Ola from Lisbon. I've finally caved in and paid the €5 for wi-fi access, thus this long overdue update. Lisbon rocks. We arrived yesterday and spent today looking around the city. Despite yet more mad Portuguese drivers, the city is fantastic. A great mix of people, wonderful buildings, a proper city feel - I think it's my favourite place so far and I could probably live here.

A quick update on where we've been since my last entry below. We spent a night in Coimbra - it turned out to be the week of graduation celebrations, with pissed up students all over the city all night. It was ace.

From there we visited some roman ruins before staying in our best campsite yet. Once again, it was nowhere near the place it *claimed* to be located in, but my righteous anger was thwarted when the guy turned out to be too lovely to be snidey to and the campsite was in a beautiful woodland with chickens roaming free and a little town with one bar up the road.

Then it was on to Nazare - although, this was via a fuck-off detour once again caused by motorways. Damn you, motorists and roadbuilders, is it too much to ask that we have a couple of roads that cycles can go on?? We turned up in Leiria, having carefully planned our route (well, Neil had) only to discover that we couldn't take a road south and had to go out to the coast to camp for a couple of nights instead of going straight down. However, Nazare was typically seasidey and quite nice. And it had a funicular railway, so there's that. From there, we took a bus to Alcobaca and Batalha to see the cathedrals there - two of the top sites in Portugal, apparently. They were both magnificent - the former better inside, the latter more impressive out.

However, both were trumped for eerie beauty by Obidos, which we visited on our way to Peniche. A walled city which is perfectly preserved, capped by a castle and baking hot in the Portuguese sun. We wandered around for a couple of hours before Neil died from the heat and had to be revived. What to say about Peniche? The campsite was just over €3 a night - about it really. In complete opposition to all normal (and I use that word under advisement) Portuguese practice, everything shut at 5pm, including the prison that I was hoping to visit - it's a museum now, disappointingly.

Our stay in Peniche was followed by what shall hence forth be known as Fuck Off Thursday - single worst day for shitty stupid stuff so far. Started with a flat tyre due to a split valve before we even left the campsite - mine, of course. Then, when we had got about 17km up the road, we discovered that I did not have Solio! This required a 35km-odd round trip by Angela back to the campsite, where Solio was happily sitting on the ground soaking up the sun. After this, we toddled on to Santa Cruz where the day was capped with the discovery that I had managed to lose my only long sleeve shirt. Nice. We met a very groovy Portuguese man in Santa Cruz, however, who cheered me up no end by chatting to us for ages and telling us all about the area. The campsite was close to town the coast was beautiful and it turned out to be less evil a day than it had so far been shaping up.

I've posted a bunch of pictures on Flickr, but I don't have time to put them up on the blog at the moment, as I've only paid for an hour of internet and I'm almost out of time. Interesting side note - it is outrageously expensive to call Australia from Portugal. I get 9 minutes for €5 if I buy a phone card!

A further update soon is promised, but I must post this now in case I encounter any problems. Plus, there is Lisbon nightlife to be tasted, you know. Apologies in advance if there are any errors in this - I will re-read when I have time and correct, so don't bother emailing, you bastards.


4 May 2007
We’re still in Portugal, which is probably why I haven’t yet posted this: still no wi-fi access. I have bought a CD-RW which I will transfer the blog entries to and visit some kind of ‘internet café’ – how primitive. Tonight we’re in Figueira de Foz – we’ve seen sod all of it, to be honest, because Neil somehow misjudged the distance from Avierro to here by about 20km (under, it goes without saying) and we were absolutely knackered when we arrived. Set up camp, went to the supermarket for supplies, ate noodles and now we are chilling for the evening. Seems a nice enough spot, although the campsite charges for hot showers, which seems a bit rugged.

Spent a couple of nights just outside Avierro and took the ferry over the first day for a look around and today to head on south. Treated ourselves to a proper lunch out yesterday, and what a delightful treat it was. Superb seafood – I had whole grilled fish and Neil had squid and prawns grilled ‘on the spit’, as they say (in what is no doubt an appalling mis-translation on the menu). Neil is struggling a little in the seafood department because he won’t eat whole fishes, and apparently it has nothing to do with the eyes watching him. Made a nice change from cheese sandwiches, which is the most common lunch dish we have.

Not today, mind you – today we bought half a kilo of strawberries for 90c (euro) from a roadside stand. These were the ‘middle’ quality and were ridiculously delicious. It’s probably for the best that we didn’t opt for the luxury €2.25 a kilo grade or we would have exploded with strawberry goodness. Went to the porcelain factory and museum at Vista Alegre in the morning, which you’ll just have to take my word was very interesting – oldest porcelain maker in Portugal, you know, and world-renowned. A small but exquisite porcelain gift will be winging its way to Mum by the time this is posted – in fact, in an awesome stroke of good fortune, it may even appear to have been bought for mother’s day (if that is this Sunday in Australia, as it is in Portugal, and not about two months ago as it was in the UK).

We’ve set our old incredibly crap lamp free and invested in a new one, which is much brighter, lighter, more compact and sticks to the tent using magnets. Cool. Sunshine is still a bit intermittent to charge all our solar rechargers, but we’re just about getting by. I’m really loving Portugal, despite the weather being less upbeat than expected. The people are excellent, friendly and helpful everywhere we go. If I could just take their cars away, it would be a very pleasant country indeed – but more of that another time no doubt.

Tomorrow we head inland to Coimbra, and my fingers will be firmly crossed for a reasonably flat run – it’s not that far, but today was pretty taxing so a slightly gentler ride would be appreciated. Must conserve iBook battery. More soon.

1 May 2007
Wi-fi access so far in Portugal hasn’t been a patch on that in Spain, as you’ve probably guessed. All over Spain there were unsecured networks, free in bars and hotels, accessible all over the place. You just had to find a decent hotel with a square or a bar/café nearby and Bob’s your uncle. In Portugal, on the other hand, there appears to be a wi-fi service that has done deals with major chains of hotels, etc, and charges you exorbitant rates (€5 an hour) for access in lots of different places. Still, we’ll go hover outside some swanky hotel and see if we can’t hijack somebody else’s service.

Another valuable lesson has been learned. Despite my reservations, we decided to make a run for it straight to Porto on Saturday. About 65kms of great cycling was followed by 5kms of steep hills on really busy roads and then the usual disaster of trying to get into a major city – the road we have been using all day magically turns into a motorway (which bikes can’t go on) and we are left with no indication of how to proceed. Neil managed to ‘overlook’ a map in the book that would have helped us get in and we ended up spending another 15kms finally getting to a pension in the city. The new rule is that we stay no more than 40kms from any major city we intend to visit (I might add that this happens every fucking time – no-one gives a shit how you get into a city if you are not in a car). Admittedly, I already knew we should do this but backed down for some strange reason when Neil seemed all enthused for doing the journey in one day. Never again.

Anyhoo, Porto was wonderful – what a beautiful city. On first arrival, particularly on bikes, one is struck by the ridiculously hilly setting, but once you’ve got rid of your bikes, had a shower and a beer, it becomes apparent that this is actually a wonderful thing and adds to the charm of the place. Drank some great port, did some sightseeing, relaxed by the side of the river – it was all good and I highly recommend the place to anyone. It does seem very spread out, though, with little bars and restaurants scattered all over the place. Also, we struggled to find much in the way of nightlife although I’m willing to believe we just didn’t know where to look. According to one guide map, ‘young people’ head out to Foz for bars and clubs, but as I’d already seen that area on the way in, I couldn’t be asked to go out there exploring. On our second night we did some port tasting and had dinner on the wine cellar side of the river – it chucked it down rain on the way home, but fortunately we were quite pissed by then and didn’t really care. Bizarrely, we ran into the slightly creepy Germans who we had spent the night chatting with at the last campsite. What are the chances?

Today we are just around the coast in Madalena – camping for two nights so that we can wash and dry some clothes. The weather is terrible – it rained all night and most of this morning and the wind is really cold. If you can stay in the sun and out of the wind, it is okay, but I suspect we will probably be facing constant showers on and off for most of the day. Add to that the fact that we are out of gas for cooking and you’ve got a pretty sorry looking camp night two ahead. Still, tomorrow we’ll be off again and heading down towards Aveiro, hopefully along a nice flat coast road. Salad and cheese for dinner will be fine, but absence of hot drinks for 24 hours could cause serious problems. I’ll probably just eat coffee or something. Maybe if I stand a pot of water in what little sun there is for long enough…

27 April 20007
Bloody hell – was that two days ago? We’re in Portugal! Country 2 – although Spain is only in temporary abeyance, of course. Pontevedra to Samil (Vigo) was a bit of a bloody nightmare, to be honest. We made the 1,000km mark, it pissed down rain and was freezing cold. We ended up in Vigo around lunch time, the entire place was packed full of cunts driving like maniacs (you might think something like that would be difficult to distinguish, but then you’ve clearly never seen the drivers of Vigo). We had lunch in Vigo. Vigo sucks. I have absolutely no basis for saying that except that I had a really shit couple of hours getting into and out of the place. And they drive like cunts. It is probably a really nice city (there were certain indications of this that I was able to ignore through the caked on filth from the road, constant rain and freezing wind, and the drivers). However, in all good faith I cannot recommend it.

Samil, on the other hand, is ace. Basically, go straight through Vigo (trying not to get killed by the drivers – I think we’re all clear on what they are by now) as quickly as possible and get to the beach on the other side. When we arrived the sun came out, birds sang in the trees, the flowers opened – it was all a bit Disney, frankly. But hey, when you’ve been rained on and sprayed in shit by trucks for the last 50km, you’re genuinely susceptible to that crap, you know? Such a nice campsite man, as well. Beautiful beach but a depressingly large McDonalds – still haven’t seen that many of them, to be honest, so when you encounter one in anything other than a city centre, the resentment surfaces.
Pleasant walk along the beach followed by a couple of beers, camp dinner (I believe that night was packet soup with added fresh vegetables – mmmmm, delicious), then off to find a pub that had the champions league semi on. Nothing on the front appeared to be showing it, so we struck off a small country lane that alleged the presence of a bar. We were despairing when finally it appeared on the side road, the only warning a car park with no cars in. Turned out to be a fabulous, old-men-in-jumpers pub (I will detail my old men in jumpers approach to Spanish bars at a later point when time permits). Watched the football accompanied by many wonderful snacks and Spanish beer and then staggered back down the hill to the tent.

The cycling has only got better since we broke the 1,000km mark – from Samil to A Guarda was fantastic – all rolling coasts and gentle hills. The road hugged the coastline giving magnificent views of hills, rocks and proper, proper sea. Wind behind us all the way, lunch on a headland with rock pools full of crabs and shellfish, the landscape littered with lighthouses and seaside convents. Then we reached A Guarda, which seemed so beautiful, nestled between two mountains looking across to Portugal. Sadly, things came a bit unstuck thanks to misinformation in the guidebook – Officino de Tourismo Galicia, I’m looking at you. Basically, the campsite claimed to be open all year round and it was shut. The only other campsite nearby – about 5kms, allegedly – turned out to be imaginary, as far as we could tell. We certainly never found the fucker. What we did find, however, was a windy mountainous road that ran straight into a vicious headwind. Once again, the hardest cycling of the day was actually done trying to find somewhere to stay.

I was all for just camping next to the campsite (why should anyone in the town benefit financially from the misinformation provided by the tourist info office, I ask??) but Neil wanted to get a pension for the night. Still a bit soft, when it comes to camping I’m afraid. A Guarda itself was okay – there is a watchtower on the hill in the town (which was completely impregnable, so obviously very effective as a watchtower, though slightly less so as a tourist attraction). The main attractions are the ruins of a roman village and a cathedral which are both up a mountain overlooking Spain and Portugal. Very cool and we had the whole place to ourselves to wander around.

With nary a glance from anyone at something so flimsy as a passport, we took the ferry from A Guarda to Caminha – for the outrageous fee of 75cents each with bicicletas, I might add – and we’re in Portugal. Instantly, the drivers make those of Vigo seem like advertisements for road safety. I sense a public service announcement looming on these blog pages in the coming weeks. Still, the road itself was wonderfully flat, ridiculously bumpy and had a wide hard shoulder which you could ride on with lots of space if little comfort. Our first stop was in Viana do Castelo, which is a lot bigger than I expected and also quite impressive. Double thumbs up for an excellent tourist office with a great tourist office dude – fluent English, really friendly and offered some suggestions on things we might like to do – a great bookshop with a solid collection of English-Portuguese phrase books and dictionaries and even (gasp) an English language guide to Portugal, and the cheapest beer we’ve had so far.

Our campsite is actually out on a headland, separated from the town by a working port so we had to take the ferry home from town after sightseeing - €1.50 each with bicicletas, twice the price of country-hopping, for the love of Thor. V cheap campsite, though, so we made some of the excessive fare price back that way. Took the bicicletas up to the massive Templo de St Luzia via a funicular railway and then cycled back down the hill. Sadly, what should have been a fun freewheel was somewhat marred by cobbled-bastarding-roads, as they are commonly known. Neil gets a particularl pain-face on when we have to ride over them for extended periods of time – I’ll try to get a picture. Overall, my first Portuguese stop has been very pleasant. Sat around chatting at the campsite with an only slightly creepy German couple (very nice really, just the references to frolics with Portuguese ‘young people’ that made me watch for hammer-shaped shadows on the tent during the night). The local people generally seem really nice and look at me only slightly askance when I start speaking poor Spanish, swear loudly in English when I realise I’m using the wrong language, then start spouting random vaguely Portuguese-sounding words – as I have done in most transactions or conversations of any kind so far. It’s morning now (Saturday 28 April) and we’re trying to decide whether to make a run straight through to Porto or camp for a couple of nights before we get there. We spend two nights in each decent-sized city and now (through painful experience) try to avoid our full day in town falling on a Monday when everything of interest is shut. It’s not that far, but we also look like filthy Dickensian urchins, smeared from head to foot, and on all our clothes, with soot-like black grease so a camping stop would give us an opportunity to clean up somewhat. Oh well, you get used to the grease after a while…


25 April 2007
RAIN. Six kilometres from the 1000km mark, two days from the Portuguese border and it is absolutely pissing it down. Bastard. We’re holed up in a room in Pontevedra watching the rain come down but in roughly an hour we’ll be packing our bikes and getting nice and drippy. Fortunately, it’s only 30km to Vigo and our next campsite, so hopefully we can make the journey without going mad. Yes, I did say campsite. Won’t that be fun.

Nice town Pontevedra, although its charm is somewhat dampened by the aforementioned rain. Lots of historic buildings and a cathedral built in the shape of a clam, roughly. We had a delicious dinner last night and a bit too much to drink, which should both prepare us nicely for today’s cycling.

Public service notice: cats and hedgehogs of Spain – stay away from the roads. It is * not * safe. You are dying in your droves. I know the other side of the road can seem exotic, romantic even, but it’s not worth it. I implore you to believe me – the grass is * not* greener on the other side. The best, most friendly, exciting and fulfilling cat/hedgehog environment is on the side of the road * you are already on*. Crossing kills: stay where you are.

The most disappointing word in Spanish so far is ferreteria. Rather than a place where ferrets run wild, filled with tiny ferret-sized furnishings and fittings and equipped with many many brightly coloured pipes, wheels and other fun things for ferrets to do, it is in fact a hardware shop. Poor form.

God's final test complete

We're in Santiago de Compostela - the third holiest city on earth, apparently. Over a week ago, when I was complaining about the distance from A Coruna to Santiago, Neil turned to me and said, in a loud booming voice (alright, obviously it was Neil so it was neither loud nor booming, but you get the idea): "This is god's final test for you, Angela." Frankly, I thought that was deeply creepy, and told him so. It turned out to be pretty prescient as well, because it was an absolute bitch of a cycle through a mountain range, faced by the added challenge of climbing with a dead iPod battery accompanied by some of the hottest temperatures so far. Anyway, we made it so nyah, nyah god - test passed.

Anyway, this is going to be a very quick up date because we are sitting in a bar using free wi-fi, sipping beer and enjoying the sunshine, and my iBook battery is nearly dead. We've pushed our average up to around 70-80km a day. Flatter days we do over 90km, hillier ones we do around 50-60km. We took a disastrous short-cut a couple of days ago - but I'll leave that for Neil to tell you about as it was his genius idea (suffice it to say, painful lessons have been learned). A Coruna absolutely rocked and was easily my favourite city so far - a port on one side, a beach on the other and a beautiful headland of parks and lighthouse in between. Lots of tiny little bars and great places to eat, people were lovely, and everything you could possibly want is easy to get to. Hopefully when I get more time I'll post something longer.

This is our second night in Santiago and we're heading off again tomorrow. Yet another lesson learned - nothing is open on a Monday. Sightseeing-wise, that is. Still, this is an amazingly beautiful city and I'll put some new pictures up as soon as I've downloaded them off the camera.

We've nearly broken our first thousand kms, and should be in Portugal in the next few days. Camping is going great and the bikes are running well. Injury-wise, nothing *too* serious yet - Neil got heat rash yesterday and I burnt my lip drinking coffee from my travel mug. We have cracked and bought inflatable travel pillows, though. In six months time we'll probably have acquired entire bedroom suites which we'll lash to the back of our bikes with curtains, or something.

I think my battery is on the way out, so I'll post this now - sorry about the lack of interesting pictures, but I'll race over to Flickr now and see if I can get some up before battery death overtakes me...

Ups and downs

Soooooo, it feels like we’ve done quite a lot since my last update. As I write this, we’re sitting in Luanco, which is a peaceful seaside village – the cathedral bell chimes in the background, over the sound of waves gently lapping at the harbour wall beneath us. We’re staying here tonight – in a cheap but nice hotel as the nearest camp ground turned out to be three kms away and Neil needs bike repairs (more below). We’ve had a slightly less fun and more gruelling couple of days, to be honest.

Northern Spain: hilly one day, hillier the next

We’ve been putting in 60-70kms a day and yesterday’s ride from San Vicente to Gijon was really rough. Of 72km, around 71.5km were uphill. We made the schoolboy error of not eating anything before we set off and then couldn’t find anywhere that we could even buy a sandwich and a coffee for about 15-hilly-km, by which time I was starting to feel seriously fatigued. We stopped for too long for lunch, cooled down, and then discovered that the hardest part of the ride was yet to come – cycling through the most serious hills yet. Gijon was okay, but didn’t really have much to recommend it, and this morning on the way out of the city Neil snapped a spoke.

On the upside, since my last entry we have visited Santillana del Mar, which is an amazingly beautiful old village of cobbled stone streets and churches.

Neil with cows, in no way demonstrating the beauty of Santillana del Mar

We passed through Comillas, a village that managed to so far overshoot picturesque as to actually become eerie, with magnificent ocean views, gothic ruins converted into a cemetery, an extraordinarily beautiful university and some delightful churches. I’m glad we didn’t meet the locals because they would no doubt have wanted us to ‘join them’, if you know what I mean.

Gothic ruins, Comillas

We had the most delicious garlic prawns in a tiny little restaurant in Santander, and the village of San Vicente was great – yet another pretty seaside town with a really good campsite and everything a camper could need. The weather in San Vicente was lovely and I think it was the warmest night we’ve spent in a tent so far. We didn’t accidentally cycle up the picos de europas, but we did get to see breathtaking views of them from the tops of the many smaller hills we rode up, which was nice.

The true majesty of these mountains is that we're not riding up the fuckers.

As always, there are more (and probably more interesting) pictures on my Flickr pages, and Neil will be setting up some Flickr pages soon as well. He has also promised to contribute his first blog entry soon...

I cracked and bought a jumper, but Neil bought an extra pair of trousers, so we’re about even. We both bought little sleeping mat thingies, which make camping more comfortable, although Neil is absolutely rubbish to share a tent with – constantly shifting about in his noisy sleeping bag. I’m thinking of drugging him in the evenings – or drugging myself, depending on the drugs available.

There is an extraordinary amount of building going on all along the coast – massive residential developments from the look of them in places all along the Cantabrian coast and now into Asturias. Even tiny little villages have got huge construction projects going on. It seems most likely that these are meant to be holiday homes as the areas don’t seem to have the industry to support a massive influx of full time residents. No indication of who is buying them either – Spanish people or foreign investors. If anyone can shed some light on what’s going on, I’d be very interested to hear about it. Both Bilbao and Santander seemed like very affluent cities, albeit in the parts where tourists roam, with very swanky shops and a very well-heeled class of both local and visitor. These regions seem to be experiencing something of a boom, but I’ve no idea where all the money is coming from – evidently Spain’s economy is much, much stronger than I thought.

Simon news alert: Look what was hanging in the hallway of the pension we stayed at in Gijon. Unfortunately, our landlady spoke not a word of English and understood only the bare minimum of my Spanish, but she seemed really nice. (I think if you click on the picture you will get a bigger image.) The text is all in English, but there is a name and phone number for local contact details so they must be linked up somehow. Very doggy country, but the first galgo we've seen was actually in Gijon - very happy he looked, too.

Introducing new Travel Trivia - fascinating 'facts' and information we have gleaned on our travels, as denoted by the presence of this icon. Here are a few to start you off!



Northern Spain slopes slightly upward from east to west. This may not be visible to the naked eye, however we know it to be an incontrovertible fact because of the ratio of up to down bits we have cycled. The best and most photogenic views in northern Spain are exactly halfway down hills. All villages are at the bottom of hills, which means that you will always have one more uphill climb to get there and the first thing you face in the morning is the climb out.


The best roads are flat roads. Those of you who don’t know the meaning of pain, as defined by cycling 7km uphill in a single stretch, might think that downhill roads are the best, but you are wrong. And have clearly never been to northern Spain. Uphill and downhill exist in a precarious balance, with uphill slightly in the ascendant (no pun intended). Every time you ride downhill, no matter how momentarily wonderful it might seem, there is a larger uphill not far away. EVEN IF YOU HAVE JUST RIDDEN UP A HUGE HILL, riding down a similarly sized hill will only mean that ANOTHER LARGER HILL is looming.


The only English language newspaper available on an up-to-date daily basis in northern Spain is the Daily Telegraph. Two theories have so far been advanced. Neil argues that this indicates something about the kind of English-speaking people most likely to live/travel in the region. I find this explanation entirely too depressing and choose to believe that it is something to do with Telegraph group having the distribution deals tied up for the area. I also find it depressing that it’s the Telegraph – any Spanish people picking up a copy to brush up their English are going to think we’re a bunch of right wing tossers and I certainly don’t want to read the bloody thing with my coffee.


The people of Ribadesella are all liars. When we arrived, we were told by the normally reliable tourist information centre that the only campsite was ‘1km’ from town. This was a lie. It was 3km from town up the longest, steepest hill of the day. There were even signs saying how far it was. When we asked at the campsite how much it was to get a taxi back from town, we were told that it was about €5 and only ‘1.5km’ away. Again this is clearly a lie as there was only one road between the two. We were also nearly run over walking to and from town because the walking path between the two ended about 500m from the bottom of the treacherous hill at the start of a particularly dangerous section of twisty road with no room to walk and steel railings on either side. Do not stay in Ribadesella – it is not very nice, the bars aren’t very good and the people lie.


My favourite Spanish word so far is hamburguesa. Say it out loud, it just sounds so damned cool. Neil had his first one last night (although not from an actual hamburgeuseria, sadly) and said it was delicious.

Feet up in Santander

Easter Monday and we're lazing in bed in a hotel in Santander taking advantage of the free wi-fi. We're using the city to re-stock and recharge - a week of travelling has highlighted some absences in our kit which we will spend today trying to sort out. Some sort of travel blanket, for one. We've currently got nothing to sit on when camping/having lunch, etc, and the ground has been very cold and wet in some places. It's also bloody cold when you are sleeping in sleeping bags on it, so the travel rug could form a handy base layer for our tent floor.

The camping has been good so far - costs us about €12 a night and gives us a (sometimes) hot shower. So far we appear to be the only people stupid enough to be camping as it is a bit early in the season. We've been rained on a little bit, but not too badly, and it will only get warmer from now on anyways. The sites we have been staying at have been filled with the most outrageously elaborate caravans. They have annexes and little sheds with fully plumbed-in kitchens and all sorts - I've lived in shabbier flats than these little mansions on wheels. Ultimately though they are still caravans and therefore rubbish (although when seen through the mist of freezing rain from the door of a two man tent they can look strangely appealing).
Dinner in Santono on our first night camping. Notice complete absence of other tents because this is right on the beach front and it was ridiculously cold. Menu: starter - fresh bread, olives, cheese; main - noodles with olives, bread; dessert - mini oreos, coffee. There are some more Santono pictures on Flickr - just for a change we got lost when we arrived and couldn't find the tourist office, which the pic on Flickr will confirm is the size of a palace and which we had ridden past about five times. With a beach on one side and a small fishing port on the other, I found it a much nicer spot than Laredo. Quieter and with little of note to see but very attractive and welcoming nonetheless. The tourist office recommended we walk through this impressive tunnel bored through a mountain to see the ocean lookout at the other end - which turned out to be a really crap view of the ocean and far less impressive than the tunnel itself. I choose to believe it was formerly a smugglers' tunnel or something because the thought of all that effort expended for that view is a bit depressing. Maybe they should just promote the tunnel as the attraction.

From there it was on to Loredo (not to be confused with Laredo) via Somo. Prime cycling weather - the evil tanning effect begins already (not on Grrr, obviously, who is impervious to sun, deflecting it with suncream and his special white tan-repello skin) - there were hills but only one difficult climb (about 3km) and we broke the 50kph barrier coming down the other side (you have to keep the speed down a bit with the panniers unfortunately).

Bosch factory at Colindres on the road to Somo - see Dad, you could make it a business trip!

Lunch stop on the road to Somo.

Somo was a dump so we ended up staying in Loredo, which was a tiny village next door. We walked into the village to have a beer and watch the football. Locals seemed fascinated by our latest exciting game, Translate the menu!, where we sit there with the dictionary working out what the food is. We're getting better on the food front, although I still struggle with the notion that a 'vegetal' sandwich is quite likely to contain ham or turkey. In fact, everything is quite likely to contain ham in some form or another. I tried some rabas (squid) which is a local speciality which was delicious, and we're building a vocab of food words that should mean we don't starve. We prepare our own food when we're camping anyway, and the local fruit, veg, cheese, bread, olives, etc, are all really cheap and lovely.

Easter bunny failed to materialise, which was a bit disappointing. Lots of Easter going on in Spain but it seems to be focused more on the cross, nails, death and resurrection, vestments and marching aspects than the chocolate bits. Unfortunately.

Easter procession in Santander - note presence of vestments and religious symbols but disappointing absence of chocolate bunnies.

Grrr is currently watching Bob the Builder in Spanish so it is probably time to get up and get moving. We're taking the bikes out without panniers on today which will absolutely rock. They weigh a tonne fully packed and handle so much differently, so I'm really looking forward to riding a normal bike again. We'll stay here again tonight and treat ourselves to a nice dinner of fresh local seafood. I like Santander a lot more than Bilbao - seems more like a proper working city and we're planning to take a little boat ride around the bahia today (it only costs about €5). First of all - hi ho, hi ho, provisioning we go.

We're on the way

Okay, so there's been a bit of a gap in blog proceedings. The last week in short: pissed, packed, pissed again, cleaned house, pissed once more, ferry from Portsmouth (raining), arrive Bilbao (raining), lurgie (three days). There are some pictures on my Flickr page from Portsmouth, Bilbao and the Eddie - pictures like this...

...although most of them are more picturesque and contain less (and indeed fewer) pissed people.

Anyway, because I don't have free wireless access *everywhere* I stop (I currently do in this hostel in Laredo) I'll be doing up entries and posting them when I can. So back to yesterday's progress report...

Wednesday 04 April, 2007

First proper day of riding today – Bilbao to Castro Urdiales (C-U), 50km. Admittedly, it would have been slightly shorter had we not got lost riding out of Bilbao and added a few kms, but hey, it was only raining lightly at that point and who could have guessed the horrors ahead.

Spanish people have been amazing so far. As clearly demonstrated by the fact that we can’t even find our way out of a town we rode into *the same way* just three days earlier, we are a bit rubbish at navigation. Fortunately, all we need to do is stand on a corner with our bikes and look bewildered for people to flock to help us. I kid you not, people were pulling their cars off the road to leap to our assistance. This has already happened several times, but star man so far is the stranger in Portugalete who drew us a map to Castro Urdiales, gave us the names of the towns we needed to pass through on the way to ensure we were on the right track and even identified a handy cycle path (bidegorri) that we could follow for 10kms of the journey. He even came running after us to make sure we knew that the cycle paths were always red. What a nice man.

Grrr on the cycle path

The journey itself was less fun. Of the roughly 30kms from Portugalete to C-U, I’d guess that around 25kms were uphill. Up-serious-fucking-hill. Hills so steep we struggled to push our bikes up them. Yes that’s right – we pushed our bikes. We’re not proud, people, if we need to push to get there, we’ll push. One of the few short downhill sections, which should have been a thing of joy, was accompanied by a hail storm that forced us to hole up in a disused bus shelter half way down, and we only missed the rain of frogs through good timing – which we know because there were still frogs on the road when we cycled through that bit.

Still, we’re here now, and though I was freezing cold, soaking wet and sick to death of cycling up hills, I was prepared to hate C-U but it looks very pleasant indeed. We’re snugged away in a pension by the castle, showered and warm (Neil broke the heater, but then fixed the heater, so what could have been an incredibly ugly and violent scene was narrowly avoided), and soon we will hit the town for a couple of cervezas and hopefully a hot meal.

This is how nice Castro Urdiales turned out to be!

Overall, cycle conditions have been absolutely brilliant. There are massive cycle paths running along lots of major roads and all through the centre of cities and towns, and drivers seem to treat you with real caution – giving you a wide berth and waiting patiently behind you on twisty roads rather than trying to squeeze past. Although maybe that’s just us, as we no doubt look like something you'd automatically give a wide berth. Weather is much worse than expected – v cold, rainy (haily!) and windy. We are looking forward desperately to a day of sun which the forecasters seem to keep shifting to the day after tomorrow, every day.

Ready to leave Castro_Urdiales

Don’t know when I’ll post this, but quick admin issue – our onetel addresses are not working, apparently. Neil and I both have yahoo addresses that we will be using from now on – if you don’t have the addresses, could you please stick a comment on the blog, saying who you are, and I’ll email them out to you. I sent an email out this morning to some people but no doubt missed some people off. Also, Graeme could you please email me your snail mail address – one Guggenheim postcard is waiting to wend its way to you but doesn’t know where to go.

Back to today, 05 April
We cycled about 35kms today from C-U to Laredo where we're stopping tonight. Today's ride was much nicer - still hilly but not as bad as yesterday and without unpleasant stuff constantly falling from the sky. A couple of pictures are up on Flickr and I'll try to add more soon. We've actually got some sunshine outside so it's time to head out for a relax on the sea front. Some exciting news just in by email though: my esteemed DTI former colleague Jonathan and I have won a coveted Hilary's Award for outstanding work on the always immensibly readable DTI News. I know some of you may be unfamiliar with this prize, but let me assure you that it is *even better than it sounds*. In may gracious acceptance blog I'd like to say that it was largely down to the hard work of Jonathan (which it was) and that it is truly, TRULY, an honour. So, congratulations Jonathan and me - cervezas all round!

Oh happy day - a two picture update

Me with my passports. Both of em. And they thought they could keep me out...

The spoils of Grrr's beer money frog - 134 shiny pounds. And we're going somewhere that has cheaper beer than London!! (Okay, I am aware that *everywhere* has cheaper beer than London, but still.)

Two days to go - booked the train to Portsmouth and the first two nights accommodation in Bilbao today. We are... So. Fucking. Going.

Things to do in an empty house

Getting very, very close to d-day now. All our stuff has gone into storage - thank Zeus for my lovely iBook, the internet and the radio (although my desire to take to Eamonn Holmes' face with a cheese grater is almost overwhelming). The high point of this morning so far has been bluetoothing my entire address book from my iBook to my phone. Technology is just so cool these days. My life, on the other hand, is clearly not.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who came out for a drink last weekend. Morning Bride were, as always, brilliant and it was great to bump into a couple of people I haven't seen in a while as well. Feel like the liver has taken a beating over the last couple of weeks with all the going away celebrations - I keep telling myself that for the next six months I'll be living the 'my body's a temple' lifestyle so what the hell, but the condition of said temple could be seriously compromised by departure time at this rate. (Yeah, yeah - temple isn't a word usually used to describe it, I know.) What the fuck, it's been way too much fun anyway. So happy to see everyone and will really miss you all. I'm still not even vaguely clear on what happened to JP, though - I know I've spoken to him since, but I just don't understand!! If you're reading, mate, I'm meeting up with Stew next week for a final farewell, so maybe you could come along to that and actually, you know, speak to me. I *believe* there has even been some suggestion that Stew might pay for dinner...

So the house is empty and I've been tucked up in my sleeping bag for the last couple of nights. Pleased to report that it's very snug indeed, which is good news considering London has been bloody cold for the last week or so.

My passport application is in, albeit later than expected because I cocked it up. No really. I managed to completely overlook the fact that I required a countersignatory until the morning of my appointment. As I am the only person tragic (or paranoid) enough to actually carry my passport number around with me, I had to reschedule and call on civil service star Sarah to come to my rescue. Which, of course, she did. She even rewarded my sea sponge-like organisational skills with this extremely groovy new compass.

Speaking of which, could everyone send luck and healing vibes Sarah's way. She's been training to run in the London marathon and has achieved super-human levels of abstinence from all the fun things in life since the start of the year. Now, with just a couple of weeks to go, she's tweaked some of her bits and is waiting to hear if she can run. She's worked really hard, so any spare good thoughts winging her way would be much deserved.

If Sarah makes it to the starting line, she will be running to raise funds for Crisis, a charity helping the homeless, and can be sponsored via this link. Come on, who wouldn't want to sponsor this girl. (Yes, that is a fountain in Trafalgar Square but I hasten to add that this photo was taken some time before the aforementioned marathon training regime commenced. She hasn't been in fountain-swimming condition for *months*.) I'll post an update as soon as there's news on those running bits, so get ready to sponsor.

I may not post often, but I sure do post long. The house is ridiculously cold right now but the real estate agents have called to say they will be bringing someone round to look at the place and I don't want it to be all warm and toasty when they get here. Nothing against any future occupants, you understand, this is all about making things difficult for the estate agent scum. That name again: David Daniels. Fear them, all you decent, intelligent renters, for they are to civilised human beings as Fosters is to actual beer. I know, I know - that's real big and clever, you say, freezing your toes off to inconvenience some random scum bag. Fuck you, it is big and clever and my tiny toes are warmed by the thought of even this pathetically small inconvenience I might cause them. Soon, I shall be heading out to watch the cricket anyway - may the Aussies stuff South Africa for many good reasons but mostly to irritate my barman Sean. If you didn't know me, you could start to think I'm bitter and twisted. Well, it makes me happy.

Passport should arrive Thursday and then it's off to Portsmouth for the ferry on Friday. Farewell local drinks at the Eddie tonight from about 7.30pm-ish. I know, it really is taking the piss, isn't it - how many going away drinks can two people legitimately have. The answer, clearly, is an *infinite number* of going away drinks. Frankly, I'm about to crack open a can of Red Stripe and have a going away drink with myself. My filthy, hobo-beer drinking appearance (Grrr's description of Red Stripe, not mine) should help further deter potential renters and I don't even have to go to any effort because it's what I look like anyway.

Next update before we leave for Portsmouth - 6 days to go. Woo hoo!

Emergency venue change

Bollocks bollocks bollocks - The Princess Louise is apparently closed for refurbishment. After extensive consultation the new venue will be...

The Angel
St Giles High Street
Soho
WC2H 8LE

Same bat date and time. Sorry for the hassle - your confusion is as nothing to my sense of betrayal that the Princess Louise could desert me as a meeting place after nigh on a decade of faithful patronage. Refurbishment, *spit*. It's perfect just the way it is.

Gatherings

So, I've left it too late and been too piss-poor on the organisation front to achieve anything close to the originally mooted big going away party. (Not to mention an unfortunate clash with another event on the only Saturday left!) However, it would be nothing short of rude to flee without some kind of celebration and as I haven't got around to seeing everyone I need to so far, may I present two gatherings that I'd really love any and all to attend.

Friday 16 March 2007
5pm-ish onwards
Princess Louise
Holborn
WC1V 7BW

Clearly, I haven't done anything nearly so clever as reserve space or whatnot, so I imagine we'll be looking to do the traditional 6pm bolt up the stairs. Whether you've only got time for a quick half or can stay the session, I'd really love to see anyone who can make it along. Don't think of it as a drink up for me, just think of it as a drink up.

This cosy, informal gathering will be followed on the Saturday by the event we've all been waiting for:

Full details and a sample of Morning Bride's fine wares can be found on the band's MySpace page or their very own website.

I'm posting this right now because it's my own pathetic procrastination that will probably see me sat alone in a pub this Friday for these shoddily and hastily organised leaving drinks - the time for action has, well, pretty much passed.

Retiring times and acquisitions

It's hard to describe how much better a Sunday is when you don't have to go to work on a Monday. It's longer, fuller, richer, more relaxing. Take today - I got up about 7.30 (actually, that's not completely true - I came home pissed and slept on the couch so I didn't really have to get up at all, I kind of just had to roll towards the television), had a fried egg, fake cheese and tomato sauce bap with coffee (generously provided by Grrr) and watched the DVD I rented for last night, which we didn't watch last night because we accidentally spent the evening in the pub. Then I washed the dishes and the sheets (separately), made a hommus, burnt some old business cards and played with my new camera. The second half of Chelsea v Spurs is now on, followed by England v France then I might possibly watch a bit of Plymouth v Watford before heading off for Nine Inch Nails in Brixton. And I don't care how spannered I get or what time I get home because I don't have to go to work tomorrow. This is a good quality Sunday

Anyway, on a less gloaty and more travel-related note, we're in full acquisitional mode and things are coming together nicely - seems ironic that in order to travel with as little as possible we find ourselves buying more stuff than we have for years! I won't go in to details on the new underwear and cycling socks; or maybe I will but not in this post. Today I will focus on some cool stuff we have bought.

For the next six months, this will be our new home. Yup, it's the Vaude Taurus Ultralight 2 person tent. Weighing in at under 2kg and less than 50cm long when packed, it's excellent for carrying on the bike, but I suspect will prove very snug with two people wedged into it. At least Grrr's thin. We are yet to practice putting it up, which is something we need to address in the near future. Unfortunately, the tent is slightly larger than our garden and I fear the cops would move us on if we tried to pitch it in the park - perhaps ninja-style night pitching in random public spaces will be in order.

For all our energy needs: our groovy new Solio charger. Solar powered - fully charged in about four hours of full sunshine - it can be used to recharge our mobile phones, the DS, iPod, Walkman, etc. Sadly it doesn't have quite the kick to fill up my iBook and won't be able to charge the camera battery (I don't think - still trying to find out if we can get a connector for that!) but it certainly cuts down on all the chargers and leads we normally cart around to support our pathetically gadget dependent lifestyles - and it's lovely free, green energy! Working alongside our solar battery charger, we're pretty much green energy fiends for this trip.

To record the majesty of our journey (no, really), we've got this little beauty - the Canon Ixus 900 Ti. It rocks. Wanted something really compact and easy to carry on the bike, but which had some manual functionality and decent performance in low light or reasonably close. Obviously, the 10million megapixels is bollocks - I'm not really going to blow my pics up so they can be seen from space - but I've been mucking about with it for a week or so and I'm impressed so far. Took it to the British Museum for a test run at indoor, often low light conditions and some of the pictures are great. The digital macro setting was good for close up work and with adjustable ISO you can bring camera shake right down without a tripod. I've not taken many outdoors shots as yet, and as always it has a million pre-programmed settings that you are never going to use (Foliage??), but double thumbs up at this stage. And it has a viewfinder - which I find helpful as I'm still struggling to get into the habit of composing a picture with the camera held a foot from my face (tragic, I know).

Here's a pic I took of a candle last night:



I don't think I've ever bought this much stuff at one time in my life - and I have to admit, I can somewhat see the lure of consumerism. Getting all this stuff has been genuinely exciting and fun - even if every decision is agonised over seemingly endlessly (I am too ashamed, utterly ashamed, to admit how long it took us to decide on the tent...). Still, we're going to have not a hell of a lot for the next six months, so I'm content to soak up the joy of acquisition for a couple of weeks. The big questions remain: what kind of stove and what kind of cookware. Compelling, I think you'll agree.

Heads up to any London readers - I'll be having a drink this Friday, March 16, probably at the Princess Louise from about 5.30pm. If I haven't been in touch with you, stick a comment below and I'll make sure I let you know the final details as soon as I know them. And don't forget the Morning Bride gig on Saturday!

A worker no more

Today is my last working day and it's damn near over. See, I said the next post would be a little ray of sunshine. Yay me! Been easing into the transition by not overtaxing myself - a short fight with HR, who somehow managed to pay me just £88 this month. I know my wages are meagre, but this is beyond the pale. But no, this is a post of joy, not moaning. A final team lunch of vegetarian sushi and beer. A fine haul of a Spanish dictionary and map of Spain and Portugal from my writing team-mates. Now it just remains to recycle everything in my desk, pack up my mug and put on the ultimate out of office message. Then go to the pub.

I think this is the first time I've really felt like it's all actually happening and I'm so excited I feel like I could scream, cry and probably sick up a bit, all at the same time. I've really left my job. What a great feeling, although the above description may sound more like poor health than joy - it's not.

So...
Goodbye civil service, with a particular sharpened pencil eye-poke to: SpAds, you bunch of power-crazed, craven time-wasters; policy officials that think they can write sentences but, in fact, cannot even make abstract pictures with letters and word-shaped forms; marketing people that don't actually market; and everyone whose work involves making other people fill out forms. I don't miss you already. At times, it has genuinely been fun. There have been other times, but this is a post of joy, and those times have no place here. There will no doubt be dark days ahead when I will have ample opportunity to revisit those times and ponder at length on what I did and didn't get out of working for the civil service. I'm glad I have had a go at it though. I've met some really great people and learned a lot.

Now it's time for celebration. For now, I am officially retired!

It's all gone horribly wrong

Looking on the bright side, maybe I'm getting all my shit luck out of the way before I go travelling, which would be a good thing. But what a genuinely rubbish run I am having. We've got the whole credit card fraud thing, as detailed below. Actually, let's start with a list of organisations that are currently on my shit list and then I will explain - this way, the time-poor can just know who to hate on my behalf and not have to worry themselves with the why of it all.

Current list of evil fuckers (LEF):
Barclaycard
ebuyer
Home Delivery Network
David Daniels
Home Office - in particular the Managed Migration department
Decathlon

So Barclaycard, we know about. Utterly incompetent and unhelpful when you've been defrauded. Tell you what, they do get that replacement card out to you in a hurry so you can keep on racking up the debts though! At this point, I am still unable to challenge the fraudulent transactions because they have not yet supplied me with a statement in the time it takes them to cancel and replace my credit card.

ebuyer. This is the company through which I have been ripped off. So far, so not necessarily their fault. However, I phoned them earlier this week to see if I could prevent any possible outstanding goods being despatched on the account in a bid to minimise the damage. I gave them my postcode, my address and when they asked me for the account name I explained that apparently the person had been using the name Andrew Breck but my credit card and address. They then refused to tell me whether any goods had been sent! Despite the fact that I had given them my address and was willing to give them my credit card number as confirmation. They would tell me, however, that their courier company is City Link.

City Link are not currently on the LEF because I think they might end up carrying the can for all of this. I phoned them and they claim that someone at the house signed for the goods on February 16 - a day when both Grrr and I were at work. I can only assume that the person waited outside the house and signed for the goods when the delivery came. There is no way the guy was actually in the house and they clearly didn't ask for proof of identity or address, so I think they've cocked up really. They could join the list, however, with just one tiny step in the wrong direction.

The so-called 'delivery' company that does make the LEF is the ironically entitled Home Delivery Network. Tragically, the formerly unfaultable Amazon is now using this hutch of braindead bunnies to deliver your goodies. The nearest depot to us is about 6 miles away. After we received the first card, with no tracking number written on it (and a website that won't give you any information without a tracking number and crashes when you try to get contact info) I contacted the depot direct.

[Small up-beat aside - thank you internet. I googled 'Home Delivery Network die you bastards', or somesuch, and found a message board where others were discussing the extent of this company's evil. One extremely helpful person had posted some advice on contacting the scum - don't call their crappy central call centre number, go to 192, do a search on the company, find the depot nearest you and call direct. I did this and it worked a treat. I also got to read some really nasty things about the Home Delivery Network, which gave me a little warm glow.]

Phoned them, they're open until 7pm Mon-Fri. Cycle out there after work in the cold and dark. 6.45pm: find warehouse in middle of nowhere, observe many signs telling me to go to front door, ring bell, buzz intercom, bash on door, tap on window, no response. Swear muchly, cycle back home.

Phoned them again to check what hours they are open on Saturday so that I can cycle out there. Again. Me: 'So, is there anything special I have to do to get in? It's just that I was told you were open until 7pm in the evening but I was there at 6.45pm last night and there was no one around.' HDN twat: 'Yes there was. You should have gone around the back.' What do you even say to a response like that? I'm the customer. All the signs at your warehouse tell me that I must go to the front door. It's dark, in a deserted industrial estate and you want me to go wandering around on the off chance that someone might be hiding at the back of the building. When eventually I was able to collect my parcel, having gone 'around the back', I discovered that they were working inches from the front door on which I had been banging and ringing and tapping and so on both the night before and that very morning. Evil. Mother. Fuckers.

Our washing machine is broken. It has been broken for more than a week. It is half full of filthy stinking stagnant water. It was supposed to be replaced with a new machine yesterday. It wasn't. David Daniels are the estate agents that work for our landlord. They are the rudest, most incompetent, ignorant and cretinous estate agents ever - which, as you can imagine, is up against some pretty tough competition. Just thinking about them makes my ears bleed.

My application for citizenship has been approved. Hundreds of pounds and a naturalisation ceremony later I receive the certificate I need to prove I am now both Australian and British and thus secure a British passport. It's wrong. They've got my name wrong. They've decided that my name at birth was different from my name now. I have posted it back with the required evidence of who I am, and now I discover that it will take at least two months for them to check the application and print a new certificate. That's more than twice as long as it took them to approve my application. All those reports about the incompetence of the Home Office, they're all true.

Decathlon I feel a bit sorry for. If so many other really irritating things hadn't happened, they probably wouldn't have made the list but I've run out of charity and general benefit-of-the-doubtness. I bought, among other things, some new cycle shorts from the Decathlon store at Surrey Quays. I cycled all the way home with them and then, when I went to wear them, I discovered that they still had the security tag on. Because they only made them in grey, not the black which I actually wanted, I can't even just rip it off because they will end up with an unsightly stain. Now, I will have to cycle all the way back to the shop to get them to take the security tag off. I know, it's not a big thing, but it's another thing and therefore, albeit harshly, they make the list.

My next post will be a fluffly bunny filled ray of sunshine - probably focusing on cool stuff that I have recently bought. I hope.

Bastards - a banking coincidence

Well stab me with a spork - I only started the new blog yesterday and already I've got something to rant about. Thieving buggers Barclays, with whom I foolishly and shamefully bank, have reported disgusting record levels of profit on the very same day that Barclaycard stop my credit card for fear of fraudulent use thus sweeping their pointy stick through my magnificent spiderweb of online orders for essential travel goodies.


Where to begin... first of all, it turns out that there has been fraudulent use of my card. Someone has used it spend more than £500 with a company called ebuyer. Oh, and £2 with T-Mobile - with purchasing a ringtone striking me as about the least ambitious act of online credit card fraud ever. Wow, on the ball Barclaycard, lucky you stopped that happening. Only what? You didn't? No, you authorised those transactions and then declined all the legitimate ones I actually placed with reputable traders with whom I have accounts and have placed previous orders. At present, it would appear that the only way you can use my credit card is if you're not me.


But hold on, what's that? The charges from Amazon have both been authorised and declined? At the same time? Well, I can't see that online because with my credit card blocked I can no longer even look at my statement. And you can't tell me for sure, although you *think* it has probably gone through. Maybe, in a week or so, you'll have a better idea.


So at least, it will all be sorted then - oh, of course, it won't will it. Because then I have to start the process of proving that I didn't make the fraudulent transactions, working out what I have and have not been charged for and whether I have or have not received it, and then re-ordering the things that I haven't got and hopefully haven't been charged for.


This, apparently, is how one makes record profits.


Offering entertainment of a less poke-out-your-own-eyeballs variety is the ever-dependable Townsville Bulletin, august journal of my family's current home town. In a series of events that you could not, in any way, make up, they face the twin threat of kittens and crocodiles. Yes, if the plague of cats doesn't get you, the rogue reptiles will.

Fear the kittens of death, pictured left and appropriately captioned by the Bulletin as NATIVE BIRD KILLERS - the paper's caps, it goes without saying. Fortunately, Grrr saw instantly that this twin pronged attack could be dealt with in a single blow by feeding the NATIVE BIRD KILLERS to the rogue reptile thus ridding the town of plague and befriending a sated and subsequently un-rogue-like croc. In the words of genius: "Hey presto - everybody's happy."


My life would probably be immeasurably improved by replacing the mental health damaging escapades of fat-bastard banks with the threat of kittens and crocs.

So it begins...

Welcome to the blog of a journey. That's journey in a physical sense, rather than the no-doubt more interesting metaphysical one - but if it turns out to be a good enough journey, I suspect there'll be plenty of that as well. I've resigned from my job, I'm packing up my house and I'm going. Soon. There's 39 days to go.



That's 39 days until we board the ferry at Portsmouth and float our way to Bilbao. I consider 39 to be the headline figure, but there are lots of other figures floating around. Delivery dates, prices, travel times - for a non-maths person, I feel like I'm doing an awful lot of maths at the moment. My personal favourite though is 7 - that's 7 working days to go. Not including today, which is more than half over. In less than two weeks, I'll be leaving work: not taking a holiday or a career break or changing jobs. Leaving work. Ah the joy.

But enough gloating. As this is the first post, let's recap - at the end of March, me and Grrr are going travelling. For the first six months, we'll be cycling around parts of Europe. This blog will hopefully record that journey. Here is a rough map of what the path of our journey might look like:

Ignore the vaguely question mark-shaped thing in Italy - the question has largely been resolved and the answer is 'no'. In fact, this is probably more of a guide than a route map, so much is up for grabs in the execution. What we know so far:

• we are definitely leaving from Portsmouth


• we are definintely taking the ferry to Bilbao


• we are definitely doing that on March 30.

So, plenty still open to negotiation, reconsideration and change. Got any good ideas? Based on our embarassingly scanty suggested route, any stops, diversions, or detours are welcome. It doesn't do to over-plan, I always find...

Anyway, this post is primarily intended as a rod for my back - I figure I need to start this blog in order to feel under pressure to keep this blog up to date. Much is going on, planning is frantic, and decisions are actually being made despite a hell of a lot of procrastinating about everything from tents to bottle cages, cycle socks to party dates and venues. And we haven't even made most of the big decisions yet. Despite *the plan* being hatched and committed to many months ago, it's taken quite a long time to get to 39 days, which will apparently now last about a week - or that's how it feels at the moment. It is time to get ready, decide things and do stuff. Sooner than I can possibly imagine, it is going to be time to go.

How much does that rock.

More soon...