Category: Picos and Pyrenees 2016

 

Day 7 route.  21st May.

Half way across the Pyrenees (ish).

Pano pic again.  This was an awesome view.  We were en route to Col du Tourmalet, the famous Tour de France route.  Weather 20 degs.  Perfect.  Views magic – prob the best you’ll get anywhere on the globe.     Then we end up with a tour buster…

What do you do?  Route blocked.  Nothing to do but eat a nice meal and have coffee at the restaurant there.  Not VFM I can tell you.  Well, you pay for the views. 😉

So re-route was needed.  Back to laruns and round the top towards Lourdes, down to Argeles gazost.

We eventually found a nice site, with very helpful owners.  Nice welcome.

Err – beer at 11.6%!!!  Dangerous stuff.  I can barely type even though I have drank only half a can!

So here we are, pitched, set up and been to the supermarket.  Broccoli, onion, chicken, potatoes, fococcia bread, plus the usual mushroom soup!  Sooty’s idea.  Not mine.

 

No salmon but hey, we have no rods anyway.

Ok, well I couldn’t be @rsed to wait for the cloud to pass over the mountain but it’s a fab contrast all around.  Forest, grass, snow – all mountains.

We camped next to the stream.  Funnily enough, we camped in that very spot on a previous tour.  Such a magic place – I don’t know what it is but I find it enchanting.  Maybe it’s going to somewhere we’ve been before but hey, we had a great time.

 

Always.

Made it to Laruns (West end of the Pyrenees).  I did the washing – yes ME!  I learnt that you can actually wash clothes and you don’t have the buy new ones when they get dirty.  Funny business though – you put them in soapy water, slosh them about a bit, rinse with clean water and hang them on this thing called a ‘washing line’.  Apparently, you can wear the clothes again once they have no more water in them.  Amazing.  I must tell the Wife about this idea.  She’ll be amazed I’m sure.

Above is the Boys while I’m making ‘washing’ discoveries.  Chop a few bits up and mix it with some other left overs and that’s dinner.

The ride was ok today but wet.  Mostly we were in the clouds but the evening has turned out nice.

 

 

HUGE view on the way to Pamplona (north of there anyway).  Taylux putting sun cream on his HUGE conk.  Proof the sun is strong 🙂

We ended up at this campsite. Well so called anyway. It was pretty dire. It was supposed to be nice – next to a lake but it was more like a POW camp!  Just look at Rupert with the Albanian Pikey, attempting to cook breakfast!

Pilates in the the Picos. Dear oh dear.  More like the Arsenal offside trap!