8th October (cloudy with rain at end of day) 61 km

The danger of stopping at a campground with the best coffee we’ve tasted since coming to Europe is that we couldn’t resist our third cup after eating our pizza.  Coffee is not known for it’s sedative qualities and this stuff was strong, as well as tasty.  So when it came time for us to leave the cosiness of the restaurant/bar, there was no way sleep was on the menu.  It didn’t help that we had to leave the bar at 8pm when it was dark and it would have taken us a couple of hours to finally drift off to sleep.

At 1am we were both wide awake again and could not get back to sleep.  Eventually at 3am I made us some jam butties and a cup of tea and we finished off the cashew nuts and finally after that we were able to get some shut-eye.  That is, until some great bird came and sat on the hedge beside us (at least that’s where he sounded like he was) and started squawking repetitively.  I was curious to see what kind of bird it was, but couldn’t be bothered getting up so Pete shone a torch in his general direction and he took off.

After breakfast we called Phil and Elizabeth who are still at Igara and they have plans to head south through Pamplona and Madrid on EuroVelo 1.  The weather looks like it might improve enough for us to take off today so we have decided to book a car for Thursday from Bilbao and make a three day journey into the mountains and over to Vigo on the west coast just above Portugal.  It’s good to have a plan – now we just have to execute it.

The campground with the cockatiel

Pete here….Left camp at 11am and headed around the bay, past another camp, also situated on a hill, where we stopped to check directions and Ju got whistled at.  The Basques are not known for their outgoing personalities so we were a little surprised to hear one whistle out, but glanced up at the balcony to see the culprit was a cockatiel.  Whistled back to him and he whistled back at us and we carried on, down, down, down to the main road, where we spied a supermarket and not knowing when we might get one again today, we stocked up. 

We passed some beautiful homes

And some "once were beautiful" homes

The first place we passed through today, Ondarroa.  Spain is such a big country, it's hard to understand why so many live in
these big apartment blocks.  Maybe they all hate gardening.

Heading out of Ondarroa

Quarrying is big round here - must say I'm pleased to see them getting rid of a few hills.

I have to say I thought the weather may have improved a little more, but at least it wasn’t raining. Made good time on the main road, which followed a river, but it was pretty busy. Did that for 22kms and actually went past a turn that we could have taken, but this road had been so good, we were loathe to leave it.  But then we got the hill.  We’d already done about a km of 7% when it upped the ante to 2km of 10% and just to top it off, at the top was a tunnel.  Every vehicle from either way sounded like a truck and any enjoyment we’d had from a faster ride, had disappeared.

At the top of that climb we found a covered bus stop on a side road and stopped for some lunch. We were both sweating profusely and very hot but soon cooled down as the temperature up here in the mountains was cool, even after the climb. Lunch was sandwiches with ham, cheese and tomato, followed by coffee and a nice tasty treat. Treat is a funny term isn’t it..? When I was a kid, my Dad would bring us home a treat every second Friday, usually a few sweets and that’s what it was… a few. Fast forward fifty five years and we’re having treats after breakfast, sometimes lunch and dinner….most days. Don’t tell our kids ssshhh.

The view from the top was lovely, but worth the climb up?

Aaah this was better.  Absolutely no traffic and slightly downhill......for now

Now we had to pick a route for the afternoon and it wasn’t going to be the main road, so off down a lovely quiet country lane we ventured. Now…main roads have a habit of keeping to the valleys and rule out as many bends as possible….whereas….country lanes, especially in the mountains….well, I’ll leave that with you. The scenery was beautiful, autumn had set in and the colours were amazing….so were some of the climbs we were doing on what could only be described now, as concrete paths.

Don't know who would live on this road in the middle of nowhere, but there were a couple of nice houses

Last hill before the big grip strength sapping downhill

Julia was still her wonderful self….”ooh Pete, aren’t the colours wonderful”

“Yes darling …wonderful”

“Ride down there and I’ll get a shot of you”

“Down here darling”?

This went on for a few kms, until even the wonderful views were taking second best to the bloody climbing we were doing. I have to say, the scenery was amazing. After one such climb, we came downhill a few kms into a valley on what could only be described as a dicey downhill ride. We were both hauling on the anchors as hard as we could to stop going down the bumpy path too fast – that’s quite a workout after 2-3 km. 

Managed to get a shot of the downhill ride where I could stop safely without fear
of my bike coming up over my head!

At the bottom, the road branched off in two directions, on the dright, a lovely valley ride on the flat, or left, straight back uphill. You’ve been reading these blogs long enough so I’m not even going to imagine that you can’t figure out which one we had to take. This delightful slog took us further up a mountain, to a bloody monastery, which was very nice, until the road disappeared and we were left pushing our bikes through a slippery, slimy mud track, sliding on the slate and bouncing on the rocks.

We were now down to single lane mud fest.

“But isn’t that tree gorgeous”

“Forget the freakin tree babe.. just watch that you don’t end up in that ditch”

The monastery

The off-road track started beautifully.

But it's made for Camino del Santiago walkers, not fully laden cycle tourers

A relief to be back on the road again - and doing a downhill we can enjoy!

They don't just live on top of each other

And so it went….until we reached the road again, a road that was quiet and with a great surface, where we made great speed and even after meeting the main road again, we continued to make progress….until…the rain which had held off all day, suddenly appeared with one and a half kms to go to the campsite…. which was up a friggin great hill, because they all are and where they charged us 21 euros to listen to some slimy Spanish git spitting every five seconds and shoved us down by the amenities, which can be good…. And bad..!

Julia showered, we ate a delicious tea and then I did the shower thing before settling in for, a hopefully, good night’s sleep.