Saturday: After Terual to camp in pine forest.

August 16, 2014

Fried potatoes and eggs for breakfast. The fuel-bottle full when leaving France is getting low and as yet I haven't worked out where to refill it in Spain.

I continue on N330. An overcast morning after a thundery wet night. The long distance crossing Spain. A glance at the map shows there's no road in a straight line going south west. I must go south then west. This way and that way stepping across the map down to Gibraltar, or somewhere to catch a ferry.

I stopped at a hostel for coffee in this village.

In the first town nothing more than a long street of roughly built block houses, I need to stock up for the weekend and so stop at the only place I see, a mercado halfway along. Inside is the size of a living room, though the packed shelves has everything necessary to see me through until Monday. There's even surgical spirits for my stove, albeit a small bottle. There'll be more other places. The woman at the counter is extremely bossy. She didn't have much patients with me taking too long choosing what fruit I'll have. And there is a language misunderstanding regarding my wish for bread until a Spanish granny feeling simpathy steps into the fray and picks up a baguette. "Pan senor?"

At this town the national road splits and I veer right, my road becoming N420 and after a few kilometres begins a long steady climb rearing up toward mountains away from the hitherto valley of red rock and verdant green stands of trees along the river. Soon I stop to take off my warm top with the heat generated in climbing. With five kilometres of grinding slowly up to level and descend steadily into a wide yellow upland valley of wheat cultivation and abandant farmsteads and lumps of rocky outcrop hills either side as the cloud overhead begins breaking up and the temperature start to sore. Ahead the road levels in a saddle and rises up another short climb at which point a sign showing picnic tables at a kilometre, it seems a good time to stop for lunch.

Lunch is one of the most tranquil and restful I can imagine. Sat at a large concrete picnic table in the shade of beech trees. The soft rustle of wind in the leaves. I sip on a can of warm but nonetheless refreshing Amstel beer before opening a can of tuna and a bag of olives. I boil water for tea. The new tea I bought today has a nice green tea taste reminding me of mate drank in South America.

The afternoon begins with a lengthy descend through a stark valley where an old shepherd herding sheep next the road shouts "Hasta la vista amigo!". I don't think he'll be seeing me again. Then villages. The first bleakly crowning a hilltop off on the left. The second the road passes through. Lots of cafes but no place to buy a substantial cold drink, but there's a public watertap where I stop and fill my bottle and gorge the water down. Then refill the bottle and take a seat on a shaded bench drinking more slowly with the pleasant sound of children splashing and giggling in an outdoor swimming pool the other side of the railings behind me.

The way onwards outlined green on the Michelin map and indeed scenic. The road passing through a narrow gorge the side of which clad in pine trees providing a fair amount of overhanging shade. Along here I pass the perfect camping spot along a small river with level banks enclosed in beech. But it is too early to stop being only five o'clock.

The road climbs out into a wide ochre plain and I come to another hilltop village, where it having gone six there's a frenzy of church bells ringing out the Angeles. Down the slope there's a turn off left and checking the map I see this regional road leads to an area of green on the map denoting forests and a place to camp.

Another road seen from where my road began a long climb.

Shade. Actually I sat at a concrete picnic table underneath beech trees on the inside of the old road loop.

New viaduct saves some climbing. In this case the original road went away round to the right, so here it cut out some distance.

I got here at 6 PM when the church bells were clanging.

I turn off N440 below the hilltop village onto this regional road CM (Castillo Y Manche)

My eventual campsite. I've paid money for worse sites than this.

Today's ride: 113 km (70 miles)
Total: 3,880 km (2,409 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	0
Comment on this entry	Comment	0