Wednesday 25th April

I came out of the front door of the hostel, got on my bike and headed up the street. For the next 50-odd minutes I kept heading up; 1000 feet of up to be exact. The weather was cool, the wind was calm and my legs were refreshed – all in all it was good cycling.

Once the first big hill was crested, my route largely flattened out as I rounded Gibraltar in a gray, hazy, gloop.

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The cycling inland and northeast of Gibraltar, however, was lovely; the sun came out, the wind was calm and the roads – empty at this stage – wound around small hills and through innumerable orange groves. The price to pay was the approaching ‘Costas’ and their thoroughfare the A7; both of which are, in my opinion, horrendous.

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One lone, scrappy, palm tree, an exotic beach does not make!

It was also noticeable how much the price of everything had now increased, in comparison to Northern Spain and Portugal. Coffee and accomodation had gone up by almost 50%, food by about a quarter. My campsite for the night was €19 – one bike, a small tent, an arrival at 7pm and a departure at 10am, a pool that closed at 8pm and a surly barmaid who served me a single glass of wine that came out of 2 separate bottles. Tomorrow I transit through Marbella, Torremolinos and Malaga – I can’t wait!

104.4 kms / 65 miles for the day.

Tuesday 24th April

My legs were in bits this morning. Thirteen full days of cycling, culminating in yesterday’s long tough battle against the wind, had left them sore to the touch. I was in a nice hostel with a roof-top terrace,

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I’d slept well and late, Tarifa was warm and interesting – it was time for a rest day.

I didn’t wander far in the town as my legs just weren’t up to it;

just enough  to find some healthy food…

..and some not so healthy food

I did some blogging, some laundry, i aired my tent (still wet and grubby from Seville) and I did some yoga and stretching. But mainly I soaked up some rays and did not much at all

Monday 23rd April

With another new route planned I set off in good time for what I hoped was going to be a big and tough, but significant day – my arrival at my furthest south point. Very early on it was apparent that my Strava routing was going to be playing games with me again today;

You want me to go down there? Well, OK I’ll chance it for a couple of hundred metres – which on this occasion turned out to be a good decision. However, it seemed as if today Strava was determined to try and get me back for abandoning its route yesterday. I followed this hilly and potholed track for a fair few kms before abandoning it and heading for the tarmaced roads again. In doing so it added another 15 kms to my day’s cycling, but it was worth it for the comfort afforded to my backside!

Mind you, if there was one benefit of following Strava’s sometimes more esoteric routes, it was that, occasionally, some lovely views presented themselves;

 

 

 

The further south I got, the more of these things started to appear

 

 

and there was a good reason there were so many of them – it is notoriously windy in this part of Europe. The closer I got to my destination of Tarifa, the stronger the wind got.

Was it a nice helpful wind? I hear you ask.

Of course it bloody wasn’t!

Although not directly on my beak, there was enough headwind component to significantly slow my progress, but in addition there was also a substantial side wind component which made control of the bike difficult. The afternoon was a real slog, but the prize of reaching my furthest South point by the end of the day was too great; there was no way (mechanical bike failures aside) that I was not going to make it.

About 30 kms from my destination and at the crest of (yet another) hill, I spied two touring cyclists on the other side of the road. They were obviously taking a rest after coming up their side of the hill and I wasn’t averse to doing the same. I crossed the road to say Hi. They were from Germany and I would guess in their mid-30’s. I asked how long they’d been going – “Oh, about a year” was their reply. Why haven’t I met any touring cyclists yet who sort of reply “Oh, we’re only a few weeks into this, we’ve never done it before and we really haven’t got a clue” – that would make me feel so much better!! Anyway, they had come from Tarifa that morning having crossed from Africa the day before. They had already done New Zealand, Australia and SE Asia. They were now contemplating a clockwise journey around Europe before maybe finishing in Athens in maybe another 6 months time.

I took a photo, we said our goodbyes and wished each other luck. As I rolled down the other side of the hill I began thinking, “Hmmm, if I got a ferry from Tarifa across to Africa……………………………………………….”

Eventually the sea appeared and my destination became visible (it’s essentially the white dot of a lighthouse, roughly in the middle of the horizon, above) I wound my way around the town and then along the sea front to the beach/causeway/Islet that form that last southerly bit of the European mainland.

The wind makes this one of the premier kite surfing/windsurfing sites of the World – and didn’t I know all about that by now! I wandered across the causeway until I could get no further and took a couple of photos to mark my arrival at the second of my main goals for this trip.

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I then took myself off to the nearest bar to mark my achievement in a more appropriate way

Conveniently, my arrival took place on a Monday so the weekly summary also enables me to report how far it has been to in total to get to this point.

115 kms / 71.5 miles for the day, 611.7 kms / 380 miles for the week and 2086.7 kms / 1297 miles total so far.

Africa is only 14 kms away!!

 

Sunday 22nd April

It took me a long time to get going this morning. It continued raining on and off for the first few hours and that is never conducive to packing up a campsite; especially when that moisture has turned the dust of the site into a horrible sticky gloop. I decided to sit it out for a while and get to grips with a couple of other issues. I had to sort out my mobile data package as a priority – I’d been getting warnings that I was getting close to my monthly data limit and it was obvious that I needed to upgrade my plan. A re-plan of my cycling route was also necessary as my initial plan had not brought me this far directly south of Seville. I took myself off to the bar area to sit at a table, use the wifi and sort the issues out.

In this simple task, I ended up in one of those uncomfortable situations that circumstance and an uncommon language can produce. It was raining quite hard when I exited the tent armed with my electronics and a freshly made mug of tea for the dash of a few hundred metres to the reception area. The previous evening I had come in to the reception area through a shorter back entrance and I tried the same again. This time the door was locked, but I rattled it, just to make sure. As I turned to go back to the reception via the normal route, the locked door was opened by a lady. In stilted English/Spanish I gathered that this entrance was strictly for use of the attached bungalow renters and most certainly not for tented riff-raff such as myself. I apologised. A couple of minutes later I was in the bar area setting up my electronics at a table with my cuppa in front of me. The same lady appeared – she was serving at the bar – and asked if I would like coffee. I pointed at my tea and said no thank you. She looked nonplussed, turned away and came back a few seconds later with a information sheet that said the bar area was a service area only from 9am (it was still 10 minutes until that hour, but who’s splitting hairs!) and pointed at my tea. I didn’t want to argue or make a scene so apologised once again and put my tea aside on the floor. A couple of minutes later, while I was well and truly stuck into upgrading my phone plan, she was back and quite angry. Did I want a coffee, she enquired again. Again I said no thank you. She waved her arms around a lot, huffed, puffed, harrumphed and pointed at the information sheet again. The penny dropped; to stay in the bar and use the wifi facilities, I had to order something. I agreed that I would love a coffee – perhaps a big one? – an uneasy truce descended between us and I was left alone until I completed my tasks.

Phone sorted, I turned to my route plan. After a couple of iterations I settled on a route that looked very flat and only a few kms longer than the others. By this time it had stopped raining and I returned to my my tent, packed it up (it was soggy and filthy) and was on the road by 11. After 10kms I came to a junction where I needed to turn right. At the junction, and intently studying a dog-eared paper map, were an elderly couple of cycle tourers. In an uncommon tongue, we established that we were heading in the same direction, so it seemed odd that when I turned right, they carried straight on. Barely a km further on, my route turned left to follow a river, but when I got there I realised that this was no better than a tow-path. Memories of my recommended route out of Merida were still too fresh in my mind, so I retraced my steps back to the junction and set off after the cycle touring couple. My plan was to follow the sun and try to pick up my planned route further south. Perhaps I would catch the cycle tourers and we could ride in a companionable fashion for a while? In reality, I never saw the tourers again and the road that they had set off down and that which I was now on, only returned to the river after a few more kms. I have absolutely no idea where they could have got to. However, at this point the way along the river was paved, quiet and flat, so I happily set off down it.

Inevitably my route meandered away from the river and headed along the irrigation ditches that serviced the vast area of agricultural land that I was now crossing. Also inevitably the surface now became more difficult to traverse, albeit never as bad as that track from a few days ago

It has to be said that the route at this stage was incredibly monotonous and boring.

At the 45 km point, just as I was starting to get concerned about the amount of water I had left, I came across the only evidence of human habitation I’d seen for at least the last 20 kms. Attached to a power station was a house and cafe. I stopped, joined the local farm workers for a coffee and a pastry and had my water bottles topped up….with ice crammed into the neck of the bottle!!

My route rejoined the main river at this point and the route became more interesting.

Trees and animals made for far better scenery than mud banks!

The bird life in particular was incredibly varied and interesting

However, the uneven surface was beginning to take its toll and I started looking for ways to get off it. My planned route seemed to have me on this riverside track for many more kms to come and I wasn’t sure my body, mind or bike was up to the task. I thought I could see a way off at the 75 km point and, although it took me via a small town to Jerez (where I hadn’t intended going) I thought that this would now be a better option.

About 800 metres before the escape point, I came upon a scene so unlike what I’d been experiencing throughout the day, that it almost took my breath away.

I took photos of the scene; photos were taken of me.  My water bottles were topped up with cold, bottled stuff. I was considerably uplifted.

 

I regained tarmac – it was blissful. The tarmac took me up a steep hill – I didn’t care; my spirits were soaring

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At the top of the hill I came to the town of Trebujena. There was some sort of festival going on and the place was rocking. I got completely taken away with the utter turnaround in my circumstances and ordered a beer and a steak sandwich.

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The sandwich was very necessary, the beer was a mistake – an extremely enjoyable mistake, but a mistake nevertheless. I still had the best part of 30 kms to go to Jerez and was undoubtedly de-hydrated and under-fed. I felt decidedly wobbly as I left the town and applied myself to concentrating on the road and the traffic. However, the next 25 kms passed uneventfully and I arrived in Jerez with enough time to get some proper food inside me and find a Youth Hostel bed for the night

101 kms / 63 miles for the day (of which about 60 kms / 37 miles were of uneven, uncomfortable off-road riding) and I should be in position to arrive at the European mainland’s most southerly point tomorrow.

 

 

 

Saturday 21st April

I wasn’t sure I’d trust breakfast in this establishment, so prepared my own porridge on the balcony

Statistically, Seville is the warmest city in Europe and only experiences rain on 50 days of the year. Look closely at the photo; guess what I was going to get? I did chance a coffee, I settled my bill, I chatted to a Brit on a business trip (what on earth was he doing here?), I set off into a drizzle descending from a gray sky.

My route into Seville took me down a road that was obviously very popular with time trial cyclists. Many high tech carbon fibre machines passed me in either direction; their lycra-clad pilots (exclusively male I’m sad to report) bent in various degrees of contortion over their handlebars. Very few acknowledged me and this was unusual in my experience of fellow cyclists so far on this trip.

I overtook one!

He had a puncture!

Even this guy looked faster than me;

 

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They take their cycling very seriously around here!

I rolled into the outskirts of Seville and set about navigating to the main tourist sights. At the sight of the first horse drawn carriage I got very excited with my photo taking.

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Within a few minutes I was to learn that this was a FAR from unusual sight in this city and the driver of this particular carriage must have wondered why on earth I overtook him on several occasions, just to wait and take more photos.

The Cathedral was my first stop.

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See! Horse drawn carriages all over the place! Outside the main doors to the Cathedral was a small square. It provided a good location for a photo, so I parked my bike and stepped back-aways to try and place the contraption in a photogenic way. Just at that moment a wedding procession arrived – in horse drawn carriages obviously – and had to gingerly make their way around my apparently abandoned machine;

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I hope the bride and her entourage will forgive my intrusion into their special day – what a place to get married though – they must have felt very privileged.

Next stop the Alcazar Palace. The queues to get in were huge – I settled for the outer courtyard.

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My final stop was the Plaza de Espana;

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which is almost impossible to photograph effectively;

Seville looked a fascinating city to explore. Unfortunately with a heavy, unwieldy bicycle to take care of, an unwillingness to leave it unattended for any length of time and massive queues to get into any of the main attractions, the city remained only superficially explored by me.

I headed off to a campsite 18 kms south of the city and there erected my tent between showers of rain. I met a young couple on individual touring bikes – they’d cycled from Sydney, Australia. I met an elderly French couple on a tandem – they’d already done most of Europe.

I felt very wet behind the ears.

I blogged, ate crisps and drank beer while watching the Copa del Rey (The Spanish football cup final) Experienced cycle tourists had retired to their tents long ago!

A mere 59 kms / 37 miles for the day.

Friday 20th April

I slept really well last night; I think I needed it.

I set off at a decent time after a good breakfast and immediately knew I was going to have a better day than yesterday. Sleep is a wonderful thing!

And a jolly good job it was too, because the first 40 kms, or more, of today’s ride was pretty much all uphill. I hadn’t intended to do it all in one go, but the irregular spacing of towns and villages meant that I didn’t, in fact, stop for 3 hours until reaching the town of Monesterio. The cafe I found was unremarkable as was, most disappointingly, its food offerings. Unfortunately, that sort of summed up the day’s riding really – unremarkable. My photos are apologetically boring and bland;

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The last 7 of my 107 kms for the day provided a real sting in the tail; averaging a 6% climb gradient as it did. I knew this was the last major climb before a decent run down into Seville and I knew there was a hotel at the top, so I was energised to crack it. I was unsure whether to stay at the hotel overnight, or press on a bit further. However, after succumbing to one beer in the bar, my decision was effectively made. To say the hotel was a little tired would be kind. An Elvis Presley Western, dubbed into Spanish and being avidly watched by the hotel proprietor and the 3 other guests in the bar, was such a marker for the place’s obvious heyday.

However, it is always possible to find little positives and, for my purposes this place had a couple; my room had a large balcony:

I was able to fly the drone from the balcony so that you are able to see the dilapidated state of the place for yourself;

and it’s general position atop the high ground;

The balcony was also large enough for me to do a half hour session of yoga on as the sun went down. Finally, the room had a shower over a bath – I brought in my sleeping mat, inflated it and then immersed it in the bath, now half full of water from my earlier shower. Bubbles were immediately evident. Problematically however, bubbles were not emitting from a single source. There were holes absolutely everywhere in the damn thing. I had a repair kit, but there was no way I was going to be able to patch it up. The only solution was a new sleeping mat, but at the very least, this tired old hotel had allowed me to figure that out.

 107. 6 kms / 66.8 miles for the day.

Thursday 19th April

The previous evening I’d been told by the hotel receptionist about a couple of Merida’s sights that were best to visit in the hours of darkness when they were nicely lit up. Unfortunately I just hadn’t managed to get out to visit them before retiring early to bed. Despite a comfortable mattress and clean crisp sheets, I didn’t sleep too soundly either. Hence, at 5am I was up, dressed and out the door to see whether the receptionist was correct. Here’s what I found;

I arrived back at the hotel in time to field some calls, wish my mum a happy birthday and make some breakfast. This morning’s receptionist was the brother; he was a keen cyclist and offered to check and inflate my tyres and provided me with an alternate route on traffic free paths to my day’s destination of Zafra. As it was only 60 kms, he suggested I take the opportunity for some more sightseeing. I was enjoying his city, so agreed his plan was a good one.

Off I went to the Roman Amphitheatre and theatre site; it is a splendid complex.

I had a coffee and a local ‘Tostada’ and was ready to depart the city by midday – by now armed with a new phone App, running under the receptionist’s logon details, detailing my new, traffic-free route. It was all looking good as I crossed Merida’s ancient Roman bridge and set off along the banks of the river.

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Within minutes however, I learned the truth.

It was rubbish!

The App’s mapping was difficult to manipulate and follow, but the main problem was the route itself. It may have been a great route for a fully suspended mountain bike, but it was awful on a heavily laden tourer. After one of my panniers was bounced off it’s racking whilst traversing one particularly rough section, I decided to navigate off the receptionist’s route and regain my own, previously planned line. Easier said than done. The apparent ‘road’ I chose to cross from one route to the other turned out to be an even worse, rutted, steep farm trail along which I had to push my bike to avoid punctures on broken glass as it passed through numerous areas of fly tipping. It was another 30 minutes before I regained some smooth tarmac, by which time I was pretty knackered and not in the best of moods at the loss of time and progress. Combined with my lack of sleep, the largely uphill route thereafter, against a very annoying head/sidewind and through boring scenery – the tone for an unpleasant afternoon’s cycling was set.

There are no more photos from the day – I guess that speaks volumes. I arrived at my small, but pleasant hotel in Zafra, collapsed on the bed and fell instantly asleep. I woke with only enough time left in the day to shower, make some calls, blog a little, drink a beer and fall back asleep.

Tomorrow’s profile looks much the same – about 100 kms of mainly uphill with a forecast head/sidewind.

Wednesday 18th April

I’d picked up a tourist information leaflet on arrival at my hotel last night. The town of Elvas and the surrounding area looked to be a little gem of a location, so I decided to spend a few hours exploring. The main fortified town sat atop a hill and looked to be full of old winding streets. To reach and explore it in the most efficient way I removed all the luggage from the bike and at just before 8am set off on what felt like an altogether different machine. Entering the town through one of its gates, I climbed up onto the top of the South Westerly defensive bastions for this view of the Aqueduct;

Breakfast was taken in the Cathedral square;

before continuing my exploration of the town. In the photo below, my overnight accommodation sits just off the roundabout bottom left, whilst another bastioned fort – the Conde de Lippe – sits atop the hill on the right.

The narrow streets of Elvas are wonderfully picturesque.

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My tourist leaflet indicated that within Elvas there was a British cemetery. Wondering what that was all about, I went in search of it. A plaque on a wall just inside the gated entrance tells the story better than I could;

As is invariably the way with British military cemeteries around the world, this one was beautifully maintained. I overhead two American visitors to the site make exactly the same observation and took some pride in my Nation at that.

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From the cemetery I discovered a faint path that led uphill towards the base of Elvas’ main fort. It looked as if it would give access to a great spot from which to launch the drone (I had it in my backpack) so I pushed and tugged the bike up to an acceptable spot. The photos below were reward for my efforts.

Soon after leaving Elvas – it was after all a fortified garrison town protecting the nearby border – I left Portugal and re-entered Spain.

I had enjoyed Portugal a lot, but I had begun to struggle with what I considered to be a lack of healthy food. I had been unable to find a fullfilling meal before midday – pastries seemingly the only option – and vegetables or salad were uncommon accompaniments to a meal. How bizarre then that, immediately across the Spanish border in the town of Badajoz, I popped in here, of all places, to buy what I’d been fancying for days – a chicken salad and a fruit smoothie!

Another, almost immediate, difference between Portugal and Spain was detectable in the landscape. Portugal had been dominated by open, natural, parkland-style forests; Spain was strikingly intensively farmed – ‘Produce of Spain’ in the British supermarket fruit & veg aisles?

Along a straight stretch of road I heard the unmistakable sound of a military jet engine – I’m biased, but I love that sound – and, in searching the skies, I identified an F-5; one of the Spanish Air Force’s jet trainers. A little further on, at a roundabout, I came to a more static version of the same aircraft. (I used to enjoy this type of view of an adversary aircraft)

Within a couple of miles – the road, as it turned out, ran the length of the local Air Base – I came across another. I’d seen this type of close-up view of another aircraft a couple of times in my flying career and did not enjoy those experiences in the least; they were way too close for comfort!

More food was required and I ordered, without realising how big it would be, a meat and veggie baguette. This was easily the biggest one I’ve ever eaten at a single sitting!!

The innocuous looking photo below marks a significant milestone. About 10 kms before Merida, in the middle of an empty field, I passed 1000 miles on my journey so far.

A smidge under 90 kms for the day and a comfortable bed and clean sheets in Merida to look forward to.

 

Tuesday 17th April

A cloudless night had meant low temperatures again, but once the sun was up it promised to be another glorious day. I decided to pass as much of the available time as my day allowed in this special place and so, after a breakfast eaten facing the rising sun;

I set to doing some camp domestics. Sleeping bag and tent were aired and a full set of cycle gear washed. Once that was done, I set up for a much needed stretching and revitalising yoga session;

I was on the road by midday, but before regaining the main road, I then spent a while flying the drone in an attempt to capture a sense of the wonderful isolation of this place;

Note to myself and photographic purists – I must investigate the gimbal settings on the drone’s camera; all my horizons are ‘on the wonk’.

My initial goal yesterday had been the town of Estremoz. Whilst I was glad I had not pressed on to it and thus missed the special location I had ended up finding, I was also grateful I had not tried, because of the time and distance actually required to reach the place. It was almost 2 hours before the town appeared over the crest of a hill;

I wound my way up past vineyards;

through the centre of town;

and found myself a restaurant for a late lunch. An American lady had obviously clocked my laden bike and wandered over to express her admiration for whatever it was that I was doing. She was on a 4-day cycle touring break herself and, coincidentally, had just come from Elvas – the town I was intending to reach by the end of the day. Without giving anything away, she said she thought I would find the place interesting. At the time, that comment didn’t register anything special with me.

Refuelled, I left Estremoz and within about 15 minutes was on a longish climb. I was then surprised when a lady on a beaten up old mountain bike came huffing and puffing up alongside me.  Having obviously seen me as a target to be chased up the hill, (I’d have done the same in her position!) she then recovered her breath before starting to gabble away in Portuguese. I gabbled back in my best British-bloke-in-a-foreign-country-stilted-English. I haven’t a clue what we talked about other than understanding that she came from a local village called Gloria and the enormous number of photos she was taking on her phone were going to go on Facebook. I felt duty-bound to at least respond with one phone selfie-photo of my own;

We passed the turn-off for Gloria and she just hung on in there; I began to wonder how far she was going to accompany me until, in the middle of absolutely nowhere, she cheerily waved, said something just as unintelligible to me as everything else she’d said over the last 15 minutes and then slowed to an almost standstill. I checked in my mirror for the next few hundred yards to be sure that her Portuguese wasn’t “Dammit I’ve just had a puncture”, or something similar, but she seemed to be content to just amble along. I wasn’t inclined to slow and find out what was going on so continued at my own pace. A minute or so later and she had completely disappeared; a strange little encounter, but one that only enhances the tapestry of travel.

About 20 kms before reaching the town of Elvas I started noticing roadside hoardings advertising the place as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I had never heard of the place before and wondered why it was so honoured – the hoardings gave me no clue. The town itself hove into view under an absolutely cloudless late afternoon sky

and I navigated my way to the campsite on the outskirts of town that I’d identified as being my place of rest for the night.

The place was shut!

I sat on a nearby park bench and discovered that there were no other campsites within easy reach, so set to booking a cheap local hotel. With navigational directions enabled on my phone, I set off to find the hotel and within about 800 metres, turned a 90 degree corner came across the most amazingly unexpected sight.

The Amoreira Aqueduct is a 16th Century construction that is just one of Elvas’ many stunning attractions. With no time to fully explore this evening, I altered plans for the morrow in order to find out what this place was all about.

72 kms / 45 miles for the day.

 

 

 

Monday 16th April

Under clear skies, the night was very cold. Warm clothing was gradually applied to my body at about the same rate that air escaped from my sleeping mat. By about an hour before dawn I was fully clothed in my sleeping bag and my sleeping mat was was providing no more support and insulation than a dustbin liner. I can’t say it was a comfortable night.

I gave up trying to sleep, got a brew going and then made breakfast. My campsite was slightly elevated above the plain of the Tagus River and faced East – the direction of my next few days of travel. I also faced the rising sun of course and, before the disc even broke the horizon, it was obvious that it was going to be a great day for cycling. The sky was clear, the wind was still and my way was flat. I launched the drone to meet the dawn and took some photos and video footage.

The first part of the day’s ride was across an area of farmland, which gradually gave way to a more open, natural countryside. The riding was idyllic; warm, calm and very gently rolling along perfect roads with enough of interest around me to keep my mind alive;

For mile after mile, it was like riding through a gigantic English country estate. I stopped to launch the drone in an attempt to try and capture the scale of it, but I really don’t think this does it justice:

I had in mind a campsite outside the town of Estremoz where I thought I would spend the night, but as the late afternoon and early evening approached it became obvious that reaching that destination was going to be a bit beyond me. As has happened to me a few times already on this trip, a far better solution just fell into my lap. At about 120 kms / 74.5 miles, I came across a sign for a campsite off to the right. That’ll do, I thought and turned off onto an unmade gravel track. After a few hundred metres, another sign indicated it was a further 1.5 kms to the site. Well, this could be interesting…. On I pressed and eventually came to one of the most perfect campsites I’ve ever seen. In the midst of this huge, open, natural countryside, a Dutch family had established a very Eco Campsite. Each pitch was isolated from every other, power was all solar generated, water came from a 400m deep borehole (and at a measured hardness of zero was the softest water it is possible to come across) and almost all waste (human, or otherwise) was recycled. If you have in mind very basic facilities, think again; the shower and toilet block were modern, efficient and scrupulously clean – wifi and electronics charging were both available. I pitched my tent, showered, made a meal, luxuriated in a wonderful sunset and then sat and wondered under the clearest and most unpolluted starlit sky.

My sleeping mat still went bloody flat during the night though!

 120 kms for the day and, this being the end of another week, I can report a week’s total of 577.8 kms / 359 miles and an overall total so far of 1475 kms / 916 miles.