May 27, 2011

The black clouds and the strong wind are both still with us this morning and Ken´s click is still with him, although my squeak has mysteriously disappeared (he was right – it wasn´t important then).  Our mood is better though and we set off enthusiastically (..ish).  It is actually cold and for the first time on the trip I wear my cycling leggings – I had thought I was going to be carrying them all around Europe without actually wearing them. 

The hills are getting bigger each day – a look at the map last night confirmed that we are going to be facing ever-increasing gradients for about the next three weeks.  Good job we like mountains!

We see lots and lots of cyclists as we travel along – clearly the Belgians are keen cyclists.  The countryside, with an occasional glimpse of an enchanting château, and the villages are pretty with lots of wooded hillsides, but the road surfaces are terrible – the worst yet (we thought the UK was going to collect that accolade, but no, it looks like that is going to go to Belgium).

It starts to rain.  We stop at the top of a hill to speak to a Dutch couple on a touring tandem – they were also going to Spain, but to the north along the Camino de Santiago.  We set off down the hill, which is long and steep, with the tandem right behind us – we´re not going to let it overtake us.  Of course, when we get to the bottom, which takes all of about 10 minutes, we have another hour of climbing back up again the other side.  We are not going to be hitting the 100 km per day target in this terrain.