First 2 days of riding

Well, I’m finally underway. So far I’ve had  a day of headwinds and a day of rain.

It was with a lot of nerves and wobbles that my trip finally got started properly yesterday. I wobbled out of the campground and across the road to start riding on the right-hand side for the first time in my life (well, except Antarctica), and I didn’t die! It helped that generally there’s been a nice wide shoulder along the roads, and the drivers seem to be really accommodating to cyclists- even slowing down on narrow bits of road. This is something NZ drivers would almost never do- they’d attempt some dangerous overtaking maneuver!

I followed the coast to Lloret de Mar. The cycling was pretty easy, except for the headwind, the weight of my bike and my lack of fitness! The coast is pretty built up- I only got about 2km of riding that was in the “countryside”. I got to my campground, which had opened for the season days before, and set up camp and did some supermarket shopping. This has been one of the biggest interests/challenges so far- having to rely solely on either brand-names or just packaging (in a language you don’t understand) to work out what you’re buying.. One example is tomato paste/sauce/puree – often they have very similar packaging, but quite different consistencies/uses!

It started raining as I was going to bed- the rain isn’t a big deal once I’m in the tent- but it’s a bit of a pain to pack up the next morning. It’s been raining all day today as well, which made for a wet ride. It’s not so much the rain that’s the problem as the road grime that gets kicked up from passing traffic, especially in a dusty environment like this- I don’t think they’ve had rain in a while. Poor Indie was dripping grey grime by the end of the day. This is now dripping all over the floor of the backpackers I’m staying in in Girona. Girona is a very pretty little university town- i’ll try and dodge the showers for some photos tomorrow. The backpackers is only 16 euro for the night, which includes free wifi and breakfast. For a hungry, internet addicted cyclist this is pretty good value when you consider that the campgrounds i’ve stayed at so far cost between 11-15! And here I don’t have any problem finding power points to charge my gadgets!

I had some navigational “adventures” today, due to not being allowed on motorways, and trying to get to campgrounds that aren’t open.. You can see every detail of my route on my new Actual Route page.

Heading to some Warm Showers hosts tomorrow night which should be interesting. It’s like couch-surfing but specifically for cycle tourists. Then heading down the  coast into France in 3 days time!

The photos are here (I’m only going to create one gallery for the rest of Spain):

And of course, they’re also mapped:

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