Day 130
A very big hole
It was hot, hot, hot today. The landscape started to look more like Africa than Spain. We were suffering with the heat. We didn’t want to eat, just craved cool refreshing drinks. A supermarket provided a cold beer but no shade.
EV1 started to play with us. We were back on the Camino and enjoying a lovely off-road downhill when I suddenly realised we had a sharp left turn. Uphill, OK. Up steps, not so good. They were beautifully made, but a nightmare for cyclists. Working together we pushed Tom’s bike up, then mine. Phew! We then joined an abandoned old road, running next to the a bigger B-road, which in turn ran parallel to the main highway. Nice, well for about 20 yards then it ended and the EV1/Camino route was the steep loose gravel bit behind crash barriers next to the lovely quiet B-Road. Fortunately about 100 yards ahead the barriers ended so it was only a matter of pushing our bikes for a bit. To give you an idea how easy and enjoyable this was, try this experiment: find a grass bank at a 45 degree angle. Remove the grass. Cover it with ball bearings. Dig a few ruts in it. Try and push your fully-loaded touring bike along it, whilst trying to stay stood upright. I failed miserably. Tom to the rescue, and remember this is EV1!
Back on the road we started thinking about a wild camp spot. The Camino took us on a gravel road through a National Park. Loads of places to stop you would think. Lots of fabulous views of open parkland full of evergreen oak trees but all fenced off. Finally just a few km from a village we spotted a small piece of open ground. Home at last!
So after a night by the oak trees, we set off for Seville. Komoot showed us a few miles of bumpy up-and-down terrain, then a 25 mile downhill.
First of all though, Tom had spotted on Google that there was an unusual opencast mine nearby. Nickel, gold and many more minerals apparently. Recently re-opened due to the demand for batteries, so maybe lithium too. Fortunately I didn’t have to cycle up and through private land, just stand with my bike in a sunny spot whilst Tom flew the drone, then nearly lost it after setting off with a 40% battery. Pity the fool!
After this I was very proud of myself, for cleaning a long steep gravel rutted hill. By cleaning I mean pedalling up it, not giving it a sweep! After a village we joined a small tarmac road to Seville. It was certainly lumpy, lots of up, but we knew a long downhill was looming. We descended 3,800 feet over 25 miles, but we climbed 2,275 feet in that same distance! We went down then up, up some more, down, then up, repeat. It is apparently our biggest day of descent in the whole trip. All I can say is it didn’t feel like it. Finally we could see Seville. We were able to leave the road and join a cycle path into the city. This was really appreciated, as for the first time in Spain the roads were busy with traffic. So great, until it popped us out in the middle of a busy roundabout. We braved our way onto it, and with a large dose of luck and only one annoyed driver we made our way through. The cycleway soon reappeared and we were on the home straight to our hotel for two nights, paid for with a gift voucher Tom received from friends and colleagues involved with his Land of Iron project. Thank you all so much!
