Day 41: El Campello (Cycle)

The weather forecast was for some rain, but the probability was pretty low. I therefore decided to go for a shorter ride than I'd originally planned for today. Then, if it did rain, I wouldn't be in it for too long!

Apparently, fortunate favours the brave and, luckily, although it did try to rain on me on a couple of occasions it did not come to much and I arrived back at the van dry. Indeed, on leaving Alicante, the sky started to brighten.

On the way out of El Campello, as I started the "big" climb of the day I could hear some voices becoming louder as a cycle team closed in on me. As they past I managed to grab the wheel of the last rider. Almost immediately, we were joined by another cyclist. The two of us rode at the back whilst the team car was behind us. The lads in the team were happily chatting away whilst I huffed-and-puffed at the back. Knowing this was my only real climb of the day I was determined to hang-on at the back!

I incorrectly assumed that they were going in the same direction as I was! So when my Garmin GPS indicated that I was to turn left I assumed it was just another Garrmin "short cut" routing me off of the main road and, would shortly re-route me back on to it. [I've heard it said that you should never assume because you will more than likely make an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'!]. In this instance it turned out to be true (at least the ass and me bit!); I should have turned! Fortunately I released before going to far further up that particular hill; did a u-turn; descended to the junction; and rejoined my climb!

On returning to my van I checked to see where they were going: it was to Relleu! 18 Kilometres from the junction! The current climb they were on did end approximately 7.4 kilometres from my turn off! Whereas, my climb, only had about 3.8 kilometres left to do, once I'd descended! Oh what fun we had!

Here's a photograph of a tree, I know not what make and model, but it caught my eye!

And finally, I think a giant may have mislaid its potted plant!

• Distance driven: 0
• Distance cycled: 60km
• Weather: Early morning fairly overcast becoming more overcast then brightening up in the afternoon.

Today's ride: