The Drive

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The Drive (Tim and Sue)

After a not-too-bad crossing we were kind of hoping that we'd emerge into blazing sunshine of Northern Spain. Never mind. The bikers looked hacked off. Sue points out that Northern Spain has weather very similar to ours. Now she tells me.

It's an early start and all-of-a-sudden the klaxons are blaring for us to get to our vehicles. After a swift roll-off we have a satnav-induced 'couple moment' by the wayside. After a frank exchange of views we're on our way aided by nothing more than a map printed on dead trees - I ask you. Sensing it's lifetime's growing very short the Tom Tom starts to behave again.

Bizarrely, as we passed into Castille we literally passed over a ridge and left cloud to the north and saw nothing but blue-skied sierras to the south - like there was an invisible wall across the sky (sorry - our photo skills just didn't capture it well enough) and the temperature gauge began to rise.

The standard of driving in Spain is shockingly poor (even more so than Italy - if such a thing is possible). Yet somehow, because everyone does it so badly the effect wears off pretty rapidly and you don't seem to mind so much. Weird.

Another novelty is that the petrol pumps speak to you. Can you imagine if we had such a thing back home? Right - that's your lot. And don't even think about waltzing off without paying, sunshine - I've got my eye on you.

Driving down to our our next stop - Trujio - is through very desolate sierra. It's beautiful, in a rugged kind of empty way, and although it's a Saturday the roads are practically empty. The roads are fantastic and I'm glad to see that our EU money has been so well spent. Plenty of energy projects around here, too - we've seen big solar, wind and nuclear plants on our way down.

(Sorry about the lack of photos - they just don't really do it justice.)

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