After a long production time, we could finally go on our long-awaited holiday. Our plan was to take the ferry to Huelva and from there to Portugal, of course with our Landcruiser “Lenny The Overlander” and our dog Lotta.

For Lotta it was the first time on a longer trip and she did a great job. Especially the 32 hours on the ferry. Fortunately, Fred Olsen/Baleària offers the possibility to book cabins where you can take your dog with you.

We spent the time on the ferry just doing three things, sleeping, eating and spending time in the fresh air with Lotta on the dog deck.

The ferry arrived a little late around 18:00 in Huelva and we were on the highway heading to the south of Portugal at 19:00. The good thing is that you only need 1 hour from Huelva to get to the Portuguese border after you pass the border you gain one hour. So Wehen we passed the border the time changed from 20:00 to 19:00. But we wanted to drive a little further, since good friends of ours stayed in Lagos at that time, so we were lucky to meet us halfway. It was Daniell's birthday that day and I planed with our friends that we could have a birthday picnic when we arrive at the campsite.

One evening before we left Gran Canaria, I had booked a pitch for 6 (2 couples and 2 dogs) via the app Roadsurfer, because we didn't want to spend a lot of time with searching on that arrival evening. The Roadsurfer app is a good alternative to other apps, as they don’t offer typical campsites, but private land owners can make their own property available for camping. Many farmers offer their land on that platform. So you will find a lot of campsites where you have the feeling of wild camping, since you could stay on a large terrain in the middle of nature.

After a 1.5 hour drive, we met up with Nina, Manu and Kiwi at the finca "Casa Savana", which is located in the backyards near Albufera. As we arrived in the dark, we unfortunately couldn't see much of the surrounding. But that didn't bother us at all, as we were much more interested in spending a nice evening with our friends anyway. They brought lots of delicious food for the picnic, we had great conversations and Kiwi and Lotta got along well, too.

The next day we were able to explore the area. This campsite was super nice. Very quiet in the middle of nature between orange groves and almond trees. There was even a small shower house with toilets. Everything was very idyllic. After the spot check, we had a freshly made coffee and afterwards we all hit the road towards Lagos. In Lagos we had brunch in a small but really good restaurant.

Still in food comma, we went for a long walk at the beach Zavial near Vila do Bispo. At this beach, Nina and I even went surfing for an hour, as the waves looked quite inviting to us. Later, it was time for our first pitch. Our friends went back to Lagos and we started to search for a campsite for the night. Unfortunately, we had no luck with our first approach. Actually, we wanted to stay directly on the coast between the beaches Zavial and Ingrina, but the police came and kindly sent us away. Luckily we hadn't set up anything yet.

Ok..that's not a good sign, we thought to ourselves. But we still had no idea that we hit the ultimate overland travel jackpot. We drove back in direction of Vila do Bispo and we just turned off-road on one of the many gravel road tracks in direction of the sea. As we didn't want to be spotted by the police again, we looked for a spot in a juniper forest. There we could stand unseen and undisturbed. After we found something we only had a fast sandwich and we went to sleep inside Lenny. Since we wanted to be mobile quickly in case the police will show up, we didn't open our roof tent and preferred to sleep inside the car. Luckily, we converted the Land Cruiser so that we could sleep inside as well. Lotta was also very happy to be in the comfy bed and cuddled up to us.

The next morning we saw that the spot wasn’t bad at all. It was in the middle of nature in a green juniper forest, in the distance we could even see the ocean. On this day we planned to stock up our food supplies or rather to buy everything new. Because apart from coffee, milk, olive oil and a few spices, we had nothing on board. However, we prepared a coffee having it comfortably before we hit the road.

We got back to Vila do Bispo where we went grocery shopping in a large Lidl. There we found everything we needed. And for breakfast I even managed to get 4 "Pasteles de Nata".

Lenny is designed so that we can store food and drinks for up to 5 days and be self-sufficient.

We hadn't made a big plan about our route yet and wanted to let ourselves drift and also make this trip a little dependent on waves and weather. We only knew that there was an off-road route from Sagres to just before Lisbon, which we wanted to use as often as possible. Since we were already near Vila do Bispo, we got on that off road track towards north. It was already late when we found a great spot on a ridge, as we had taken our time for shopping and driving those stunningoff-road tracks. We love to cook goood food by ourselves. Cooking outdoor and having dinner under the stars is so much more than just dinner. It's a kind of safe place, a time to reflect and review the day, and enjoy good food. It's a very peaceful moment after an eventful day. A good dinner can change the day or round off a perfect day. After deliciously prepared shrimps and a fresh salad, we fell into our beds shortly after sunset, happy and tired.

What a stunning place we discovered just by chance. After a quiet night on the ridge, we got up at sunrise and walked to the edge of the cliffs for a yoga session. The atmosphere was so mystical as the sun was just rising behind the mountains and the swell created a light haze over the sea. Afterwards we had a hearty breakfast organised by Lenny before continuing our way along the coast.

We continued north again on the countless off-road tracks through the most fantastic and varied landscape. Sometimes the track leads through Eycaloyptus forests, sometimes through deep sand and suddenly you are standing on a hill and it takes a lot of courage and 4x4 experience to master the steep incline. At the latest after this, it felt like we hit the ultimate overland-travel-jackpot.

After exciting off-road kilometres, we arrived at this paradisiacal beach. There wasn't a soul around, so we undressed and, as God created us, spent the whole day on the beach. At sunset we had a delicious picnic on the beach. We had wraps with falafel and veggies. With good music and candlelight, we chilled on the beach for a while and then we went to bed. As we were still unsure whether the police would come by in the evening, we still didn't use our roof tent. People in the vanlife world were communicating that Portugal had become quite strict about wild camping. But now I'm already spoiling that we soon noticed that the places we can reach with Lenny are not frequented by the police and so the rooftop tent will be set up soon. I Promise!

On this tropical beach Lotta had a lot of fun, too. She could run around and explore freely all day long. From time to time she went into the water with us, dug a lot of huge holes, found many driftwoods to bite on and together we played frisbee.

Now I would like to leave you with my travel diary of the first few days and all these beautiful pictures. I hope you had fun and a little time out by reading and enjoying the matching and breathtaking pics, so you could leave your daily routine aside and travel a little bit in your thoughts with us.

I will share the second part of our wonderful trip with you soon.

Love,

Katy

Pics by Daniell Bohnhof

Text by Look2 Ocean