I was in favour of the latter option, but after sending the 'Full steam ahead' queue to my legs, the chief engineer walked up the staircase to my central nervous system and loudly proclaimed that the boiler had suffered terrible metal fatigue and had a large crack down the middle. Luke wasn't in any better shape, so we took it very easy for the first fifteen km, giving tortured muscle groups a chance to regroup. Some skilled work with an arc welder had the boiler back in full operation and with a flat road ahead of us, we got up some decent speed.
Fifty km went by – a mixture of ugly industrial facilities and lovely stretches of orange orchards.
We were on track to make it to Valencia but I was starting to struggle. The relatively small breakfast had burnt down to the embers and I needed food! Luckily I'd made a trek to a supermarket before we left and had ample supplies not only for lunch, but for dinner and breakfast the next day. A couple of bananas (bringing my daily total to four – my doctor would not approve) and oranges later plus the two loaves of bread that were meant to be for dinner and I was feeling fuelled up again.
Onwards, onwards, into the unknown. We'd hit the edge of the map about sixty km in and were just trying to navigate by feel. The N-340, which we'd been following, was about to turn into an Autovia, so we couldn't stay on that much longer. There was a side road that looked like it might go somewhere, so we went down it. Unfurling the map to have another look at the route, I attracted the attention of a helpful old guy, who told us basically that we were heading for no-man's land and the best way was where we'd come from. Twenty precious minutes of riding time had been wasted and it was now five pm, darkness was an hour away and Valencia still at least 30km. Our prospects were not looking good!
We followed the man's directions to the letter, but were soon met by the Autovia. Curses! There was a service road though that went along an orange farm, so we raced down there, navigating by blind intuition alone. It was semi successful – we hit a dead end at one point (where I stopped to pick up a few oranges on the ground) but eventually managed to find a way to the next town, crossing a muddy riverbed and a fenced off construction site in the process. The national map I had proved its worth then – it doesn't have most of the small roads, but luckily there was a route into Valencia on its pages that we could see. It was dark, but there was a bike path and street lighting and Valencia was clearly visible in front of us, so we didn't stress about going fast after that.
After a leisurely last few kms, I spotted a supermarket and dived in to retrieve some snacks. I was starving! We needed to find a hostel but food came first:P As it turned out, there was a cheap one (the first really cheap hostel we'd found the whole trip at 13.50 euros per night) only two kms away, and with minimal fuss, we made it there, paid for a night and dumped our stuff.
It's really quite an awesome place to stay. There's a fully equipped kitchen, so while I went for a run, Luke cooked up some pasta with lentil sauce. Heaps of other people our age are staying here too – quite a few fellow Australians, Americans, Italians, etc. - so we had some great conversations that night.
1 comment:
You, my friend, sound to be having an awesome time on the bit of land between the north pole and the mediteranean that they call europe.
Look forward to reading the rest of it.
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