New Friends

Travelling on your own, you talk to anyone who will listen and can bump into the most amazing people. When I thought I might go on a trip for a month, I thought I was being relatively adventurous. In the past 36 hours, I have begin to think my trip is a little tame and I might have to reconsider what is possible. On the ferry I bumped into Ben & Yvonne (right) who were turning a suggestion of a 'lets pop over to france for a holiday on the bike' into a 2 year 'let's see europe by bike.....and lets start in winter! ' And at the same table in the bar was seated Jim (left) who thinks it is quite sensible to ride a Blackbird from Santander to Alicante in one day starting at 2pm and sod what the police say....Do the Police in Spain use planes or helicopters to track fast movers?

At a petrol station a few hours later I saw a another heavily loaded bike with an english number plate and so I put the chat on him and discovered that he was on an even bigger quest.....4 years and round the world. Nigel (AKA Bignose)jacked everything in and decided to go walkabout. We decided to ride together for the rest of the day as we were going in more or less the same direction (i.e south) and found lodgings in Valladolid about 200 miles south of Santander. A few beers and cheap dinner and the world as soon put to rights.
Nigel's webbsite is at http://www.bignoseontour.org/index.html

Not having made as much milage as I had planned on the first day, I started early this morning and discovered that my bike battery really hates the cold. I had a few anxious moments as I thought I dont want to have to call out the rescue services on day 2 :-O It was cold and misty...at the start of the day it was 4C and after an hour and a half the temperature had fallen to -1C ...brass monkey weather. But it is nice down south now, a balmy 18C.