Information for New Readers

 Hi,
If you are new to the blog and you want to read my story from the beginning then please go to the bottom of this page and click on "more posts". Keep doing this until you reach the beginning, approx 8th August, and then use the browser back button to go forward in time again. A bit clumsy, but I haven't yet discovered another way of doing it.

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From Castillejar to Granada

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 On my way south again Jenny and Al directed me to a quiet cross country route that by passed the main towns. The weather was very sunny and it was heavenly to get back on the bike again in such tranquil conditions. Just outside Baza I picked up another Via Verde trail, the old railway line between Baza and Guadix.  As I mentioned on an earlier page of the blog I've visited this area about seven times before and it's always very emotional when I leave. Whichever way you go it seems there's a quite specific moment when you leave the Altiplano. Maybe because it's more or less surrounded by mountains, and when you look down on it from above as well as being able to identify many of its features, there's also a strong sense of its "genius locii" or essential nature as a place. Here's one of my last glances backwards towards La Sagra, the mountain which dominated my view of the Altiplano, in the far north and at the centre of the background. To get some ide...
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Sept 13th Thouars to St Loup

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 Thouars is a strange mixture of semi industrial/ agricultural and medieval, quite a long way from any other big towns so it was no surprise to discover that there was a Decathlon store in town. Before I left England, I bought a gas stove from decathlon that uses their own proprietary gas cartridges on the basis that they cook really well and they have shops in a lot of towns across France and Spain. What I hadn't counted on was the energy war that's taking place in Western Europe right now and that these cartridges which are a mixture of butane and propane are currently unavailable across France. They also didn't have shock cord or waterproof dry sacks which I wanted, but was lucky enough to find in adjacent army surplus store. Nulle pointes Decathlon. There was also a Lidl store on the same road so I stocked up with vittals for the next few days. This of course meant that the bike which had been gradually getting lighter, was now heavier than ever! Leaving town on the cyc...
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