Monday September 1, 2014

We had a late start this morning, because we waited for Jagoba to come to the apartment, so that he could cycle with us to the Portogalete Bridge.  He came at 9:30 with a gift of chorizio sausage and some other smoked meat from his uncle.  We left his apartment at about 9:45 and cycled through Bilbao to the Portogalete Bridge.  Ralf took some more photos as we cycled along the cycle lanes of Bilbao.  Bilbao used to be a huge industrial city with cranes lining both sides of the river.

The Portogalete Bridge is the only bridge of this type to be still working around the world.  There are about 12 bridges around the world like this that are still standing, but this is the only one that is still in use. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

It has a \”ferry\” that is suspended under the bridge structure that carries cars, and passengers across the river.  It takes about one minute to do the crossing.

After we crossed the bridge I went into the Tourismo Office and Ralf took some photos.

When I came out Ralf was nowhere to be seen.  He was surrounded by Spaniards who were telling him the best way to get to Santander, the scenic route, the quickest route and the route with less traffic.

One of the older people had his granddaughter with him who was trying to translate what her grandfather was saying.  Ralf said she did a really good job, but every time she couldn’t remember the words she went very pink.

At the tourismo office the lady explained we could take the escalator to the top of the hill, then take the cycle path.  I wasn\’t sure what she meant by escalator, but there was an actual moving sidewalk all the way up a very steep hill.

Jagoba stayed with us until we got to the beach area where he was going to spend the afternoon and then cycle home again (27 kms).  At the beach we met two girls who were cycling the Camino.  Jagoba talked to them and told them what we were doing.  They wished us well and cycled away.  We had some lunch and said our farewells to Jagoba.

We were told that there was going to be two big hills, tough with the weight we are carrying.  Two roadies were telling Jagoba about the hills and shaking their heads at our bikes and panniers.  It didn’t sound like it was going to be a fun afternoon ride.  We followed their directions and headed up the first hill – dropped down into the grannies and motored up it, not too bad at all.  Going up the second hill we passed the two girls we had seen at the beach and managed to get within 100 metres of the top before I had to get off and push – it had kicked up to 12%

The downhill was a screaming downhill.

We arrived in Castro Urdalis at about 2:30 and found there were two campsites.  One was 2kms away up a hill and the other 7kms away on our route – relatively flat from now on said the woman in the Tourismo Office.  We decided to do the 7 kms as the campsite was on the way.  It wasn’t flat, but after the hills we have been doing in the past few days, they were rolling hills.

We ate the chorizo and Jagoba’s mum’s pasta sauce for dinner with a lovely wholemeal baguette.

Ralf went for a walk around the campsite and beach area while I attempted to update the blog. He said the beach wasn\’t very pretty.

We paid E1 for the internet and it is so slow, all we managed to do was update the garmin’s.  I will use my data stick in future.

We were lulled to sleep by the sound of the motorway running through the mountain above the campsite.