, called Parque Biológico de Gaia. There are no elephants but there is a dinosaur…

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(There are little birds…)

I went to check it out this morning thinking I’d be done in 10 minutes or sooner if the rain returned. It’s quite big… it covers 35 hectares with a 2.8km path running through it. Two and a half hours later I arrived back to the camper with my camera battery exhausted from taking pictures!

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(…and big birds – storks)

I had met Fernando who has worked at the park for 18 years. We walked every path and he pointed out loads of interesting things. Despite no common language we got on really well! He told me about the cork trees which grow for 25 years before their bark is first cut to produce cork and then they are cut every 9 years.

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(The Cork tree)

He pointed out camouflaged birds in the enclosures that I missed. He knew how to bring the deer up close to get the best pictures…

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And he knew where the teen tiny wild boar baby would be…

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(Ok it’s not a great picture but… that’s the mammy wild boar on the right with the little boar – he’s fawn coloured – walking out from under her. Can you see him?)

But the most amazing animals were the Ibis, they looked like statues, they were standing so still and so proud, then the younger ones moved. As well as all the animals and the natural setting there are farm buildings which I think are original. One has a water-mill and five pairs of millstones. Another is called the Brazilian farm, when locals returned with their fortune from Brazil they built bigger farm houses… at least I think that’s the story?

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(The Ibis. Can you see the one in the cave?)

I’m going back again tomorrow. I’ll bring food and water and Denis, Mairead.

Ps Thank you so much to all the people who sent me pictures of the snow in Ireland. Below is the one I got from my mother-in-law…

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We are up in the hills…

| Mairead

(Sunrise this morning)

Do you remember the first time we took Ruby to Portugal? (I’ve put a link here if you want to remind yourself.) We ended up on teeny tiny roads searching for internet access. Well we’ve done it again, this time looking for electricity… We found the electricity but now we’re having difficulty accessing the internet!

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(Strange old machine in the car park in Viana de Castelo)

We are in the middle of nowhere in a campsite up in the hills of northern Portugal, thirty minutes north of a town called Vila Verde. Apart from the man working reception we are the only ones here. This is our first stay at a campsite on this trip. The only reasons we ever need to park in a campsite is for electricity or if we want to stay for more that 48 hours in one spot. Most of the free aires have a 48 hour (or similar) limit. So far we have been happy to move after 24 hours but that will probably change once the weather gets better or we run out of land to go further south!

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(Our new pet seagull)

It’s raining heavily at the moment but we have electricity so we are warm and our laptops are powered up. We have hot showers so we are clean and sweet-smelling. There’s food in the fridge and water in the tank and we also have half a rustic baguette, still fresh – it really doesn’t get much better that this.

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(Home for tonight)

In fact I’ve been reading and enjoying a book about meditation and mindfulness and I’m feeling very zen. The book is called 10% Happier by Dan Harris and the message I’m getting is that a day when you have half a rustic baguette is a very good day. Ok, it doesn’t actually say anything about bread, fresh or not… but it did say nothing lasts, neither good things nor terrible things. So, i’m choosing to enjoy my half a rustic baguette moment… I may have misunderstood the message.

We’ll probably move back towards the coast tomorrow, Mairead.

Warm hugs from the south…

| Mairead

2018 1

(Our car park tonight is just around the corner from this beach)

We’ve moved again further into Portugal… just a little bit. To a town called Viana do Castelo, less than 100km north of Porto. There was a temptation to just keep going to that beautiful city but I’m glad we didn’t, we have yet again found a magical spot. The weather is definitely onside too as it’s 18℃ with a cooling breeze. Before you get too envious, rain and thunder storms are forecast all over Portugal for the next ten days…probably no snow though – sorry about that.

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(And there’s the boardwalk)

Portugal is different. We never get used to that. Each time we get here we are struck by the differences. Yesterday I mentioned the hospitality and convenience of eating establishments. So I’ve made a list of some differences we’ve experienced in the last two days…

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(And sunset tonight)

The biggest difference is the people, they are friendly and interested and want to help us. They help us pay for goods with our coins… for some reason they prefer coins to notes so even if we think we don’t have enough to pay they help us count up all our small coins and usually it is enough! They speak English, happily. Or French, happily. They provide beautiful places for us to stay, free of charge. They like selling coffee, there’s so many cafes and the coffee is so good and so cheap you’ll wonder how they could all make a living. And we’ve learned not to judge a book by the exterior of the cafe… it doesn’t matter what the outside looks like the coffee and natas (pastry filled with custard and then caramelised) inside will be heavenly.

Keep warm, everybody, Mairead.

Discomfort Zone

| Mairead

2018 2

(Freezing grass)

It was absolutely freezing when we got up this morning. It was also literally freezing… outside the van. Luckily it was over the 4℃ necessary inside to keep the drinking water inside the tank. We decided in spite of the lovely electricity, Ourol probably wasn’t the place to be, altitude wise. So we headed south down the mountain and closer to Portugal. The weather didn’t initially get better, it got worse hitting -3.7℃! …and then the fog came back.

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(Sitting outside in the sun!)

Now we’re in the Spanish city of Pontevedra. The old part of the city is very attractive and the weather is very attractive too, 15℃ (am I very Irish, talking about the weather all the time?) we were even able to sit outside and top up our vitamin D. We found another lovely free aire close to the river and the old town with cafes and shops. As it’s Saturday most of the shops are closed – Saturday afternoon closing. They will probably be closed tomorrow too. The restaurants close in the afternoon and open from about 9pm to 11.30pm – the Spanish eat very late.

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(Convento de San Francisco de Pontevedra)

I mentioned in an earlier post that there was one week in March when we need to be in Lisbon and that’s because I am attending a workshop. I was very excited about attending until the pre-workshop homework arrived. Nah, I’m only joking, I’m still very excited! But there is one assignment that has me concerned. I have to take a picture of a person. A real live person. I only take pictures of streets and buildings and trees and flowers, I don’t take pictures of people. They don’t like me taking pictures of them. I really don’t want to upset them…

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(Huge cross…)

So I need to ask their permission. Of course I could cheat and take a picture of Denis, but something about connecting with a stranger, another unknown human takes me so far from my comfortable picture-taking that I think it might actually be a good idea to try. As we walked the old streets of Pontevedra today I began to look for people I could possibly, maybe ask. The first person was an older man wearing a knitted hat, he was walking towards me down some stone steps. Just as I reached him he sat down on the steps, I think he was tired. I kept walking. I can still see his face and that hat… Then I saw a young man wearing a tan apron, walking purposefully while smoking a cigarette, for some reason he made me think of a shoemaker. I didn’t go up to him. Then I passed a woman in a pale pink fake fur coat, I was so close to asking her but I kept walking when I realised she was sitting in a wheelchair. I thought I might offend her. I can still see her too and the thing is, her wheelchair was a beautiful blue. It’s a really good picture… in my head.

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(Nature in the city)

I think I’m (definitely probably) going to start asking people, I just hope it’s soon. Because now I’ve put myself into a discomfort zone… And the discomfort is growing. There’s the discomfort of asking someone can I take their picture and now there’s the discomfort of not asking them.

Do I have to wait for the discomfort of not asking them to exceed the discomfort of asking them? Mairead.

We have a lighthouse!

| Mairead

2018 3

(Ortiguera. To the right… a little cove…)

I hope my photographs can do some justice to the beauty of the place we have found ourselves in today because I am struggling to find words to describe it… Oh and the rain has stopped.

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(…to the left… a village)

We passed this way two years ago when we first travelled in the camper van to Portugal. We stayed very near here in a supermarket car park, our first. It was grand, great for getting groceries but their 3am delivery truck was very noisy. We had no idea, just 30 minutes down the road there was somewhere as beautiful as this spot.

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(Steps to bring you down into the cove)

I suppose we could have done some research. We could have joined some internet forums. We could have at least bought a guide-book. We didn’t. So we missed it. But we got to experience it this time.

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(And behind us… a church. Does something about this remind you of old westerns on the telly?)

Mind you, getting here was a little fraught…. there was fog…

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(That’s a 130km/h motorway with a very steep drop over those guard rails…)

And a humpbacked bridge with trolls…. (can’t be completely sure about the trolls).

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(There was literally inches on either side of the van…)

Experience is funny, you never know what it’s going to teach you. We are travelling a little differently this year, we have had different experiences since the last time we were on this road and they taught us things we never knew we didn’t know.

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(View from the dining room…(!))

Like slowing down sometimes gets you there faster… when there is somewhere like here, Mairead.

Wake up it’s beautiful!

| Mairead

Well, it’s been a wet few days since last Sunday and that’s made it easier to be working away inside the camper on the MindCraft website, which is now up and running – here’s the link. Today is overcast but dry so I’ve had my walk on the boardwalk and I’ve also spotted my first Camino walkers.

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(Not a great photo but that white blob on the guy’s rucksack is a Camino Shell)

One of the things I noticed on the little bit of the Camino I walked (near Lisbon last year) was the amount of cafes/bars/restaurants out in the middle of nowhere that are open and will make you something to eat at any time of the day. The same is true in this area. On my walk today I passed ten little places open for business. I was walking to turn around and walk back so I didn’t stop but I’m dreaming up a plan to go for a walk and stop at as many little cafes as possible along the way. Of course as they sell beer and wine too I’ll be either wired due to the caffeine, sleepy due to the food or singing due to the alcohol.

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(Isn’t that just beautiful?)

We got the go ahead from Monica in Porto, today too, to say that Denis’ computer will be ready tomorrow afternoon. So we’ll be off to Porto in the morning via the taxi and the train. We now know our way around the ticket machine, the train and the map of the city so that’s great right?

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(Perfect little beach on my walk today)

Well, it’s not really, because that’s when I stop noticing things. You know how it is when you go somewhere new and you notice everything. The colours of the houses, the odd tradition of putting tiles outside on the walls, the orange colour of the roofs, the different cars, the funny shaped busses, the new trains, the old trams, the eucalyptus trees, the friendly smiling people, the strange language, the incomprehensible billboard messages, the street signs, the sounds, the smells…

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(How could I ever be blind to this?)

But then as soon as you start to get comfortable and things are a little familiar you stop seeing them. Oh look at that statue, what statue? Of course it’s normal, there are millions and millions of pieces of information bombarding our senses in every moment and our poor brain can only handle a certain amount. So it prioritizes.

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(That bridge (does it remind you of the Eiffel tower?) is the one I am standing on in the photo above)

It prioritizes on the unfamiliar stuff and of course the life-threatening stuff (that tram heading straight for you!) When the unfamiliar stuff becomes familiar our brain says, great one less thing to notice, now I can go back to looking for scary stuff. Thereby missing the beautiful, stuff, sniff, sniff.

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(I love everything in this picture!)

It’s one of the things I love about travelling – I see the beautiful stuff! At home it’s harder to see beautiful stuff because my brain is only looking for life-threatening, beauty just isn’t life-threatening enough to be noticed. It’s part of the backdrop, it’s familiar so it disappears. Porto is beginning to feel like home… so I’m beginning to go blind to the beauty all around me. 

Step 7. Stay awake to the beauty, Mairead.

Hello again, Fear!

| Mairead

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(The Portuguese town of Chaves)

We have arrived in Portugal! It only took seven days! Yep, I know a lot, right? Last time we talked I’d stopped talking to Fear. Remember? Well it only lasted 24 hours. Here’s what happened…

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(The walk by the river. Can you see the path ahead tunnels through the rock?)

It was a beautiful evening in Entrago so I went for a walk on a pretty path beside the river, the birds were singing, the water was gushing and the sun was shining. I took some pictures for you and then went back to the car park for a dinner of cold pizza and salad. Yum (not really.)

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(The gushing river)

It was very cold next morning when we left, about 2ºC there was even hard frost on the bicycle seats. I was a little concerned that we might have to travel back the road we drove in but no… no, we took a different, far more scary road. Something I hadn’t considered when I thought it might be nice to have a look at the Picos – their altitude! To get a good look you really have to go up and into them… and then some day soon you have to come back up out of them again…

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(That’s us in the car park in Entrago with the snow covered mountains in the background)

Remember last post when I said we could see hundreds of mountains from the car park and some far away mountains had snow on them? Well, it turned out they were not far enough away. We drove to, over and beyond the mountains with the snow on them. Oh yes and I was back talking to Fear.

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(That’s snow… This is a nice wide road, I couldn’t get my hands to stop shaking long enough to take a picture of the not nice narrow road)

Anyways, he told me to blame Denis… And I did. Up on top of one of those mountains with the snow lined roads I asked (out loud and in a very shrill tone) Who’s idea was it to visit the Picos, anyway? Of course everyone knows that I meant: This is completely your fault, Denis! Everyone… except Denis, it seems. As happy as a pig in muck he says, it was you but now is not a good time to be assigning blame, can you clear the condensation from the window I’m finding it hard to see.

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(We stopped at a layby at the bottom of the mountains… we found frost covered orange peel)

Holy Jeepers, he can’t see! I set to the job of clearing the window with enthusiasm. And then I could see.  I saw this magnificent place and I remembered that Fear makes me mean and shrill and cross and stops me seeing the magnificence all around me. I stopped talking to him. Fear, I mean, I stopped talking to Fear, not Denis. I’m talking to Denis.

Step 3. Repeat Step 2, Mairead.

Nice name, shame about the….

| Mairead

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(I LOVE bunting. I have even been knitting bunting on this trip and there’s some on it’s way to Canada and Cashel…)

Remember I was saying there were all these wonderful free places to stay? Well, we’ve been mixing the free ones with the paying ones and everything was going well until last night… I will try to describe it, but my mother once told me if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all. Emm… the name was pretty. The End.

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(I like close-ups, here’s a close up of a monument)

I woke at 4am with the (not very melodious) sound of cows mooing… there were no fields and no cows when we went to bed. So possibly there was a mart, where farmers bring livestock to sell to other farmers. When I woke again at seven there was no mooing and I had a sinking feeling that the mart was not a mart but instead might be another place where cows go…maybe  an abattoir? I fell back to sleep and next time I woke it was time to get moving to someplace nicer, warmer and less attached to dead animals. I jumped out of bed and then jumped right back in again. It was freezing. Denis had installed an outdoor and indoor thermometer on the van when we came back from Portugal so I was inquisitive enough to hop out again and check if it was really as cold as it felt…

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(Nooooooooooo! (File Picture))

I know water freezes at 0ºC so it wasn’t technically freezing… it was 1.5ºC… so very close to freezing! In fact there was ice on the windscreen. Could this place get any worse? I was now suffering from sleep deprivation and hypothermia and I was feeling a little grumpy but the best thing to do was to get out of beg, get on the road and leave so I grabbed the de-icer thingy and opened the van door. Well… if you ever though it was impossible to change a grumpy mood into an excited mood in less time than it takes to say WOW, then I am here to tell you it is possible.

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(Looking up through the cloud at the town with the pretty name)

As I exited the van I happened to look up. At a cloud. Nothing exciting about a cloud, you’d think… but on the other side of this cloud was the town with the pretty name.

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(Our overnight parking is somewhere under that cloud)

All is forgiven, Mairead.