Portugal & Spain 2008

Tuesday - Homeward bound

Sun - Mon - Tue - Wed - Thu - Fri - Sat - Sun - Mon - Tue

Tuesday 24th June

08:23 We had the usual early morning call in two languages saying breakfast was being served and it did eventual do what it was supposed to do and get us up! But we're not going 'over-board' on breakfast here this morning, just a coffee for now, we have something much better planned for when we get back ashore <rubs tummy>.

09:31 Dave, Patto and John posing on the top deck, soon it will be time to get changed and rejoin the bikes on the car deck, anyway, the sun is shining so we should have a good ride home.

09:54 Down on the car deck...Cor Blimey! it didn't look like this when we left them! It took ages just to get to the bikes, they were packed in so tight :-(

Over on the none BMW side :-) Dave and John had the same trouble, is it too much to ask for just a little more room please?

10:36 Eventually we did all get off the boat, but the price we paid for being first on was of course, we were last off :-( And was it slow going, the customs people were having a field-day scrutinising  passports more than they normally might. Oh well, it's better than the last time we landed back in Britain, that time it was pouring with rain!

N50 21 51.6 W4 09 23.6 (Google map)

Trying hard to ride on the left, navigate Plymouth's traffic and keep the group together, led me into riding straight passed our intended target, quite how we got back to that supermarket is a mystery to me, but we did it!

11:41 Ah! you thought it was going to be a Little Chef didn't you! well it's not, it's a supermarket breakfast!  And you'll never believe it but I got in to trouble taking the picture below, one of the supervisors came over and asked why I'd taken a picture of the food! I told her we'd just got back from a big trip and the picture was to illustrate a travelogue, she was fine about it once I'd told her, but what I go through to entertain you lot... :-)

N50 23 48.6 W4 08 27.5 (Google map)

More than anything else I enjoyed that first decent cup of tea, every time I took a sip I topped the cup up again, I just couldn't bear to see the level go down, weird that, I'm taking tea bags next trip :-) 

N50 23 48.6 W4 08 27.5 (Google map)

Then we had the long ride home, I'd said the run home would fly by... the guys were rather more sceptical, and they were right to be too, because the run home just went on forever...

16:07 We'd waved Dave off in the traffic around Birmingham ages ago, he'd be home by now, we just kept plodding on. The urge to speed up is constantly there, but it's really not a good idea in speed camera mad Britain. It wasn't until we reached the M18 Sheffield to Doncaster motorway that I started feeling like I was nearly there. We'd stopped every hundred miles or so to fill up with fuel and top up with coffee, it's just a matter of keep on, keeping on... LOL that's an old one!

N52 36 18.4 W1 38 30.1 (Google map)

18:15 Last stop for us was Squires biker cafe near Leeds of all places, we had a quick coffee, but John and Patto quite rightly wanted to get going. I really don't blame them, they had another 60 or so miles to go, me, just another 15 miles back to York.

N53 46 59.0 W1 17 20.6 (Google map)

So, I'll wrap it up here, we had very good weather, nothing went seriously wrong, we saw some good sights and had some great laughs, what more can you ask for :-)

I hope you've enjoyed reading this travelogue more than I did writing it LOL, it's taken months of stop/go stop/go writing, trying to fit it around my new work pattern. I should also thank the lads here, not only for accompanying me on the trip, but also for supplying me with their pictures, because without them, I doubt very much this trip would have been written up, so thanks guys.

Sun - Mon - Tue - Wed - Thu - Fri - Sat - Sun - Mon - Tue

This is today's route, 340 miles to Squires Cafe near Leeds. it's not greatly different from the ride down.

Trip stats:

Average MPG                            56.5 mpg

Total miles travelled                  2067 miles

Average miles travelled daily   206.7 miles

Average moving speed            44.6 mph

Total moving time                      46.21 hrs

Average moving time daily       4.621 hrs

Garmin data courtesy of Lucy the wayward GPS:

All routes, waypoints and tracklogs are in Garmin .gdb format

click here for all routes as originally planned   

click here for all available track logs and waypoints

click here for a slightly modified route around the Serra de Estrela National Park picking up the hotel in Seia (un tried, but it looks a good route to me)

Awards:

Best day    - Saturdays ride around the central Picos area, just brilliant!

Best road   - For me, it was probably the n103-7  za925 border road on Thursday

Best hotel  - A difficult choice, but my award goes to the Hotel Regua Douro, Portugal.

Best staff   - The girl on reception at the hotel Infantado

Best meal  - No doubt about it, it's the Hotel Regua Douro again (LOL, I must be going posh :-)

Route planning:

Which is a thankless task, was made much easier with the Michelin Spain & Portugal road atlas. Mine was spiral bound making it easy to lay flat and came with us on the trip, just a pity we didn't read it a little more often on the trip... LOL

Another very good option if you're only doing the Picos area is Michelin sheet map No 572 Asturias & Cantabria, I just wish I could find my copy...

Odds and ends:

EXIF Date Changer - I used this invaluable little program to alter many of the picture so they were all on one common time line (it corrects digital pictures with incorrect dates & times). meaning, you can dump everyone's pictures together in day files and order them by when they were taken, making it much easier to select the pictures your going to use, that's really useful! You can download it here, my thanks to the developers.

I'll confess here, nearly all the pictures have had some work done on them to improve the dynamic range (mostly to bringing out the mid and shadow detail).

Nearly all pictures have been cropped from the original and all have been subtly sharpened after reduction in size.

And now, finally... my BIG tip, are you listening! Get everyone to set there cameras to UK time from your GPS accurately, AND LEAVE IT LIKE THAT!!!                          

Sun - Mon - Tue - Wed - Thu - Fri - Sat - Sun - Mon - Tue

If you wish to contact me, please click Here

Please feel free to sign the guest book if you like what you have read: Guest Book

Thank you