Day 132

The hardest day yet

We were sad to leave Seville as we had only touched on what this stunning city has to offer, but, as usual, we had made the mistake of booking ahead our accommodation for the next few days, so it was back on the bikes.

Seville, like most developed areas of Spain has a fantastic network of cycle paths making the five miles to clear the city an easy and enjoyable ride. We were feeling pretty good, Komoot promised us a flat easy day, what could possibly go wrong?

As we left the cycle paths, we immediately turned off tarmac onto a gravel road. This led us into a vast area of cotton fields. Flat and endless. No shelter and no views. So, we were prepared for an easy but boring ride. Well no. Boring yes, easy? Absolutely not!

The forecast had promised a strong headwind and it delivered. We had 40 miles of stony roads, fighting all the time to make any headway. We were desperate to find some shelter, to have a respite from the wind, but there was nothing. Just open fields, not even a tree. Finally, we saw a half derelict barn in the distance, we inched our way towards it. Inside was a wind damaged, dusty, empty space. We sat on pieces of broken concrete and ate lunch. Neither of us wanted to head out into the wind but we both wanted to escape from this hell. On and on we battled. We cooked tea beside another barn to get some shelter, praying that this day would end. Finally, we passed a town, leaving the stony roads and cotton fields behind. Still the wind persisted, the next town, though quite big had no accommodation and rain was coming, so we found a small patch of grass with a few trees offering some shelter and decided enough was enough. Tent pitched, we fell exhausted into our sleeping bags.

We had both dug deep, and survived our hardest day so far. There are no photos, neither of us had any energy to spare to take any! There will be GoPro film later though, screenshot as this blog’s thumbnail. Tomorrow is another day, though the wind is set to continue, and be joined by rain!