Day 127: Santes Creus (Cycling)

Last night was a night when I was yet again mosquitoed. At first I thought I had awoken because I'd nightmared the buzz buzz of beating mosquito wings. As I later discovered it wasn't a nightmare, my forehead had in fact been late supper for a mosquito, which I have yet to dispatch. Couldn't find it. So I deployed the mosquito net. This all occurred between 01:09, 02:40 and 03:00.

At about 04:00 an almighty thunderstorm woke me up. Eventually, it passed and I returned to the land of nod.

At about 06:10 another thunderstorm awoke me. Eventually I fell asleep and next awoke at 08:56! There was neither rain, thunderstorms or mosquito noise, just the sound of bird song!

The day's weather forecast was not good with more rain and thunderstorms likely. However, there did appear to be a window of opportunity for some cycling when the probability of rain was mostly no greater than 0.25, rising to about 0.5 towards the end of the ride.

Accordingly, I shortened my planned ride from about 97 kilometres to 66 kilometres.

All was going well weather wise until I made a left turn to see that I was heading toward a big black thunderhead of a cloud! It was quite some distance away but, as I was cycling toward it, it was being blown toward me!

As I approached the outer limits of the cloud my route had me turning left again, which had me running parallel to it's leading edge. As it drew closer towards me there were a few spots of rain and the occasional distant roll of thunder.

After a about 2 kilometres I made another left turn. So now the big black thunderhead was behind me, which was a little disconcerting because, although there were no more spots of rain, not having eyes in the back of my head, I couldn't keep an eye on it. Also, both the cloud and I were now travelling in the same direction and, every now and then I could hear the roll of thunder.

However, I was now mostly cycling downhill back to the van, which I reached soaking wet, drenched in sweat!! But missed the thunderstorm, which never reached the van! Although there was a little light rain late evening.

One thing I have noticed about the rain out here is that more often than not when the rain does come it can be pretty biblical, deluge like, resulting in much detritus to be left on the roads where impromptu rivers have flowed.

These photographs were taken before rain anxiety kicked in!!

• Distance driven: 0
• Distance cycle: 66 kilometres
• Weather: Night thunderstorm; Day mostly dry, sunshine and clouds, showers and dodged a thunderhead!

Today's route: