Martin The Man On The Box Without Divine Power To Fix The Weather: Pobra de Trives to near Ponferrada.

December 5, 2014

I didn't notice when putting up the tent in the dark that the patch I would sleep on is a tad uneven; enough consequently that, I've a night of disturbed sleep, waking and drifting off again. Dreaming strange dreams; lying in lush grass in a familiar spot and children I know coming along who don't recognize me.

Looking at the watch in the grey light of morning, it is 8.25. I'm on the road an hour later. Fog has descended since I got up and it is one of the worse starts to the day that could be. The wind chill; biting damp cold nips at my feet and hands as the road continues all downhill, though soon I drop below the blanket of fog. It wouldn't bare thinking about not having these Swix lobster ski-gloves: a nice find in a street in Oslo a few years ago. But what I really need now is some climbing to get the circulation going.

I see a road spiral diagonally up the opposite side of the valley; can't possibly be this road. A moment later I realise it is. I can see a van which passed me earlier, going up it. The final switch-back takes me back and down a straight run to the bottom of the deep valley to a sharp right over a bridge and right again to begin climbing.

The road goes up for quite a bit with near vertical rocky ground and dwarf conifers on the left and a drop on the right. The climb warms me up. Then after cresting the hill and descending a few kilometres, I join another road at a tee and continue down a six or seven per cent gradient towards the urban area of Rua. The camera battery is low and as I'll be making a café stop, hope to find one with a power point.

The café is part bakery, part meeting place for sophisticated middle aged ladies. I'm the only man. I find a free table with a power socket in the wall beside it. I plug in the charger and connect it to the camera which I set on the table and sit down to relax over coffee and a custard filled pastry.

The nice beardy weatherman Martin on the TV has nothing but bad news, well for me anyway. Sigh. Clouds dripping rain all over Northern Spain tomorrow; snow on high ground. Couldn't you do something Martin: make it remain dry in the days ahead until I reach Santander.

I pass a supermercado in the main thoroughfare through town, but there isn't any street furniture to lock the bike securely to, so I cycle by. And although there's a sign for Lidl, it is somewhere back on road N120 before I join it a few kilometres out of town. The way ahead is narrow valley with a cornucopia of small towns strung out along the highway and soon I needn't fear not passing a place to stock up when I come to a Gadis hypermarket.

Hypermarket on the left which doesn't close in the middle of the day.

I reach the main large town ahead Barco, around three, where I turn right and cross a long bridge over the Sil, then follow N325 towards Ponferrada. The rest of the afternoon I continue up the river valley. Most of the traffic seems to have continued on N120, as the only vehicles on this road are tipper-trucks to do with mining activities alongside. In the last hour of low sunlight there's quite a climb and eventually the road passes through a gap in the hills to where a vast plain opens up before me; across which is dotted high-rise blocks of a sprawling city; white blocks looking tiny from this distance, like gravestones; and by a range of pink outlined hills, the sun having just set, on the far side of the plain loom tall smokestacks and cooling towers pumping up crimson tinted white flags of vapour against frosty pale blue sky.

There is a lot of mining activity on the later part of today's itinerary.

Passing through a village around five-thirtyish.

View back the way I came as I climb through a gap in the hills on the way to Ponferrada.

I had aimed to make it beyond Ponferrada today, but it is a much bigger place than I imagined looking at the circle on the map. It is still the guts of ten kilometres to go as I descend towards the city on the plain. I begin looking at camping possibilities among the brown wooded slope on the right and soon come to an old quarry overgrown with saplings. I ride in off the road. The immediate area is flat and hidden from view by trees, but is poorly drained, having puddles in the middle; so I push the bike up a bank and find a level spot to camp further up.

Today's ride: 78 km (48 miles)
Total: 9,187 km (5,705 miles)

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