Phew what a day !!

We were hoping for a slow news day today after the stress and excitement of getting out from Santander but it was not to be. We set off at 9am, after an hour of packing up and had a nice quiet road initially. We stopped in Santona at 10.30am for a nice coffee and apple cake, great to be able to get away with eating as much as possible! then it got a bit busy but even more importantly, the big hills began. We had about 5 or 6 climbs of about 40 minutes or more over the day which when fully loaded down with stuff, it was extremely hard work.

Lunch in a workmans bar was a mixed salad and Chorizo and spuds in gravy which filled a spot.

We wanted to get as close to Bilbao as possible in order to take that conurbation on early Saturday morning. We think we are Zerbina and the camp site with lots of recommendations on Google had actually closed 4 years ago so we ended up spending 50 klebbies each for a room in a bit of a flea pit.

Anyway, it is clean and took the opportunity to wash the rapidly accumulating smelly clobber so we have stuff hanging all over the place. all off to bed now as shattered and need to get up early again tomorrow to attack yet more mountains, and just watched the weather forecast which is rain and rain and more rain for Saturday and Sunday!

Finally here !!!

Hi everyone, We finally got here after a very choppy crossing! - details to follow later as still on other computer. Got off the ferry about 1 ish and ran into a stroppy copper who didn´t like us taking tourist photos so he made us empty all our paniers out and looked suspiciously when he saw our sealed bags of porridge - he obviously doesn´t eat his for breakfast!

It was very scary at first entering into a very busy city, and trying to find our way out riding on the wrong side of the road, laden down, but eventually, after 1.5hours we actually managed to get out. We do know our way around numerous Santander industrial estates and very nice they were too.

Finally got out of the city (which we didnt realise it was so big) and made our way around the estuary and back up the other side. We are now in Loredo at a campsite called Derby which is on the coast. The sun has gone and only a bit of rain so we got the tents up, had a shower then made tea

That consisted of a tin of Mackeral, spagetti and a tomato sauce, finished off with some a cup of tea and a big slab of Spanish chocolate cake

We are in a games room at the moment using a spanish computer so you will have to wait for the photographs until we find a campsite with wi fi

We only managed 38 kilometres today, mainly due to taking ages in getting out of Santander.

We hope to get just this side of Bilbao tomorrow then take that town on first thing Saturday morning - hopefully without the amount of traffic we had today, although to be fair the Spanish drivers are much more patient in allowing for wobbly english cyclist to go their merry way.

Just a quickie for the children, hoping you all OK, missing you loads, we will be home in no time.xxx

fingers crossed for good weather tomorrow and a chance to catch up on the miles we didn´t do today. Hopefully we can log in somewhere tomorrow. byeeeeee

Gear is nearly all packed

Hi Sponsers

Here we are, nearly ready to leave with most of the kit packed. We have cracked the two grand on the sponsorship front which is fantastic so thank you all for that.




Here is the dining table covered with some of our stuff, which is more or less gone into one bike trailer and two panniers with a few bits still left looking for a home

I have requested the BBC change their 5 day forecast for Santander and lower the heat a bit and remove the rain which they have kindly done ! I never knew my license fee commanded such power.

Must try harder

There is so much to do getting ready for this ride that it leaves no time to write up this blog.

D-Day had less preparation !

Anyway, sort of recovered from riding down to the beach with trailer and riding home again without trailer, without wife on the return trip as she had more sense and came back in the mum and dad taxi. Pretty nippy down on the coast.

Managed to grap 40 winks late saturday afternoon to aid my recovery process !

Learnt how to transfer photographs across to laptop via bluetooth so we can hopefully provide you with a more visual feast over the next couple of weeks.

Funding raising has gone over £1,600 so far. A big thank you for that

cya

4 days to go

4 days to go and we have finally got round to riding the bikes fully loaded. We packed all our stuff last night then hooked up the trailer on my bike and put the panniers on annes. This exercise still took 1 and half hours and this was with everything packed and no tent to dismantle. Gonna have to do a bit better than that !



3 O'clock returning back, just approaching Hilliers garden centre on the left near Romsey and pretty cream crackered

Hello World

Well here we go then, In just over a weeks time we will be on our way Santander to then cycle our way back home again - Whats the point of that then ?

Charidee, thats what, the details of which can be found at www.justgiving.com/Anne-Barratt

The purpose of this blog is to provide entertainment for the sponsors describing our trials and tribulations of the trip to be enjoyed from the comfort of your armchair

Welcome aboard and we hope you enjoy the trip

G&A