: 14th April: Newton Stewart: Pre-trip testing Van run (stationary) 6 hours under varied engine revs with filtered waste vegetable oil no problems.
: 18th April: Newton Stewart: Filtering trials complete: stock of 60 litres filtered waste vegetable oil ready for use at Calais...
: 24th April: Calais (Picardy, France): Start of run: heading west in the afternoon
: 25th April: Caen (Normandy, France): Day 2: setting off again after overnight stop somewhere near Caen, lost in fog ...
: 25th April: Mont-St-Michel: (border of Brittany, France): End of Day 2: great day via Bayeux, Arromanche, Ste Mere Eglise, Cherbourg and Mont St Michel. 70 litres waste oil found between Caen and Cherbourg.
: 26th April: Brest: (Brittany, France): 20:30 hrs: Left Mont St-Michel late, having been delayed by having to filter contaminated oil. Arrived in Brest, found no oil. Moving on towards Rennes.
: 27th April: Saintes : (near Bordeaux, Acquitaine, France): A long day's run. Arrived St. Nazaire 11:45 am (see postcard trail), stopped to look for oil. Drove on to Saintes and stopped there to filter more oil.
: 28th April: in Les Landes : (30 miles SW of Bordeaux, Acquitaine, France):Slow progress because of heavy traffic. Hard to find oil. Spain tomorrow!
: 29th April: Irun : (Basque country, Spanish border):First French leg done! Overnight stop in Irun, on to Bilbao tomorrow.
: 30th April: west of Gijón : (Asturias, Spain): Great run along the Basque coast past Bilbao and across Cantabria via Santander into the Asturias to Gijón near San Estéban. Have wine to drink, but no corkscrew!
: 1st May: Santiago de Compostela : (Galicia, Spain): Visited Coruna en route from Gijon today, but didn't bury anybody. Overnight in Santiago. Forecast sunny, 19 deg C. Portugal tomorrow?
: 2nd May: Porto : (Costa Verde, Portugal): First part of Spain completed, no major problems reported so far.
: 3nd May: Porto : (Costa Verde, Portugal): Spent the day talking to press in Porto, visiting contacts in museum. 3 Interviews, one with national paper, one with regional TV and one with national radio. Good supplies of used oil found with the help of "Quercus", Portugese environmental group.
: Thursday 4th May: Porto : (Costa Verde, Portugal): Off to Lisbon for breakfast TV live on Friday morning.
: Friday 5th May: LISBON : (Portugal): In Antony's own words: Finally managed to get access to computer at the "Quercus" office. I
have done 4 TV interviews, 3 radio, 3 newspaper and further 3 on the
phone including the "Sunday Mail". Not bad! I only have to
repair the radiator hose now because it came apart last night after getting
to Lisbon. I spent 2 hours repairing it so as not to miss the live TV interview. I eventually got to bed at 1 o'clock in the morning, in the van. Everything today has gone well, including van but that hose will need to be repaired or I won´t be going very far.
I think that today's TV coverage will shake up a few people here as the coverage of the kit and process was very extensive, all the press people have been stunned at the simplicity and cost effectiveness of the process. I think with some degree of certainty this week was a watershed for the Portugese, they now have a living example of what can be achieved with minimum input. When I get to Gibraltar I shall drum up some more interest hopefully.
: Sunday 7th May, 11:45 a.m.: approaching Cadiz : (Andalucia, Spain): Radiator hose fixed, on the road again, approaching the ancient Carthaginian city of Cadiz en route for Gibraltar.
: Sunday 7th May, evening: arrived in Gibraltar : (British Overseas Territory): Some problems with the pressure filter 20 miles east of Gibraltar, but they were fixed (one of the benefits of "Garden Shed" technology is that you can usually fix things if they go wrong). Filtering on the move is an extreme test of the kit, so it'll probably break down again later on - but if so, it'll get fixed again! Antony managed to get some photos emailed back, see them on the postcard trail page.
: Tuesday 9th May, evening: arrived in Alicante : (Valencian Community, Spain): Left Morrisons supermarket (!) in Gibraltar yesterday afternoon. Morrisons Gibraltar, it seems, is supplied daily by lorry from Aylesbury. There's nothing like specialising in local produce, is there! Somewhat delayed en route by being unable to find a way out of a coastal town somewhere in Murcia, but good progress nevertheless. Found some oil on the road at a Cantina run by an English family, filtering it tonight. Tomorrow to Barcelona, with luck.
: Wednesday 10th May, evening: 50 miles S of Barcelona : (Catalonia, Spain): Got stuck in Valencia, trying to find the way out of the city! Crossed the border into Catalonia in the afternoon, very near Barcelona now.
: Thursday 11th May, evening: back into France again. Arrived at Montpellier (Occitania, France) after a 350 mile run via Barcelona, Girona, Perpignan and Beziers.