The ferry from Greece arrived in Ancona, Italy just as it was getting dark. The rush hour traffic and glaring head-lights didn’t make navigating easy, especially when our satnav abruptly switched itself off just as we were negotiating a major road junction. As soon as we saw a motorway service area we stopped for the night. The place was very busy with barely enough space for our truck amongst the huge lorries parked up for the night. The following morning when we woke all the truckers had gone and we found ourselves alone in an almost empty car park.
Later that day we arrived in Cesana at TecnoFreeTime, our generator repair people. Our generator was removed to the work bench and an hour or so later we were told the bad news; two major components had burnt out and would need to be replaced. The replacement parts would have to come from Germany and delivery could take five weeks.
We were faced with the choice of travelling without a working generator; leaving the truck and flying back to UK (Schengen meant we were limited to 90 days in Europe); replacing the generator with a new one (the most expensive option).
We felt that a new generator was the only choice that made sense so we paid a deposit and the order was placed – delivery would be in five working days.
We decided to spend the waiting time at Alba Adriática, 140 miles down the coast. We knew the camp site well and were familiar with the surrounding area – and it was one of few sites that was open all year.
Once we had a working generator we planned to spend the rest of the winter in Morocco. The cost of the ferry from Italy to Morocco was over £2,000, almost double what we paid last the last time we travelled that route. In spite of the European travel restrictions, we reckoned we had enough time to drive south through France to Spain and take the ferry from Algeciras to Tánger Med, keeping enough of our Schengen allowance to travel back through Europe to the UK in the Spring. Hope!
At first we thought it was a giant rat – it was the size of a cat, not particularly timid but as I got closer it disappeared off into the water. We found out it was called a nutria, a type of coypu, commonly seen around drainage ditches and slow-moving water. They were an invasive species of semi-aquatic rodents originally from South America – (according to ChatGPT).
