Brekkied up, we hit the twisties once, stopping high up on the hillside to take a photo of the river and our hotel below. By now the sun was shining but it wasn't too long before we climbed up into some clouds. Visibility dropped dramtically and it got a bit chilly but what goes up, must come down, so we were soon on the other side of the hill/mountain and coming back down to the sun.
The going was really good and the views just incredible. Out of the mountains briefly, we had a 40km blast along a dual carriageway, before getting back into the twisty stuff. With a fuel stop, we had about 60 miles to go to get to our hotel. Would we make it without incident? Would we eck!
High up in the hills (can't make up my mind, hills or mountains) we once again came to an unpaved section, only this time it wasn't cobbles, just a dirt and gravel track. This hadn't been flagged by Tomtom, else we'd have tried to avoid it. We soldiered on keeping to the left, as to the right, was an unguarded drop of several hundred feet. A couple of kms later, we were back on tarmac and my inner Marquez was able to exploit Ginny's superb tractability once more. She will take almost all but the very tightest bends in 4th gear, pulling from 1500 revs, to power to the next one, which isn't usually more than a few metres away. She just loves these roads.
On we rode towards the final mountain and the next 'adventure'. Never a dull moment on a DeVall tour. As we climbed once more, again we rode into the cloud, only this was very thick, to the point where we were travelling at little over running pace, visor open, as the drop in temp misted even our pinlock visors. I saw a sign that said we were at 1300m but the next one I have no idea what it said, because I was just concentrating on watching the white and yellow lines and staying between them. Visibility by this point couldn't have been more than about 20 feet. Suddenly, Tomtom pipes up, "in 200 metres, go left on the roundabout, 2nd exit" What feckin roundabout. I kid you not, I couldn't see it until I was right on top of the stop sign! I went left, not knowing if anything was coming, it wasn't but then picked out some red and hazard lights in front. I held station with that as best I could until we started to descend once more. Soon we were out of the cloud and I could make my way to the hotel with clear sight.
Relieved once more to have made it to our digs unscathed, we exchanged stories of the last few miles. Sanch had been a minute or two behind me, still, we said the same thing. What feckin roundabout!
The hotel is still high above the valley floor, so the weather isn't great, which is a shame, as the view from the room would make a great photo, were it sunny. A shame also, that the hotel cook is on holiday, so no dinner! Luckily there is a shop selling animal furs/skins, all sorts of leather/fur goods and also cheeses and hams., the latter being available in their little cafe, so we're fed. They also sell beer too. Cushty!
Tomorrow we are heading west again and back to the seaside at Aviero. From there we'll head south to our hotel at Lousa.
Don't forget to check out the photos on flickr.
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