Our grand tour of southern Spain What's good about an autosleeper broadway EB?

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Sunday 5^th February day twenty-two

What’s good about an Autosleeper Broadway EB motorhome?

(You can access Day one of our ‘Grand tour of southern Spain’ blog posts here:

Light penetrates the skylight, slowly brightening in intensity to reveal a high altitude light grey cloud cover. It will soon burn off. At least there are no ice patterns on it, so outside must be above 0C. Makes a welcomed change!

The wood pigeons in the trees above are in full song mode and since nothing else is stirring on the site, their sound permeates my consciousness quite quickly. Now I love wood pigeons. We have a family of eight in our garden who visit the little seed food table on our exterior kitchen window sill every day. So, I'm quick to tune into the linguistic differences of their Spanish cousins. Their repetitive song sounds the same but my finely tuned ears hear the subtle nuances. The first ‘woocoo’ is the same .... but, and here’s the change, the second accompanying ‘woohoo’ .... is slightly longer; the rapid repeat of the same sounds is a little faster and ever so slightly more truncated in length. I’m auditioning for the role of Dr Doolittle when it next comes to our local theatre!  I notice these things. But then I'm retired with nothing urgent to do, so what do you expect?

Over the last few trips, much longer and covering far more ground, I have come to appreciate several of Bryony's design features and its worth briefly noting them here!

Take, for example, the pull-out beds. The frame under each side sofa bench is pulled out to the middle corridor area and then the two big cushions slide across to meet in the middle. The back cushions conveniently drop down into the remaining gap either side. It's taken Maggie's ‘bed fairy’ a long time to train these cushions to move in this particular sequence but hey presto, the bed is ready for making. The topper mattress, rolled in a ‘special’ way, rapidly unfolds itself. ‘Bed fairy’s’ only real effort is in shaking out the duvet and making sure pillows, top decorative throws and back cushions are arranged just the way Maggie likes them to be.

I recently timed ‘bed fairy’. From start to finish - two minutes 20 seconds. Now a keen fan of Matthew Syed, I know ‘bed fairy’ can make some marginal gains on that time and I will encourage ‘fairy’ to seek improvements on this timing.

Packing away the bed takes five minutes 15 seconds. ‘Bed fairy’ has gained all the marginal gains to be had in that process. It is what it is.

So why share this mundanity with you?

Well, it's about interior space and lounging around and we find the Broadway EB rather good for that kind of activity.

Our seating area is open, spacious, big and airy. We never turn the front cab seats around. Why would we? They make excellent back rests for the cushions and we can lounge fully with legs out across each sofa.

Need a table?

Rarely! Being heathens, we eat out of bowls which rest inside even bigger bowls. Such slobbish behaviour. I've spoken to Maggie several times about this (it was her idea) but I'm resigned to the fact that she is always leading me astray. My mother would certainly never approve of such slovenly etiquette. If she knew we watched telly whilst eating ... she'd have heart failure. My siblings and I may be the only people who were never allowed to watch anything in ITV as kids. That channel was for ‘other people’ not us apparently!  I used to sneak down my friend’s house to watch ‘Minder’, ‘The Sweeny’ and ‘The Professionals’. I got a beer and a piece of fruit cake each time as well!

I digress. Tables – Bryony has two. A small portable one that sits on a steel chrome tube that slots between the front seats when they are turned around; and then a bigger table that sits in its own vertical pull out cupboard draw. We have options – easy to put up, just as quick to put away. Wht we don’t have to do is lose space to a fixed table arrangement!

 Another design feature - the enormous end bathroom with a shower that you can physically move in unhindered. This is just self-indulgent luxury frankly! Grim showers on site? Use your own! A shower space you can physically wash in without busting an elbow on the shower walls or unit; a big enough space where you can towel yourself dry without scraping an elbow or knee on a cupboard or door. A decent mirror, sensible lighting that doesn’t broadcast our naked silhouettes through the screen blinds to our neighbours! A woman designed this bathroom, you can tell.

Skylights. We have three and we adore them.

So much light filters into Bryony. They are integral to her sense of space and internal voluminous. Our window on the world, last thing at night and first thing in the morning. Our night-time stargazing conversations, our morning weather assessments. Our natural air conditioners. Absolutely love them.

What gets us and I guess all motorhomers really, is that we are so self-contained. Bryony carries exactly what we need to survive, live and enjoy ourselves safely and with fun and adventure. Nothing more, nothing less. A perfect zen like balanced harmony of existence. This is partly due to her storage space. There isn’t heaps but there is enough. It makes you think sensibly about what to take and what to leave behind. An overhead locker each for clothes. One overhead for outdoor gear – rucksacs, walking poles, hats, gloves, waterproofs etc. Two for kitchen ware and crockery. One overhead for spare tools and useful things like glue, string, epoxy, sticky hooks, cable ties, small ratchet sets, spare lighting bulbs etc, etc, etc, One locker for all our electronic gear and the last one for first aid stuff, medical stuff and fire blankets. Plenty of draws and another cupboard for food stuffs we can carry several days food supplies with ease. One base cupboard for cleaning gear.

There is one tiny external wet locker – it stores the ramps, the chocks, plastic waste pipe hose extensions and some exterior cleaning gear along with screen wash and adblue.

The bigger, main, external locker takes pretty much everything else – watering cans, water hoses, bigger toolkit, mats, groundsheet, EHU cables x 2, awning pegs and tie downs, windbreak, cycle panniers and tools, Cadac and spare gas cartridges, mud mats, tow straps and all those other things which are deemed useful – like some plastic sheeting to put down on the floor to lie on when mending a waste tank below!

The shower, during the day, stores our external silver screen cover, walking boots in a bag, cycle helmets, waterproofs hung on hooks.

Spare bottled water is placed behind the passenger seat. Big outdoor chairs are behind the drivers seat. 

The bathroom cupboard stores the mattress topper and the duvet. The draws below – clean bed linen and then a draw each for a pillowcase of dirty laundry, as it accumulates. All toiletries are stored in the bathroom cabinet. The sink cupboard houses toilet rolls, toilet cassette chemicals, puriclean.

It sounds cramped but actually it doesn’t feel it. Do I occasionally get garage envy – yep sometimes when I have to take everything out of the external locker to find the one thing that has fallen down the back of it – but its rare and it passes quickly.

Extraordinary really, how minimalist you can be. We are very lucky to own Bryony and we know that every trip out in her!  

And look, in the time I took to type the above, the clouds have burned off, the sun has risen, blue skies have appeared. This light illuminates the dried curling copper-coloured leaves of the trees above skylight (it’s a small chestnut like affair with spiky ball like seed pods hanging delicately off each twig and curly tipped leaves casting shadows on the slender trunk branches). Beautiful way to wake up isn’t it.   

 

We have never dropped a bar on our E bike battery screens in only two miles before but then we've never cycled four miles non-stop up a 17% gradient before. The only thing spurring me on is the scent of pine trees and sage bushes, views of snowy peaks and a coffee at a valley top hillside location. What is spurring Maggie on is clearly her sense of loathing towards me for choosing this route!  

What the hell were we (I) thinking?

An hour later and we fall over the step into the welcoming wonder that is Merendero Los Pados restaurant. Yes, they can have the bikes on the back patio. Yes, we can sit out on the sun but ‘please can we forgive them’ as they work around us laying tables for the expected Sunday afternoon BBQ rush.

It's hot ... there’s glorious sunshine, a slight chilly but gentle wind occasionally on our faces. The Patrons organise their tables, laying paper table cloths and cutlery on thirty tables of various sizes and seating patterns out in the open, gravel floored courtyard.

Cracking firewood on the outdoor pizza oven gives a nice pine scented tang to our surroundings. What’s not to like.

I’ve just booked the Caminito del Rey for Tuesday. Leaving it too late for a single ticket, I've had to book a group one ... which is a shame. I like to escape the crowds. Maggie isn’t coming with me on this trip – not her cup of tea.  

On other hand ... it will do me good to socialise occasionally!  

Our thighs are burning slightly as we will body, soul and mind to continue up the path and onto the dusty gravel track.  Cars pass with regular monotony, throwing up thick grey dust which drifts onto us. My face feels gritty. Upwards we go in search of those ‘alpine’ views of snowfields on the high Sierra Nevada.  We come to another restaurant full of patio tables waiting to be filled. A rural setting with some ducks and hens wandering about. Cyclists with Lyra tops and leggings are steadily filling tables. They have already been up to the snow and back.

We um and arrgh. We’ve had enough of tasting dust and there are two more car parks above us! So, we give up. The downhill journey takes a mere 20 minutes (discounting the thirty-minute stop off the trail in a little dell in the pine forest in a sunbeam where we stopped for a picnic lunch; and where, romantic that I am, I gave an inspiring talk to Maggie about the differences between breccias and conglomerates. She was sat on one you see but I couldn't remember whether it was a breccia or a conglomerate, so I cut my losses and gave her the lecture on each). The sound of squealing brakes gives the town of La Zubia 20 minutes notice of our imminent arrival. We stop at the park and Mag goes in search of ice creams. None to be had. I suspect they heard we were coming!

Within the park is a huge play area with an enormous plastic Playmobil pirate ship, resplendent with covered slide tubes, masts to climb and ships wheels to spin. Climbing frames, wooden walk ways, tunnels, roundabouts, sit-on rocking animals, swings, tall walls with pull up ropes to breach. All under shady pine trees. No vandalism. No graffiti. Plenty of seating for parents. Tree trunks decorated with crotchet designs. It’s an ‘Urban Guerrilla Geography movement’ that actually takes place across many countries. Last time we saw it was in Chepstow – crotchet caps for the town centre Victorian bollards.  Isn’t the sound of lots of under eight-year-olds running around having fun wonderful? Ok, it’s just me then on this one! What is clear is that Spain invests in its play areas; its not the first one we have seen so well equipped!

Back at camp, we shower, we catch up on Skype with parents and we read.

I've been stargazing now for an hour and it's hard going. The light pollution on the site is pretty bad from an astronomer viewpoint; but excellent for security. I’ve got three very bright globe lights around me, trees in the way of Polaris (making polar aligning my tracker almost impossible). The nightwatchman has just arrived to tell me he has opened up the darkened swimming pool area for me and I can move there to finish my stargazing. He says it's darker, flatter, more sheltered and I won't be disturbed. What a kind gesture. I’m seriously impressed with Camping Reina Isabel. A great site with great facilities and really friendly and helpful staff. It’s just a tad tight to manoeuvre around!