Run of three's

Bad luck is supposed to occur in runs of three's. No 1 was the weight issues, no 2 was the tyre saga... and number three is...

You guessed it... My camera!!! It's gone. Woke up this morning and couldn't find it anywhere. One of the few things I don't want to do the trip without. All my photos lost (Backup... I know). Cost me a detour to Barcelona to pick one up. Blowing the budget royally. At least my run of bad luck should be over now. Fingers crossed.

So what’s been happening? After camping in Bordeaux, the plan was to go to Toulouse and then head South through the Pyrenees. Set the GPS for said path and headed off. About 2 hours after Toulouse there still was no mountains. Strange. Had a look on my map and the GPS was trying to send me around the mountains. Disaster. I was really looking forward to the big mountains. This was about 3:30 pm and I am supposed to start looking for accommodation around 5 pm. Had to make a quick decision between going around or doing a big loop to go through the mountains. If it was earlier in the day the decision would have been obvious, but it was late and I had massive storm clouds chasing me all day.  

The mountains won. What a good decision. The road leading to the mountain was small, twisty and empty. With beautiful old villages and stunning scenery. Would have stopped to take photos but I was having way to much fun (and the camera was gone). Reached the last big village before the mountains just as the first raindrops fell. Perfect timing.

I was in for a huge treat the next morning. The road going up the mountains was even more empty, small, twisty and just went on for miles and miles. It was still wet from the previous night’s rain so was quite technical and hard work with hairpin corners and reverse cambers. But so much fun!! The scenery though, was to die for. A blessing in disguise that I lost my camera otherwise I would still be there taking pictures. The road climbed all the way to about 1750m, freezing at that height. Had all my warm stuff on and I was still frozen solid. At this point I joined a bigger road with huge long sweeping corners. A lot faster than the small twisties but an amazing amount off fun.

This morning's mountain run was bliss. The bike handled like it belonged there. A ballerina at the top off its game. Still a very overweight ballerina though. Nearly lost a day to do the mountain bit, but was worth it. Could easily spend a week there.

The afternoon was just about covering miles. All along the coast, but still miles and miles of highway. Maybe tomorrow I should do less highway, but it’s still 800km to ferry. Tonight I'm camped about a hundred meters from the sea. Loving the sound off the waves. Live is good.

Best bit: Mountain run

Worst bit: Camera

Funniest bit: Sticking my earplugs so deep into my ears that I needed my Leatherman to get them out.

Distance done: Just more than 1700km