Day Thirty-Nine - Amorosa - Hello Portugal

It was a lovely ride along the river Minho and I started with my Portuguese audio lessons. Seems a bit tricky at the moment.

After lunch I bumped into the two Frenchmen from a few days ago and we rode, dined and are now wildcamped together.

Fantastic weather today which helps me forget how horrible it was yesterday.

Day Thirty-Nine - Goodbye Tui España

I spent seventeen days in Spain and it was the first time I have cycled here. There is almost zero bike infrastructure but the drivers almost always give you a lot of space and I had a good time.

I set of at 10 am and cycled to the border at Tui

Day Thirty-Eight - O Porriño

Today was tough and expensive.

I broke my dynamo when repositioning the bike by two meters. A cargo strap got between the fork and the electrical plug on the hub and rotated it. A little. That competent must never move in relation to the spindle and - that was that.

It will have to be sent to China for repair. Grrh. I bought a cheap multimeter to diagnose the problem and then a new front light to takeover from the dynamo powered one.

I also got some new pedals from a friendly bike shop who helped me.

The second tough thing was the weather. It started raining at lunchtime and just got heavier and heavier. The route, though low on traffic until near the end, had a lot of climbing though only a little that was very difficult. And so I didn't make it is to Portugal as I had planned.

Overall a bloody miserable day. I am working on a plan to buy a new dynamo but it requires a lot of thinking. In the meantime I will have to use my powerbank to topup the bike computer and phone through the day.

Day Thirty-Six - Caldas de Reis

After having a day off yesetrady due to the weather it rained most of the night. However I had moved the tent a little onto a grassier area and I didn't have a river running beneath it. Better!

However this morning there was intermittent rain. I was ready to takedown the tent at 9am but I paused and the rain started. Not too longer after it cleared and I did my best to pack wet and dry separately in an efficient way.

Finally, on the road again with my wet weather gear which I quickly took off.

I had a typically superby lunch that, for the first time, I didn't manage to eat everything. Setting off I then climbed a hill for ten minutes, not great with an overfilled stomach, and then realised I had turned the wrong way. Oh well. A quick descent back to where I had been put me on the right path.

I later met a couple of frenchmen on a hard climb - they stopped to ask if I was okay (!) - and we chatted for a long time. They had just bought brand new Surley LHT's and done just 2km before they met me!

I am spending the evening in an albergue. I dined with the walking gang and a cyclist mainly discussing language. It was very nice to meet a diverse group of young people.

Day Thirty-Five - Louro -Rest day

There was heavy rain overnight but that was fine. What wasn't fine was what then happened.

I was slowly packing away and was ready to take the tent down. But I thought 'let's have coffee first'. While I was making that a rainstorm of biblical proportions began and lasted for three hours.

I was glad I hadn't taken the tent down otherwise everything would have gotten wet.

After God had decided to punish a different town I decided it would be best to stay over. The tent had had a stream running beneath it and lots of dirt spattered about. A clean up, a dry out and a rest would do me good. I had been quite tired yesterday.

So I got all that done and did some pannier maintenance. That hole in the bottom I had not got around to fixing had soaked up a lot of water and drenched my toilet paper stash amongst other things.

I am sitting down to dinner at the campsite restaurant tonight. The courses including wine for €11. Bargain!