Day Thirty-Four - Santo Estevo de Lires

I decided to take a longer route north to avoid using the same roads to head south to Portugal.

Halfway to Fisterra I decided instead to head even further north - to Muxia. I went on a big road but it was pretty quiet as it is a Sunday.

I was glad I did. The views were nice and I had a superb 11 euro lunch after a soup in the sea.

Then I had to head south. I willl be going that direction for a couple weeks until I hit Huelva in Spain.

I needed to decide how to get to Fisterra and I chose the most difficult one - largely hugging the coast. I made it half way and tonight I sleep on a headland with the waves crashing below.

I have already made a youtube video for today but I can't upload it until I have Wifi. So do suscribe to my youtube channel so you can see it when released. Here is s link to the previous video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1NMkDX5crM&feature=youtu.be

Day Thirty-Two - Arzúa

I didn't get on the road with Alan until 10:30 which is quite late compared to the more typical 'getting kicked out of albergue at 7am'.

I enjoyed the first night, in a while, of getting back in the tent. I really was a great campsite and the owners were fantastic.

We knew there would be a significant, but less than recent, amount of climbing involved so we took it all slowly and had lots of breaks. I can be the case in cycling that you push too hard too often when you should really be going easy.

There was a lot of nasty road work today. The most traffic of my entire tour.

I am staying in hostal but Alan is wildcamping. We may meet up again on the road but maybe not.

Funnily enough 'The Belgian' (Peter) was already in the same hostal!

We struggled to find a restaurant with a peregrino menu option but, despite the struggle, we found an absolutely bloody brilliant meal. It was probably the best I have had in Spain. It was gourmet for €12. I exchanged phone numbers with Peter (forget touring bike shop owner) and I hope we will meet again after the tour.

Final day tomorrow. 40km to Santiago. I may ride it with Alan.

https://youtu.be/GC8j1NZ6OSs

Day Twenty-Eight - Sahagún

I don't know how to say the name of the town I reside in tonight. Is it Miss Saigon? The Shogun era of Japan? Is it feeling sanguine?

I set off at 8am wearing my down jacket but i took it off after twenty minutes. Today's ride was very flat compared to the past few days.

I also had a far amount of wind assist which made me hit a personal target of 'do 50km before 12 o'clock and then you can relax'. I have only mnaged this ridiculous idea a couple times in my two big tours!

Anyhow, I actually managed 88km before 1pm and decided to take the afternoon off.

I checked into an 'expensive' hostal with a private room in excellent condition. I noticed a bike retailer/hedge trimmer place and decided to take my busted rack in. Guy said he couldn't do anthing but gave me a dozen zipties. Using a few of them it feels very strong now. I think it will last - if I keep off the rough stuff.

Day Twenty-Seven - Castrojeriz

A very early and chilly start. My legs were pretty terrible - I had no power. A fellow cyclist at the hostal said that it was a flatter day today. Unfortunately that wasn't quite corrrect!

After 90 minutes a long climb began and, despite my legs being rough, they had just enough to sustain it.

After lunch in Burgos, where I also took an hour to redo the slowly unraveling stitching on a pannier, I decided to give the hiker trail a go. I am usually on the nearby road instead.

It started off nicely enough and my legs had really woken up. I was really rocking it! This is it! Unfortunately it got steeper and rougher and I was bouncing around a lot.

So rough that my already partially cracked rack gave up and gave way on one side. I repaired it with an ever useful ziptie and it is probably stronger than before - though ideally I would get it welded.

Day Twenty-Five - Torres Del Rio

https://youtu.be/w78lh3uoI9s