So far all of the routes I have created in Basecamp have transferred to the sat nav and worked largely as expected, albeit with some minor detours due to my inaccurate waypoints.
Today was the first day the sat nav really let me down, I was meant to come one way through the Tunnel de Cadi (another 5km tunnel), after re-visiting La Molina. I rode through La Molina due to the N-260 closure earlier in the trip and thought it would be a nice spot for a coffee.
I was not paying much attention to where I was until I spotted a sign for the tunnel before seeing any for La Molina, it turns out the sat nav had avoided the mountain pass and was intending to take me to La Molins for a u-turn.
Even though I had started early today that was going to make it 7-8 hours of riding. I think not when I have close to that for the next couple of days.
So I turned round and turned off the main road to head up the nearest mountain instead of through it. As luck would have it this eventually took me up into the original pass I had planned and then back to Ripoll with the sat nav now playing ball again. Unfortunately this was not the only down side of today.
When heading across the top I saw a sign for camper parking in the middle of nowhere and a new tarmac road (not marked on the map) leading to it. I assumed there must be a fantastic view so turned off.
This is what I found…
You can just see the blue parking sign centre left, by the ‘entrance’. the camper parking is the ‘football’ pitch. While I was there several vehicles went past the ‘camper park’…it turns out there is a village round the bend. Maybe I am being cynical, but I suspect someone managed to get some grant funding for a new road based on it promoting tourism.
I did not set out to have a go at funding tourism, but I can’t help thinking the following attraction is not going to be very popular either…
Most of the site appears derelict, with a few modern refurbished areas, presumably so that it can be re-opened as a museum. The sheds at the bottom have rail tracks outside, so maybe they have a working train, which I can see would add interest, but otherwise it seems almost as odd as the camper parking area, but I did not go in so who knows (it looked deserted).
Anyway soon close to home and a rare section of road without trees blocking the wiggly bits.
I was back at the apartment by 12:30 and had been riding since just after 9 and covered only about 70 miles…my only stops were to take photos, which probably tells you how twisty most of the roads were.
Following a pretty bad lunch I spent the afternoon visiting the toilet more regularly than normal, I shan’t be sampling the part cooked Catalan sausage special again.
It is now hammering down with rain and plenty of thunder to go with it, apparently it has been a very wet year round here so I have been pretty lucky to get away with not being soaked.
Any hoo, off to pack and get ready for the long slog over two days back to the ferry in Santander. I don’t know whether I will see anything worth blogging about over the next couple of days, so there may or may not be more blogs before I get back on the boat and return to ‘normality’.
