Day 7 - Girona/Costa Brava to Barcelona to Montserrat to Fraga

Thursday 30/04/2015

We had a bit of rain and thunder in the evening but it was all good as we were in our tents by the time it started. We set out a bit late with a mission to see a bit of Barcelona and Montserrat.

The weather has warmed-up so we removed our jacket and trouser liners and it made it that much more comfortable negotiating the hot Barcelona traffic. We parked-up right in front of Gaudi's crazy La Sagrada de Familia unfinished church. It's very cool but there was a lot of construction work going on. I got some more cash out of a hole in the wall, but Dino had technical issues and failed... 

Being on bikes is cool as it's easy to park so we were able to stop right in front of the church where we had some coffee before spending what felt like hours getting out of the city.

Montserrat is stunning - the saw-tooth mountains and pink rock are unique. Once up there the views are magnificent. Saw some rock climbers testing themselves on the sheer cliff faces - rather them than me!

We decided to cover some distance and head towards Zaragoza to shorten tomorrows distances. As it's not really a tourist area, we really struggled to find anywhere to camp. The TomTom finally lead us to a place quite some distance from the road on a very, very rocky path. I shot off ahead only to find the 'campsite' was a pig farm and stank so bad that words cannot describe it. Dino didn't arrive behind me so I figured that he must have had an off. I ran down the track to see him wrestling with a 250+kg beast. No real damage done, just some more scratches on the horrible panniers that he painted a foul twin-tone colour scheme!

TomTom then decided that there was another off-road camp-site nearby so we went for that but Dino wasn't happy off-roading anymore and after seeing some caves and other stuff (I seriously considered sleeping in one), we turned back and re-joined the road and carried on with my TomTom failing.....

We stopped for a bit where I got my totally reliable Garmin GPS out and set it to Zaragoza as a back-up plan. In the meantime TomTom got some power from another power lead that I had rigged-up and we set the next camp-site along the route. With light fading, we made it to the campsite which is a peach and we're in a cabin as it cost the same as 2 tents!

Good bar here and they have baguettes so Dino can have his beloved sandwiches! No Smash tonight! Feels like a very long day - beer tastes good.

Mileage: 990
Beers: 38 + 2 cartons of Don Simon (red)
Ass pain: 2/10
Mechanical issues: 1 (minor self inflicted)
Accidents: 1 (minor Dino bike drop)
Coldness: 0/10

Day 6 - Ripoll to Roses to nr. Girona/Costa Brava

Wednesday 29/04/2015

Another cold night turned into a warm and sunny day. After some more mountain roads we finally descended and stopped for lunch in Figueres. No idea what I was ordering but got a tuna salad followed by chicken as a main dish. Not bad for €10. Everyone here eats out at lunch. A load of guys from a nearby garden centre came to our cafe for lunch - obviously with red wine. It's how things should be!

We rode on to Roses and the Med. Nice little seaside town. We were going to stay but we just got there too early and as we now want to see Barcelona, we had to push on. We decided to follow the coastal road towards Barcelona but it was really slow going so we hit some fast roads and peeled-off somewhere near the Costa Brava.

We're in a very odd campsite now - a long way off the road down some dirt tracks that we will have to back-track tomorrow. Still, there is a bar and the first beer was on the house!

Mileage: 770
Beers: 30 + 2 cartons of Don Simon (red)
Ass pain: 0/10
Mechanical issues: 1 (minor self inflicted)
Accidents: 0
Coldness: 4/10

Day 5 - El Pont de Suert to Andorra to Ripoll

Tuesday 28/04/2015

Shame there was no beer last night, but it's probably for the best. It got down to below freezing during the night but we didn't feel the cold as much as we could have thanks to our 3 season bags although I did have put on a micro-fleece in the middle of the night.

The sun came out at 09:00 and despite the cool mountain breeze, it felt lovely and warm. More amazing roads and stunning vista points. As we were near to Andorra, it seemed criminal not to to a small detour so we popped in to Andorra La Vella for lunch and some cheap fuel before retracing our steps to the magnificent N-260. Andorra was ok but there seemed little point in staying there any longer. Our lunch was amazing - like a massive pie / lasagnia thing with lots of bread, beef, cheese and lumps of sausage with an egg on top. We barely finished it all but they insisted that we have some more free chips. Not bad for €9 a head.

The roads and scenery just got better and better. Good job that our bikes are so slow as there were loads of po-lice about stopping speeding motorists. Easy to get caught as the roads are brilliant for speeding on - but they can be dangerous if you don't control yourself. We hit altitudes of up to 1800m but the roads were dry and totally snow free. Pretty cold up there but nice in the sun anyway.

Did a little detour through Alp before heading to Ripoll where we are camped in a deserted camp-site. Think it's going to be another cold night but we have a couple of Cartons of 'Don Simon' to keep us going tonight. Skipped cooking tonight as still too full after lunch.

This trip has exceeded all expectations - such a lovely place. Such full days despite covering such limited mileage! Tomorrow the road ends at the Mediterranean sea!

Mileage: 636
Beers: 20 + 2 cartons of Don Simon (red)
Ass pain: 0/10
Mechanical issues: 1 (minor self inflicted)
Accidents: 0
Coldness: 5/10

Day 4 - Jaca to El Pont de Suert

Monday 27/04/2015

Good that we had the caravan. The wind and rain were bad at times and the ground turned to mud everywhere so it would have been pretty muddy and wet in the tents...

The Celta vs. Real Madrid match we saw in the bar was amazing. Got to be a league above the Premier League back home. Teamwork / individual talent - proper end to end stuff. Amazing to watch even for non football fans! Even the local Polizia turned-up in their uniforms and had a few drinks in the bar watching the match.

Set out quite early to hit the proper Pyrenees and the N-260 road. Weather better than last night and gradually improved throughout the day. The roads here are stunning, on balance I reckon they are far better than the Transfagaras in Romania - mainly because the tarmac is in great shape. Lovely scenery all around and plenty of places to stop for a coffee / pizza.

We made good time so pushed on a little further than originally planned. Great mountain roads from Jaca to Biescas / Lardies / Boltana, climbing up over 1500m, but the best section was from Campo to El Pont de Suert where the road winds through a narrow gorge - stunning. Found a campsite that appears to be in someone's garden. Still it's fine and has Wi-Fi but no warm water.

After setting-up camp, doing some basic laundery, we cooked another Smash-Fusion dish - this time with Chilli-Con-Carne which worked well. Smash is amazing - it is the absolutely best thing since sliced bread. In fact I would go as far as saying that it's better than sliced bread. Those Smash robots were right to laugh at all the primitive earthlings peeling potato's...

Anyway Dino then chose to faff-about with his motorbike fixing stuff that wasn't broken. He ended-up losing an unimportant bolt which he then spent hours looking for. I didn't have one in my spares collection but this is why you must always take gaffer-tape and cable ties on such a trip. These will fix most problems.

Crisis! No beer available here. Looks like an early night for us....

Mileage: 455
Beers: 20
Ass pain: 0/10
Mechanical issues: 1 (minor self inflicted)
Accidents: 0
Coldness: 2/10

Day 3 - Vitoria-Gasteiz to Pamplona to Jaca

Sunday 26/04/2015

Well it inevitably rained. Never great packing in the rain, getting your wet tent into your dry canoe bag with all your other dry gear... Still at least it didn't rain all day.

We both slept really well - much better than on the boat. Our new 3-season compact sleeping bags kept us warm. After a long sleep we hit the road to Pamplona via the back roads. Some more stunning roads with mountain views as we zig-zagged our way into Pamplona. The city itself was suprisingly busy for a Sunday but we made our way into the old town pretty quickly where we stopped for a coffee. Hard to imagine what chaos takes place during bull-run season, the damage must be pretty shocking.

Anyway, as we were making good time and the weather was ok, we chose to ride on to Jaca. More stunning roads especially the last stint which skirted an odd coloured lake. The Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route runs through these part - lots of sign-posts and weary looking pilgrims by the side of the road.

As we got into Jaca it started raining again so we checked into a camp-site that was very muddy. The lady figured we should have a caravan so we're in one of those for the night (my Spanish is crap so we didn't really have much choice). It's shit, leaks and is small - but only €15 for the night which is a total bargain and half what we paid at the campsite yesterday.

We cooked some more fake smash with Spam and some cheesy pasta with curried rice. It was pretty disgusting but we just finished eating before the storm broke! Glad we're in the caravan - the wind and rain is pretty bad.

After a quick nap we hit the nearby bar for some liquid refreshment and to watch some footie before turning in hoping that the rain will stop tomorrow....

Mileage: 335
Beers: 22
Ass pain: 0/10
Mechanical issues: 0
Accidents: 0
Coldness: 1/10

Day 2 - Santander to Vitoria-Gasteiz

Saturday 25/04/2015

Bingo on the ship put an end to our drinking and sent us to our beds before we drank too much. 24hrs on a boat is a long time, whilst convenient for travelling whilst asleep it is ultimately pointless. I will never do a proper cruise whilst I can still do other stuff. The sea is great for a bit, but you don't see anything much (apart from the odd dolphin) so you should go overland or just fly and see the stuff you want to see without wasting time on a boat that goes 25mph....

Anyway, didn't sleep too well as it was about 30°C in the cabin and the temperature control didn't work. Other than that the crossing was uneventful and we made it to Santander as planned.

Santander is very pretty from the sea. We had lovely weather and the ship arrived early so we took the mountain roads over to Vitoria Gastez where we just managed to put our tents up before dark.

No time for beers but we did make some Smash mixed with Supernoodles and a tin of all day english breakfast before turning-in. It was pretty horrible, but that was down to Dino's cheap-skate Sainsbury's fake Smash - the real deal would have made all the difference.

The mountain roads just South of Santander were amazing. Nice bends to enjoy on the bikes but also lovely scenery. Lots of snow above 1000m but it wasn't cold. Meant to be cold and wet tomorrow but so far so good.

Mileage: 185
Beers: 8
Ass pain: 0/10
Mechanical issues: 0
Accidents: 0
Coldness: 1/10