| Day # | 63 | State of Legs | :-) |
| Distance (miles) | Distance (km) | Ascent (feet) | Ascent (metres) | Punctures | |
| Today | 47 miles | km | 3763 feet | metres | 0 |
| Trip Totals | 2600 miles | km | 114496 feet | metres | 0 |
| Today's Route |
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| Route So Far |
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Travelogue
Yesterday, after finishing the day's blog post, I went back to my tent to rest and ended up having a rather nice afternoon sleep! I'd hung a t-shirt and my towel over the fence to give them a chance to air and dry, too. Multitasking you see. Sleeping. Drying. All at the same time. At least that was the plan.
Unfortunately, whilst I slept soundly (cycling and hiking in one day does that!) the heavens opened and it poured down. T-shirt and towel were soaked. And I need a nice dry towel!
Four young German rock climbers had arrived that afternoon and pitched their two tents by mine. They proceeded to hang out a whole load of clothes. They explained they'd been camping by the sea and everything was wet and wouldn't dry so they were trying again. I told them the campsite had a dryer that cost three Euros per load just in case their clothes didn't dry the low-tech way.
Anyway, when I discovered my stuff was soaking, I decided to use the dryer. Only one of the Germans was at their tents but as I passed I told him what I was doing and invited them to throw some of their items in with mine given I only had a couple of things. He said his friends were already in the act of loading up the dryer and in fact, maybe I could throw my two things in with theirs. So, to cut a long story short, I caught up with the others, explained and they immediately invited me to add to their dryer load. I offered money. It was declined. They were simply nice and happy to do me a favour. It did take ages but at about 11:30 pm as I was in my tent, I got a "Special Delivery!" and my dried t-shirt and towel were delivered to me. How cool was that? A small thing maybe but a big help to me.
Today though, it's day 63 of the trip and I'm ahead of schedule. The very concept of being on schedule hasn't really had any meaning previously, beyond the need to finish the trip in a maximum of three months. But I now have two events scheduled on specific dates which things are leading up to. One is considerably more important than the other. It's not hard to work out which one I have in mind :-)
I have booked a ferry from Santander to Plymouth on 8th September. That's the first of the two events. Clearly I need to be in Santander for then.
And.... my lovely wife (and I'm not just saying that because she will probably read this post!) is flying out to Santander to spend some time with me on the 4th September. I should probably make sure I'm in Santander for the 4th then, never mind the 8th!
I could have cycled from the last destination, Arenas De Cabrales to Santander in a day. So, given it's the 31st August, I have time on my hands. Also known as an opportunity.
So far, I've taken advantage of being ahead of schedule by staying a day or two in various locations in Picos de Europa. I've hiked a couple of trails including yesterday's amazing Cares Gorge and I went up in a cable car at Fuente Dé. And who could forgot the guided tour of a cheese factory, conducted entirely in Spanish? Not me, I can promise you.
Today, I took a very indirect route from Arenas De Cabrales to a campsite near to the coastal resort of Llanes. I deliberately opted to cycle a long way west along the northern edge of Picos de Europa before turning north to cross a range of big hills to the coast and then east towards, through and a little beyond Llanes. I knew nothing in particular about the route other than how it looked on the map and its length.
After leaving Arenas de Cabrales, the AS-114 road climbed and I was treated to yet more of the Picos de Europa scenery, along the northern edge of the park. It was damp and misty mostly. The climb was gentle to begin with and then a little more serious but nothing compared to what lay ahead.
At Corao, I turned north on the AS-340. This took me away from Picos de Europa (sniff!) and towards the coast. And what a road! It turned out to be a fabulous, country road which passed over a substantial range of hills and through only the occasional remote village. I saw very few cars at all. It was a great place to cycle and I'm really glad I chose to go a long way around. I could have cut across to Llanes much earlier but I would have missed this!
On a brief downhill section, I turned a corner and had to slam the brakes on to avoid colliding with a bunch of malingerers blocking the road with no thought for anyone but themselves!
Luckily, nobody, human or bovine was hurt in this incident.
The road climbed and climbed, never steeply but it went on for mile after mile and made the major contribution to today's nearly 4,000 feet total ascent.
Eventually, the inevitable descent started and I made rapid progress towards Nueva near the coast. I turned a corner and was delighted to see the sea between two hills.
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| Hard to see here but the sea is over there between those hills! |
I turned east at Nueva and pretty much instantly, it began to rain. It was drizzle but the heavy, soaking kind. Believe it or not, apart from a very brief and inconsequential encounter with some drizzle earlier in Spain, this was the first time I'd had to cycle in real rain on this whole trip. I put my rain jacket on and kept pedalling. It's the only way!
In Picos de Europa it had rained every day and sometimes quite dramatically, with thunder and lightning thrown in for good measure, but I'd always managed to avoid actually cycling in the rain.
Rain is more or less the default weather around here it seems. It's almost as if a large body of air comes in from the sea carrying a lot of moisture, and is then forced to rise by the mountains where thanks to temperature inversion it gets colder, its capacity to carry moisture is reduced and the result is precipitation. But you know, it could be that 5G causes it to rain a lot because there are 5G networks around here. That's clearly no coincidence ;-)
I arrived in Llanes pretty wet. My rain jacket is OK but it really isn't waterproof. I instantly hated Llanes too. It's one of those recommended places because it's so quaint and everything blah. What it is is touristy. Loads of tourists everywhere and perhaps due to the weather, they were all in the cafes. I had coffee, put on my waterproof over-trousers (which are waterproof!) and carried on.
The campsite is four miles from Llanes. I had no problem getting a pitch. It has all that I need and I'll be staying here one night before moving on.
Unfortunately, when I put the tent away this morning, the fly sheet was very wet. A lot of that water seems to have transferred from the outside of the flysheet to the floor of the interior living quarters whilst being transported in the bag on my bike, so I have a rather damp home today! It's all part of the adventure, it's all part of the adventure, it's all part of the adventure etc.
Here's today's profile:
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