Sunday 12th April, part 2

We had a choice of two aires at Porto, one very close to the city and free but the reviews weren’t that brilliant (there could be a drugs house behind the aire) or an aire at The Parque Biologique a short distance away but on a bus route.

We’ve not paid any site fees for two weeks now so the thought of spending €12 per night was a bit of a shock to the system but we have spent far more than that on a night and this is a rather nice aire (and we did need to empty the toilet cassettes). We have a large pitch with laurel hedges both sides, a beautifully maintained garden at the back and trees in front of us. We have electric hook up although we didn’t really need it and haven’t had a hook up for over a month now, the new regulator seems to working brilliantly.

We have a pair of keys for the security gates which are kept locked at all times and free entry to the park.

This is some old bush behind our van, who knows what it is!

The Parque Biologique is a strange place. There is a long footpath wandering through the trees, up and down hills and then you’ll find an animal display. This one is Turtles.

This one is Storks.

And here we have a Black Winged Stilt. Can’t imagine how he got his name.

There were a couple of Deer enclosures, Wild Boar, Bison, farm animals, etc. There are three old farms on the park which have been used to show how man lives within his environment and how nature can reclaim disused buildings.

And then some more flowery things. Many of the trees were labeled with their names, many in English but most of the signs were just in Portuguese so difficult to work out what they were on about.

And then we have some very large Eagles. There were probably a dozen in this cage which was large but could have done with being twice the size.

They could fly around but you know when you see Tigers in a cage and they are going round and round, it was a bit like that.

At least they had space to fly. None of the owls or Vultures were in cages large enough really.

Lillies! They grow like weeds over here Mum.

A friendly little Griiffin Vulture eyeing up Lucy for lunch.

And an Avocet. As you can see, I’ve only shown you the nice displays, 

Two more for Mumsie, what you may call a Peony tree but we all know is really a Camellia (Not a Clamydia that I thought it was).

And another one. The grounds were lovely and it was a very lovely walk only spoilt by some dodgy cages.

We rounded the day off with a lovely BBQ of Bratwurst washed down with some dodgy Lidl’s beer.