Friday 06/05/2016
The stone bungalow we rented was excellent and we slept well after all the Brandy. We were expecting a bit of rain today but it was torrential rain right from the morning. We took our time, cooked some breakfast in the bugalow and waited for the weather to get better. It didn't so we headed off over the small mountain roads back into Spain.
The weather was shocking - constant heavy rain with the roads leading us through the clouds and practically zero visibility. The road we took was a very windy, gravelly and narrow fire-track which was very steep. Would have been stunning in good weather but couldn't appreciate the views and spent my whole time trying to avoid the potholes and make the tight bends. Really hard work. Eventually rode into another tiny village where I came to a halt on an uneven surface and ended-up slowly dropping the bike as I couldn't take the weight when lent over.... No damage done to man/woman or machine but it was annoying as I can't believe the Sat-Nav lead us to such a rabbit warren of roads that appeared not to have been maintained since the middle ages....
Our next issue was that we were getting low on petrol and with places being so few and far between here, we had to detour to get fuel when we could. We then decided to just try and get to Villablino on the fastest roads possible. Despite the short distance and better roads, it still seemed to drag on in the rain.
We stopped in a small village just past Ponferrada where we had a couple of coffees, some potato pie and some cakes. It was still raining when we left the cafe and we both started feeling quite cold (the temperature has dropped to below 10C and colder up in the mountains). We got to Villablino and decided not to even consider camping! We headed out of town where we found a small hotel (above a bar again) which is nice, cosy and warm and was only €41 incl. breakfast.
The weather really ruined the day. Not experienced such crap weather since I went to Ireland. The views would have been great but with clouds, fog, heavy rain and misty visors we saw very little today. Ended-up with no photos. I reckon that today would have been amazing in the dry with gorges, mountains, rivers and some views resembling Dartmoor and others Snowdonia.
Hit the bar - it would be rude not to support the local economy! Some excellent strong bitters on offer.
Tomorrow we head back into the Picos where we should be able to camp about 75 miles away from the port. We are due more rain tomorrow though so I suspect we'll be looking for yet another hotel!
Mileage: 1090
Beers: 13 + wierd coctail + 3 big vodka's + 3 big red vinos + 1 massive G&T + 4 white ports + 10 brandys
Ass pain: 3/10 (Krysia) / 1/10 (Me)
Mechanical issues: 0
Accidents: 0 (1 witnessed + 1 drop)
Coldness: 7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment