Fair Weather Bikers

During the night I had to get up to remove the cheese from my tent. It was very, very smelly! While I was at it I thought I may as well nip out for a call of nature. I was expecting it to be as misty as it was when I went to bed but I was wrong.

The mist had cleared to reveal the clear night sky - and what a sky! As there was no light pollution I could see more stars than I've ever seen before. It was amazing and I stayed out a good while staring at it until I got a bit nippy. I got back into my tent and snuggled back into my sleeping bag and had a very deep and restful sleep for the remainder of the night.

I woke the following morning at around 7am and got up to the wonderful sight of clear blue skies. The sun had not yet rose above the far mountains so it was still quite crisp. I put on some warm clothes and made a coffee. This is my favourite memory of the whole trip – sitting with a nice cup of coffee looking at the stunning scenery. It was very peaceful with only the distant sounds of woodpeckers pecking and donkeys braying (and Daz snoring!).

I made another coffee and went for a walk along the river towards the Cirque de Gavarnie for about a mile and then came back just as Daz was waking up.

Again we only had around 100 miles to do so we were in no hurry to pack. We had our breakfast of bread, cheese and jam which was excellent and steadily re-loaded the bikes. We set off at around 10am by which time the sun was well and truly up and the day was warming up nicely.

It usually takes me between 30 minutes to an hour to truly settle back into riding again and the road away from Gavarnie was as good as it had been on the way in, making it a very good way to warm up to the ride.

We then did two cols which were fantastic with good surfaces and stunning views. The next col had been resurfaced so was very hard work, but the one after that was the best road of the day with fantastic sweeping bends all leading one onto another.

The final col of the day before our planned camp-site had been resurfaced so was pretty hard going. We got to our planned camp-site which was on the summit of the col. After a brief look we decided that we'd look for an alternative - it looked very basic with nothing around.

I set the GPS for the following days destination and we set-off keeping our eyes open for the next camp-site. After 10 miles of seeing no sign of a camp-site I pulled over at a café and went in to ask if anybody could help. Nobody spoke English but with the help of my translation sheet, and a bit of pointing at bikes and tents, somebody told me to head for the town of Castillon, which turned out to be just a little further down the road.

As soon as we entered the village I saw a sign for the camp-site. It turned out to be a very well maintained municipal camp-site. These are sites managed by the local council for the use of the local residents but they are open to tourists. They generally have excellent facilities, are kept spotlessly clean and are very cheap. This one turned out to be no exception and was excellent.

The weather had stayed fantastic through-out the day and it was very warm as we pitched out tents. Also as the area for the tourists was in the middle of a field there were a LOT of flies and wasps, but we were too hot at this point to care!

We had a snack of the melted cheese and remainder of the bread we had bought for breakfast. I also hand-washed my riding clothes as they were getting a little wiffy!

As early evening set in we went for a walk into Castillon. We found a mini-market and bought some eggs and bread for breakfast and of course we had to get they by now traditional ice-cream, then returned to the tents for a curry and rice and a shower before returning to Castillon for a few beers.

We found a nice bar where we could sit outside and watch the world go by. Castillon is not a touristy place and the bar seemed to be the heart of the village. People would come and go and everybody seemed to know everybody else. It was a very pleasant evening.

The bar shut at around 10pm so we had another early night. As we were returning to the camp-site we noticed the sky was clear, and while it wasn't quite the same magnitude as Gavarnie, the stars were again amazing.

I got in my tent and had to do battle with half a dozen flies, there was no way I was going to sleep with things flying around inside my tent! After a long and hard fought battle (about 10 minutes) I was victorious and managed to settle down to a good nights sleep.