Wednesday 04/05/2016
The night was warm - our 3 season bags were overkill but my new sleeping mat was amazingly good. Slept quite well but it was a little tight in the tent with half our gear inside it and I felt a bit too hot.
We decided to take fast roads for the first few miles today before peeling-off on the more scenic roads. The small roads are brilliant, but to cover 150 miles can take more than 7hrs of riding so sometimes you have to make a few compromises. As it happens my Sat-Nav and paper-map were both pretty inaccurate today...
We had coffee and sandwiches for breakfast at the campsite before heading off. It was not windy today, the weather was boiling at over 30C at times. Too hot especially in slow moving traffic. The roads were pretty average until we got into the mountains in Portugal at Moncau. Lovely forrests, wine valleys and the odd stunning building. The roads were twisty and fun but with two people + luggage the centre stand hit the ground when I got too carried away.
I made a few wrong turns and twice ended up going up roads that were amazingly steep with tight turns. 1st gear clutch-slipping stuff - it was difficult not to wheelie and if I had to stop then we would have fallen over as I would have started skidding backwards... I also went through a motorway toll both without paying but realised that I had done wrong and managed to get a correct ticket issued....
We got to Porto just in time for rush-hour. Crazy-busy with some bad driving also on offer. The sat-nav took us to a campsite that turned-out to be a fancy office block. The next campsite had apparently stopped being a camp-site 12 years ago... Ended-up heading over the river where we are camped by the sea. We cooked some more Smash / Couscous with All Day English Breakfast and Irish Stew followed by soup and sandwiches.
The weather suddenly became overcast and the temperature dropped significantly but we still went to the beach even though it was getting late. Inevitibly we ended-up in a beach bar. Finally got to drink some white port in Porto so my life is complete!
Tomorrow we take on the Duaro valley - not sure how far we get or if we find anywhere to camp. We are due thunderstorms on Friday, I suspect that we may get rain tonight and tomorrow!
Mileage: 715
Beers: 9 + wierd coctail + 3 big vodka's + 3 big red vinos + 1 massive G&T + 4 white ports
Ass pain: 4/10 (Krysia) / 3/10 (Me)
Mechanical issues: 0
Accidents: 0
Coldness: 1/10
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