Today’s ride was 36.5 beers! (87km, 1507m climbing).

All started well, climbing through the village and soon out onto the empty smooth roads.

We reached the Iron Cross, the highest point on the Camino. A place where people write messages to lost loved ones. Lots of messages around. People carry stones there to symbolise leaving all your burdens behind. We left a couple of stones, but only small stones as we only had small burdens.

Bikes parked up for lunch:

Nice view part way down the steep descent – we descended 1000m over 10-12kms:

Pic of me whizzing down:

Starting to see a few vineyards now. This pic was taken on the western side of Ponferrada, a large and modern-looking city:

Very nice clear dual language sign. Now bear in mind we have rarely come across a dual sign before, apart from an odd menu, so this seemed very special. We did not check the translation at the time, even though the English version seemed a bit odd – it would not have mattered really as it means steep hills and we had got the gist of that already.

Spot Karen slogging up this ‘nice’ hill.

Going down an ‘outstanding strong’ (aka steep hill):

Karen’s shadow pic:

Now this picture turned out to be more ‘interesting’ to us than we first thought. Part of a concrete viaduct motorway had collapsed last year and was under repair. The motorway did not look very old.

We soon hit a “no entry, except residents” sign paired with a “no entry for cycles” sign. We looked at the map and this involved a long detour down a steep narrow road. So knowing better, we stuck with our nice new road and plodded on. Following a good slog up some stiff hills we arrived at a point where our N road ran alongside the Motorway. Well it should have. Our way was barred, the road was closed with two layers of barriers. It was much later, during post ride beverages that we realised that our N road had temporarily been adopted as the motorway due to the collapse of the motorway (see pic above). So we did a 180, rode back down a 9% hill and turned off for our alternative route. Well the nice road turned into a track, not so bad, then a rough track, then a very rough track. Oddly 1/2 way along we were passed by a Golf GTI! Karen mentioned that was a good sign of there being a road up ahead. Track got smaller, rougher and we were left looking up a very steep hill, I reckon about 25% which, for good measure, was covered with loose wet stones. At this point its fair to say some of the team’s morale was ebbing. So we got the whole team together and had a nice team building chat, a few nibbles of sugared fruit and nuts then put our best foot forward closely followed by our second best and pushed on. I just about made it to the top, where Karen’s road prediction had come true, there was indeed a very nice road. Then I nipped back down to assist my clairvoyant getting up the nasty hill. From there it was up and up, then up some more. Hardest slog so far. And in the rain!

On entering our target town at 5.30pm (a very long and late day for us!) I spotted another fine bronze pilgrim. Not sure if I mentioned before but most seem to carry a gourd containing their water. Odd place to carry it on a stick, and they all seem very small. Dangling stick gourds probably have some symbolic meaning – feel free to comment below if you know more about this meaning (we’re too tired after this long ride to look it up!).

This graph says it all for today’s ride:

All’s well that ends well. We had a super meal with a bottle of red then a 10 hour kip!

Today’s post wouldn’t be complete without mentioning an Aussie couple we befriended last night. Steve and Anne-Maree hail from Brisbane, Australia. A lovely couple we met over dinner last night at our digs in Rabanal del Camino – down-to-earth characters, a great laugh, and easy company as we swapped stories about our camino journeys. We hope to see them again somewhere along the way.