Day 3 (The Long Ride)

It´s breakfast and I´m still in France so it´s croissant and jam of course.
Today the plan is to get another 400miles completed which will take me to Valencia and then on the Friday I´ll only have another couple of hundred so will be in Mazarron for lunch.
So I set the TomTom for Valencia and I´m on the road for 9a.m.
It´s a lovely warm day and I´m feeling refreshed from a good nights sleep.
I´ve completed about 50 miles when suddenly the wind picks up. Then that's it for about 70 miles. I´ve never ridden in wide like it. The wind is throwing me from one side of my lane to another, in fact it´s very hard to stay in the same lane! Just like yesterday with the rain, I should stop and in fact I nearly did cause at times I did bob myself! But no I didn´t stop I kept going only much slower and when I wanted to overtake a big lorry I made sure both the 2 outside lanes were clear.
Even then it blew me all over the place and just when you think you banked over and holding on as tight as you can the wind picks up again!
Well I got through it and all I thought was bring on the ice and snow and I would have ridden in all conditions in one trip!!!
Only 120 miles from setting off and I was going over the border from France to Spain! Hola!!!
I did get off my bike and take a picture. It then accrued to me that since leaving Nottingham I had only shown my passport once which was at Dover and then I had my helmet on! I know we´re all part of the European Union but I thought there was still some checks. Oh well I´m in Spain now.
The terrain, landscape seemed to change very quickly. Less grass and more sandy looking mountains were in view now. Still very picturesque. I was feeling tired at all and when I got to Barcelona had I little look round. Then got out very quickly. Very BUSY!
I carried on riding until at around 5 I got to Valencia.
This is were I wanted to be for the night so once again I thought lets have a look around. Wrong again. Everything looks nice but the same so after going round a few corners I had totally lost my bearings! I stopped for a drink and thought the sensible thing would be to use the TomTom again to get me to a hotel. This was not as easy as France as a lot of the roads and one way systems have changed and I had forgot to update the TomTom before leaving!
Well after an hour I was back out and had found a few hotels but there was no way I was paying 75 or 69 euros!!!

So, I was feeling tired so onwards I went. I was now thinking I could make it to Alicante. So away I went. I stopped to call Jo and say what I was planning and after a quick discussion I decided that if I was going on to Alicante I might as well ring and ask if could arrive at 10 o´clock at night in stead of midday Friday. Cool no problem.

Thats it then, onwards.
So although I missed some of the views because by now it was pitch black I completed the whole of the 640miles in the one day and met my Mum at 10.00 safe and sound.
I was pretty knackered but very happy. 1550 miles in 3 days!!!
All that was left to do was say hello and then good night, we could catch up in the morning when my and my family's new life in Spain would begin!!!!!