What a day to decide to do my usual milage! I certainly wasn’t intending too! I was all set to stop after 40 miles! I’d looked at the map and saw that there was a campsite in Avila which is where I was and the next one was another 20 miles further on, not much in the scheme of things, the only trouble was that I saw that there was a big climb in between me and the campsite so I thought I’ll have a short day and stop here. As I came into town I stopped off at a supermarket to stock up for the night (mainly beer!) Once I’d stocked up I went to find the campsite only to find that there wasn’t one at all the nearest one was 30km away up that big climb which was only 1300m! But at least the campsite was only just over the summit so once I’d done the climb it would be downhill and I could rest afterwards! It was a fairly hard climb but very scenic, once at the top it was a nice downhill into Barraco where the campsite was. Once there I again found out that there wasn’t a campsite! But there was in the next town another 30km away! Off I set once more with more big climbs, surely it’s got to be third time lucky, unbelievably again there was no campsite, however there was one about 7km away in the wrong direction! With no hotels about either and to stick to my route meant another climb out of town I took the rare decision to vear of my route, which was all down hill to get here which is very good, only trouble is I’ve got to go up it again tomorrow! Photo; there are storks everywhere.
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