Day 16 Miranda do Duoro (Portugal) to Castronuevo (Spain)

Day 16. Miranda do Duoro (Portugal) to Castronuevo (Spain). 100.95 kms cycled. 5.50 hours cycling. 51.12 km/h max speed. 17.25 km/h average speed. Weather – overcast and cold, but I fortunately managed to stay clear of showers in the area.

 Well, what a day it has been. After enjoying a very, very cold night in the comfort of what was a lovely residencial at Miranda do Duoro, I finally hit the road at 9am for what proved to be a big and eventful day.

  After battling big hills throughout Portugal, my first introduction to Spain was an incredibly steep 6km climb from the dam at the bottom of the gorge separating the two countries, to the top on the Spanish side.

  For the next 30km or so it was undulating country, fairly similar to that on the Portuguese side but with a distinct Spanish feel to the buildings and few small towns I passed through.

  After my bad experience with major roads back at Beja in Portugal, I have since tried to avoid roads marked in dark red on the map. So it was with some trepidation that I noticed there was about a 12 km section marked in dark red leading into Zamora, my planned destination for the day.

  Anyway, I rode on with all going well until the yellow road on the map joined up with the red road.

  It was there that I ran into trouble. There were signs on the entrance to the road that very clearly showed that bicycles, pedestrians and animals were not allowed to enter.

  So what to do? Luckily there was a petrol station nearby and I thought it was my lucky day when the attendant spoke English. But it was his explanation of the situation that didn’t impress.

  No, he said, bicycles weren’t allowed and the quickest way for me to get to Zamora was to go back the way I came and to “go the other way”.

  All well and good, but that was a detour of about 25 km, which I wasn’t keen to make. In the end I had no choice and went the long, long way, finally arriving in Zamora just after 2pm just as everything was shutting down for the mid-afternoon siesta.

  With nothing open, and unable to find the camping ground, in the end I decided to ride on until I could find a suitable wild camp site.

  And what a great move it was. A fierce wind had sprung up and unlike in Portugal, it was directly at my back and I was flying. Basically I was being pushed along the open plain roads at about 30km/h with very little effort, so just decided to hang on for the ride.

  In the end I just knew it was too good to be true, because you guessed it I copped my first flat tyre. But as luck would have it, the flat tyre occurred just as I was entering the town of Castronuevo.

  As I pulled up outside the local bar, two locals directed me around the corner to what turned out to be the local blacksmith. And I nicer bloke you couldn’t want to meet anywhere.

  While we didn’t speak the same language, bike riding is an international language and it was clear that he had had a lot to do with bikes.

  Before I knew it he had taken charge of the situation, had the old tube out, a new tube in and I was ready to be back on my way. A quick happy snap and thankyous all around and I was off again.

  By this time I had done close to 100km for the day and had had enough so found a great wild camping spot down the road where I set up camp for the night.

The terrain has completely changed now that I am in Spain. The area I am now in is wide open plains, with huge acreages of wheat planted.

  From what I can see on the map the next couple of days should be much the same, so hopefully the weather cooperates and I can continue to clock up the kilometres.


captions. Top pic: My final look at Portugal from the dam wall between Portugal and Spain. Pic 2: One of many small churches in villages along the way. Pic 3: Zamora - too big and busy for me!! Pic 4: There are solar panel electricity farms everywhere. Pic 5: All the old buildings in this part of Spain are made of straw and mud - and obviously don't last as well as the stone buildings in Portugal. Pic 6: My blacksmith tyre changing mate. Pic 7: The wide open expanses of this part of the country.