This is my first time using one-way hire car to simplify transport on a tour - while I do enjoy trains and ferries, it really does simplify things and the cost is pretty reasonable - I'd been getting quotes as low as €120 for a one-way hire from Santiago to Santander.

Moving under my own (petroleum) steam would also give me a lot of flexibility in the return trip. Rather than a potentially stressful race to get back to Santander, return the car and ride to the port in one day: I could just as easily pick the car up the previous night, drive to a motel and have a comfy evening, then make a leisurely journey the following day. The beauty of this is that I can still have a complete day of riding - I'll just finish at the car hire place at 6pm or so, stick the bike in the back, and drive off. The next day, since the ferry leaves at 6, I might even make a day of it and stop off and do some sightseeing. It's about a 6 hour journey to Santander so I'll want to break it up a bit anyway.

My natural choice for where to hire the car from were the regional airports - very regional in the case of Santander. These tend to be much easier to drive in and out of, and are small enough that I should just be able to bike in. In Santander, the airport's in a suburb about 10km outside the port, but that promises to be a relaxed ride on city bike paths. Another advantage of hiring from the airport is they tend to be open long hours - 11pm in Santiago - meaning no stress to finish the day's riding early. The only downside is the Santander hire place actually closes for siesta. That's so Spanish.

It was only when pre-filling out my license details on the Enterprise website that I noticed something weird. My bloody license would be expired!* I genuinely didn't have a clue this was going to happen. UK licenses "expire" every ten years - so even though you still have the ability to drive, technically you're unlicensed until you go through the simple admin of getting a new one (as far as I know, this is purely to make sure the photo on the front is up-to-date!). Can it really be ten years since I learnt to drive?

I was meant to get a reminder, but for some reason this never happened. What a catch! I could so easily have not bothered to try to enter the license details (an option that fortunately the car hire allows), never spotted my license would be expired, and be stuck in Spain!

* If, fantastically, it had been the case that my license had already expired, and had been expired for six months while I'd been merrily driving around like an idiot - I'd definitely not record that on a public bike-touring website. To emphasise, this is definitely not what had happened. Ahem.