Day 93: Thursday 19 June – Toe to Heel, by Ken

The rumble of thunder woke us well before 06:00. Looking outside the sky to the north was very dark and I could see the clouds were moving south towards us. I think I achieved a world record, and certainly a personal best, in packing and stowing all our outside furniture. As I was folding the mat the wind got up and the rain hit just as I chucked it into the garage. The downpour was heavier than we had experienced at the weekend in Sicily and the noise inside Mabel was deafening as the rain bounced off the roof and cascaded down her windscreen. 20 minutes later the rain stopped as suddenly as it started and the sun was shining again. Most of the camping ground was under a few centimetres of water but it quickly drained away through the sandy soil.

Mabel and Smarty’s windscreen washer bottles both needed filling. The wipers have had a lot of use – Mabel’s to clear away squashed insects and dust that accumulates while she is parked, Smarty’s removing insects, the donkey doos that landed on her in Noto as well as bird poop that she attracts while parked in the shade of trees. Filling Smarty was simple, but the cap for Mabel’s water container is tucked away in a back corner of the engine compartment and inaccessible even with a jug of water. The problem was resolved by connecting our hose to a nearby tap and reversing Mabel until the hose reached.

The token given to me yesterday seemed to entitle me to a cold shower in the camping ground’s facilities, so Jane used Mabel’s shower cabinet.

The enforced striking of camp meant we were on the road by 08:30, our earliest start yet which was opportune as we wanted to move on from the top of Italy’s toes and reach a camping ground almost at the tip of her stiletto heel which was over 400km away. The rain returned soon after we joined the motorway and headed north up the centre of Italy’s foot. 

Not The Best Driving Conditions To Start The Day

We stopped at one Area Servicio to refuel Mabel where I found I could save 5 cents a litre by doing the job myself rather than have an attendant do it which has been the norm so far. We stopped again at the next service area, this time to get ourselves something to eat for lunch – the areas always seem to have an impressive selection of hot and cold food to take away. Jane chose a prochutio and cheese Panini while I went tor focaccia filled with veggies.

The motorway snaked its way up and over the spine of the country in tunnels and on viaducts. The road was designed to a lower standard than most autosrada and care was needed to pick the right speeds to negotiate the many bends on the wet road and in poorly lit, and sometimes unlit, tunnels without shoulders that felt quite claustrophobic.

The rain stopped as we descended into the rolling hill country north of Torano. We left the motorway at Tarsia and drove north east and then east on a two lane road towards the sole of Italy’s foot. Smarty’s fuel gauge was showing only one of its eight blobs after my fruitless trip into the hills yesterday afternoon. Jane pulled into a filling station which also had the choice of attendant and self service. I got out and marshaled Jane up to the pump – Smarty’s filler flap is a long way behind Mabel’s cap. In spite of selecting self service the young attendant came over to do the job. Unbelievably he had a cigarette in his mouth. The pump didn’t work and he waved the nozel close to his face as he explained the pump wouldn’t reset to zero! He directed us to reverse to another pump, I explained we couldn’t with Smarty on the back. The problem was overcome by him pointing to a cinder parking area around the back of the station and indicating it was possible to loop through it and back to a working pump. I explained the manouver to Jane and the fact the guy was smoking saying hopefully he would have finished his cigarette if she drove slowly. By the time she had done her 360 the attendant was deep in conversation with a truckie and I did the filling.

Fine Weather On The Ionian Coast

We reached the coast and turned northwards following the road close that followed the shoreline of the Ionian Sea. We had travelled this road going in the opposite direction two years ago. It started raining again soon after, we couldn’t recall any rain the whole of the time we were in Italy last time, today was the fourth day it had rained in the last week. It was also cold  with the temperature dropping to 17 degrees in the rain.

Then It Rained Again

We passed the exit to Metaponto, a bizarre seaside resort we had stopped at on our last trip. Shortly after we stopped at a filling station to have our lunch having seen that most had large parking areas. This one was disused, the pumps in were encased in metal boxes.  The food we had bought at the motorway service area was very good.

It was my turn to drive the second leg, we agreed I got the worst of the driving conditions. The sky was almost black and rain became very heavy and we could see lightening in the distance. Skirting around Taranto’s natural harbour we travelled east across Italy’s heel to Brindisi before turning south down the heel. There was no let up in the rain until just after Lecce when we reached the coast of the Adriatic, just 15 minutes from our destination. There was a complete transformation with the sun shining on the stunning rolling countryside flanked by the blue sea some way below. We passed through a small town and then descended to Santo Cesarea Terme, a jewel of a small spa town bristling with restaurants, trattoria and pizzarias. It was clearly a holiday destination for Italians.

Santa Cesarea Terme

Our camping ground was also a delight set above and about 200 metres from a beach. There were just a few campervans parked. We walked with our friendly non-English speaking host inspecting a number of pitches overlooking the sea and selected one. We wanted to drive on as the other campervans had done so that we would be looking at the sea through Mabel’s windscreen. That meant taking the right side of the pitch to allow space for the awning on the left. Our host wasn’t happy with that, she wanted us on the right. I pointed to the door to our living area being on the left, the opposite to that on a left hand drive motorhome. She understood but made me turn around and reverse on so that our outdoor space wouldn’t overlook a neighbour’s – should one arrive.

I connected Mabel’s umbilical cord to the camp’s power supply. A light on Mabel’s power supply unit indicated polarity was reversed. The handbook informed this was a dangerous no-no. I solved the problem using the cable we bought with Myrtle, swapping over the live and neutral connections in the plug.

Mabel and Smarty At Santo Cesarea Terme

View of Thermal Pools From Our Pitch

The good news was the camping ground had wi-fi, the bad news was it wasn’t working. Our host explained she was waiting for someone to fix it.

Dinner was the remainder of the riso and tuna with salad which we ate outside. We must be getting soft because we felt it was too cool to stay outside and retreated into Mabel. We watched the World Cup highlights and preview to the night’s match on Mabel’s TV for an hour without understanding very much at all. One item was criticising Spain’s coach after their poor performance last night, we think the view was he made a lot of mistakes and it included a shot of him trying to get on the wrong team bus after the match. We managed the first half of England v Uruguay match but gave up at half time with Uruguay 1 – 0 up.

Today's Trip (413km)