Bajar to Salamanca was a really nice run. Finally it was really warm, with the temperature sitting around 20 degrees and the scattered cloud gave way to blue skies. I had debated swinging west of Seville, but as I had pushed so hard on the previous couple of days and I had time I decided to have an early lunch. This would then give me plenty of time to stop at Rhonda before winding over the final hills to Gibraltar. With this in mind I was in a great mood. Xavier Rudd was full blast on the IPod, the sun was shining and I was stuffed to bursting point with tasty Spanish food and coffee. Just the last 2 days to go - surely nothing can stop me now.
Oh really... I have genuinely never sworn so many times in my life. Seville was one of those old cities that town planners decided to modernise in a hurry. A really big hurry. Therefore they neglected to think that anyone would want to enter Seville on any other transport apart from in their car or on their motorbike. So they built an enormous ring road round the city and linked up the other nearby towns on this 'superhighway'. The problem is that cycling is prohibited on these roads, so instead of replacing the original roads so cyclists and other traffic can actually go somewhere, cyclists are either penned in Seville, or fenced out.
The answer was to cycle under the ringroad and down an earth track. This then took me past a Roma camp, an unofficial rubbish dump and over the river to the outskirts of town. Not the best entry I had to date. The elongated process of getting in to the city was, in hindsight the easy bit. I had my Lunch and tried to leave. I spent the next 4 hours following signs, the map and asking people for directions but continually had to stop when the road turned into a motorway. I was hot, tired and losing my sense of humour. All I could think about way the prospect of not making it. Defeated, not by the sheer physicality of the challenge but by the Spanish town planning department.
After pausing for a snack and a cold coke, it dawned on me that there was only one way out. It was however the wrong way and would mean some replanning of the final day. I calculated that an extra 30km would enable me to swing south out of the city and then I would have to head west to pick up the route over the national park. Putting my immense frustrations behind me I followed the road south and really pushed on. By now intense fatigue was already sinking in to my legs and I continually topped up with energy gels and carbohydrate drinks. I had a hard afternoon constantly urging myself on, and trying to up the pace. It paid off, and I reached the edge of the National Park just 100km from Gibraltar as the sun set and found my final nights accommodation.
The final day! Dragging myself out of bed for the final pre dawn start was still tough. I wondered over to pick up my kit and in a zombie like haze put it on, ate my cereal bars, filled up my water bottles and left. The first thing I encountered was a taste of what was to come. A 2km long climb into wind. I comforted myself with the knowledge that I only had to cover 100km and every metre was bringing me closer to the finish line. This was great in theory, but theory is often very different in practice. Spanish road maps are certainly not detailed enough to show the sheer amount of switchbacks and endless loops that are required to climb and descend huge peaks so my '100 km' very quickly grew in length. It was after I had cycled 40 kms that I realised on the map I had barley done 21 kms, and I was not yet on the steepest part of the route. This low point really got me. Stopping to eat the remaining food in my panniers and finishing the second of my 3 water bottles of water to reduce weight I reflected on the tough points so far and decided that whatever happened today, it's got to be more enjoyable than Northern Spain. Keeping this thought in my head I slowly used this to drive me forwards.
As I entered the national park the scenery started to get more rugged, and the roads looked more like alpine roads. On every climb I anxiously waited to find out if the road would drop back into the next valley, or handrail the hill. Inevitably the roads followed the paths of least resistance and always seemed to drop into the valleys in short stages meaning that it was hard to use the hills to best effect. As I pushed further in I undertook 2 massive climbs, firstly up to 800m before dropping back down to 300m, and then I had to return to 1,200m. Knowing that these were the toughest sections left meant that I actually enjoyed then, even if the countless false summits were a little wearing. Approaching the final section I pushed into the cloud and felt a million miles from southern Spain. I was cold, wet and could only see 30m at most. I donned my florescent jacket, strapped on my helmet, switched on my bike lights and prepared for the decent. This was what I had waited for. Having climbed all day, and had short bursts of downhill, I finally got to enjoy the hours of sweat and pain. I flew down the hill and piloted the bike round hairpins with sheer drops and over cracked, slippy tarmac. Riding on the limits of a tourer with panniers, I tore past the abandoned huts and road signs, praying that the final stretch to Gibraltar would be more of the same.
The final road to Gibraltar is strange in that as the Spanish don't like to recognise 'Our Rock', they don't put up any signs for it. So I just had to carry on and rely on a bit of guesswork and luck to make it there. The final kms dragged but I was so excited by the prospect of seeing my Father and Jill and having a comfy seat and some food that I could relish and enjoy that it was not too painful. As I got to the last 5km the road turned into another autovida and with the help of some Spanish hoodies, found myself riding next to the beach. It's amazing that I had already taken in the channel, the atlantic and now the Med all under my own steam in such a short period of time. The route took my through a Spanish power station and then finally through La Lina where I saw the first sign for Gibraltar approximately 1km from the boarder that simply asked drivers to take the right hand lane for Gibraltar customs...
I stopped short and rang my Father. It was now 1845 and just dark. Both he and Jill came out to meet me with some really nice Gibraltar customs officers who were amazed by the challenge. We got some pictures and the boarder, and crossed the finish line some 16 days and 1 evening since I left from outside my work in central London on foot. I was completely exhausted and barley able to walk, however the smile on my face told its own story. Despite the terrain, elements and loneliness I had battled on and made it, and I was pretty damn happy about that.
No comments:
Post a Comment