| Day # |
56 |
State of Legs |
:-) |
|
Distance (miles) |
Distance (km) |
Ascent (feet) |
Ascent (metres) |
Punctures |
| Today |
0 miles |
km |
0 feet |
metres |
0 |
| Trip Totals |
2492 miles |
km |
107347 feet |
metres |
0 |
| Today's Route |
| No cycling today |
Travelogue
I'm not cycling today, but it's not the usual format of rest day. For a start, I'm not in an Airbnb apartment with a washing machine and fully equipped kitchen! I'm still camping just outside Potes in the Picos de Europa park and I'll be here at least another day.
I didn't exactly have a plan for today, but a semblance of an idea of a plan came to me when I had a breakfast of bread and Spanish marmalade this morning.
The village of Potes (which to me is more like a small town than an actual village) is 1 kilometre away and I cycled through it yesterday to get to the campsite. I decided that the main activity for today would be a bit of low energy exploration, also known as strolling.
So, I set off on foot down the road to Potes.
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| A pretty great view from the entrance to the campsite |
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| Ruined by me. And the hat. It was chilly when I got up! It's not evidence of hair shame! |
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| Potes |
Potes is a picturesque village with a river running through it, a number of stone bridges by which to cross the river and a "stately and solid tower". It also has lots of cafes, bars and a variety of shops and small businesses including a barber's shop! It's been about 9 weeks since I last had a haircut and whilst I did stop caring about the state of my hair many decades ago, at a rate directly proportional to the rate with which I was losing hair, there are limits to how shaggy I like it to get! So, I dropped into the barber's shop, waited five minutes and had my hair cut by the resident barber! Ahhhh, that's better!
Afterwards, I strolled along the riverside path, first in one direction and then the other. There were a couple of species of waterfowl on the river, one which the Merlin app identified as a Muscovy Duck and one which it could not identify.
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| Name that bird - Merlin couldn't |
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| A Muscovy Duck |
The riverside walk was short but very pleasant. And a short walk is all my legs fancied doing today anyway.
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| Wow, what tidy hair! :-) |
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| This bridge is where all the cool Muscovy Ducks hang out |
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| See? |
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| And these two... very aloof! |
I bought some groceries from the supermarket (with which to make lentil-based variety of camping mush later) and headed back to the campsite. It was almost lunchtime and I've long since given up worrying about official meal times, so I headed over to the sheltered area with picnic tables and power points, which is where I now am. Lunch was bread with some quite tasty Spanish cheese that the French couple in the tent next to mine had gifted me as they left this morning.
A relaxing but not totally inactive day!
Who knows what I'll do for the rest of the day. I do intend to be somewhat inactive and my book is calling to me. But anything could happen. Well, almost anything.....
Update
I'd settled down in my tent to read for a while. At 3 o'clock there was a peel of thunder and it started raining. I zipped up the fly sheet and both doors of the tent. The thunder got louder and the rain came down harder until it was absolutely torrential.
Huge raindrops were hitting the dry earth the tent is pitched in and bouncing up and under the flysheet, carrying bits of wet dirt with them. The bottom 10cm on the outside of the tent's living compartment quickly became mud-spattered. Inside, I remained dry though!
There was a little drizzle earlier on in Spain one morning and a thunderstorm I was sheltered from in an apartment in the French Pyrenees. I haven't seen much rain at all on this trip. But this was a real downpour and lying in my tent listening to it was as up close and personal as you can get without experiencing a good soaking!
It's stopped now and the sun is shining but I keep hearing thunder, so maybe it will be back. Rain is forecast for tomorrow.
This was the first time I've been in this tent during rain. I think it fair to say,
the tent did its job pretty well :-)
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