Day 11 - Last full day

This time zone stuff is hard, despite everything being set to 'auto', half of our devices have different times. We got up anyway. 

Apparently when Mark booked the room he only purchased one breakfast, not quite sure how. We blagged

 two free ones anyway, it was a choice of a croissant or a ham sandwich, basically yesterday's left overs.

Before we could get on our way we had to get Mark a new rear tyre, so we visited the local KTM dealer who thought it best he got a new front tyre too, oh and the rear brake pads were shot too, best not mention that the front brakes are marginal. 

That's a fair bit of work so we decided to go to the cafe next door and grab a bite to eat. It was in a great location, a corner of a car park in an industrial estate. They didn't make up for it with service either, we had to order our food twice and then the waiter came over to ask what we wanted. 40 mins later Tim's food arrived, ten mins on Steve got his and it was another five mins for Mark's, despite ordering the same as Tim. In true Spanish tradition, there was enough food to feed eight people

Back at the garage and Mark's bike was ready, he didn't take the optional front brakes so it only cost a whopping 385 euros. New tyres mean slow speeds for a while so we took it easy for about 30 mins until we got bored and found some proper roads.

Best. Roads. Ever. Up and down mountains with some brilliant views to match for about 4 hours. Breathtaking.

On our way out of the mountains we came across a few cars which we passed. It's good to know that Audi drivers are cocks over here too, as Mark went to overtake the driver swerved to try and knock him off, and when Tim went past, the cock tried to accelerate so that he had nowhere to go and would plow into oncoming traffic. Neither of these tactics worked so we are all actually alive still.

Finally we were back in Santander but before boarding the ferry we decided to top up at McDonalds, although the woman there didn't understand a word we said so we considered ourselves lucky that we didn't just end up with a pile of straws and napkins.

It was then time to let go of Spain and board the boat home.

Sitting in the bar on the boat writing this now, I can tell you that the entertainment on the way home is as bad as that coming over, in fact watching the hen party try to walk to the bar and back without spilling their drinks is the most entertaining thing so far. The bet bit was when they dragged 'monkey boy' onto the dance floor to dance Gangham Style but he'd never herd it before so his dad had to show him how. It got worse when they were doing the twist and his dad fell over to a cheering applause from the audience.

Thanks for reading, there may be a small epilogue of things we forgot to post about that we've been keeping track of, otherwise see you next holiday.

Day 10 - Lack of rubber

For a change there was a decent breakfast included with this hotel, a buffet selection of cold meats, pastries and breads. After complaining about all the previously rubbish breakfasts, Mark rushed up to the buffet and came back with exactly the same as he'd had at every other place; a croissant and a bread roll.

We got out of town quite easily, but the back of Mark's bike was sliding around a bit as his tyres were quite bold. The roads were pretty good climbing to heights of 1600 meters. Several times there were dogs and cows in the road, we stopped for a photo but wisely moved a little further down the road as the cattle eyed us up.

After stopping for a photo Steve's bike wouldn't start so were a little stranded at the top of a mountain. A local woman went and got us some water in her car but it still didn't start. We decided to free wheel it 3.5km downhill to the nearest town and try again there. Half way down, the bike came to life and we were on our way.

We stopped for lunch at a hotel and had the set menu of the day, it was nice but huge and he kept bringing out more courses which we struggled to keep up with. When we're done we could barely fit back in our leathers!

Well on our way to Gijon we stopped for fuel and noticed that Mark's tyre was starting to get some small cuts in it as it wore away. It was only about 30km to go so we pushed on but kept a more gingerly pace.

Steve's glove was also falling apart, that'll teach him for buying cheap Alpinestars.

We made it in one piece, checked into the hotel and headed out for a look around town. There were plenty of bars around the main plaza but these were mega expensive so we found some cider bars off the beaten track and with our new found knowledge of how to drink cider, fitted right in.

We climbed up to the top of the hill overlooking the sea where the canons used to be and planned how we'd assault the city.

Tim wasn't feeling so great so headed home for an early night so Mark and Steve went for a couple of drinks.

They found a place called wine street which was pretty cool and Steve tasted the local wines which were cheaper than Marks beers, they were really good wines too.

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Day 9 - Barriers

We were due to leave Porto today and start a series of short hops back home. This however, meant breaking our bikes out of the car park. You see they wanted us to pay 75 euros per bike which we thought was a bit steep, especially as we only used up one spot.

The plan was to ride through the gap at the side of the barrier but as we were getting the bikes redy, two security guards covered the exits, they were on to it. We had to fall back to plan B. plan B involved waving our arms around, arguing and not understanding. Plan C it was then, we payed the hotel instead and got a discount.

We rode for a while before stopping at Mc Donald's and then found some properly good roads, fast sweepers where we got to explore the bikes a bit more. From McDs we beat the sat nav time by 20 mins and that included two stops!

We were now in Ponferrada, where we'd stop for one night. We were using a municipal car park again,  where we were again thwarted by the barriers, Steve had pressed the button and Tim had gone through, but we'd all moved forward so we were stuck as the barrier had closed behind Tim. Oops.

When we did get out, we made our way to the hotel reception and Steve got accosted by a struggler wino who was dressed up like a knight. We jousted our way into the hotel to find that the receptionist didn't speak English but he did speak German. So Steve spoke to him in German and tried not to mention the war.

Tim went ahead while we were checking in, and when Mark and Steve got to the room he was already stood in the corridor outside the room in his pants as he was too hot. As soon as the door opened he dashed in to destroy the toilet before he'd even seen his bed.

After we'd de-fumed the bathroom and showered we went to get some drinks and snacks for the room, it was Mark's happy day as there was a shop that sold a selection of giant giant strawberry cables. There isn't a photo of them as they didn't last that long.

Steve had planned this stop which meant that he'd done the research and found out where to go etc. Apparently there was nothing here, it was only a small town with a couple of bars. In reality the town was dominated by a massive castle and everywhere you looked there were bars heaving with tourists.

We chose a restaurant with 4 stars from Trip Advisor. We didn't have such a good experience though. Mark asked the waiter if they had wifi, he answered 'yes' and then walked off without giving us the password. We ordered our food but Steve's meal didn't arrive, so we asked the waiter who called us a lier and said that we hadn't ordered anything.

When we did get Steve's food, it was cold, we complained but the waiter just walked off. Tim got onto Trip Advisor, and lets just say that they no longer have 4 stars.

We stopped by a busy bar at the side of the castle, which emptied as soon as we had arrived, has no one told them that the crusades are over? We took over the bar anyway, Steve sorted the music out and Tim got the shots in.

Several drinks and shots later we'd turn the place into a karaoke bar which only ended when Steve kept playing Mumford and Sons. The bar keep was a good laughed and joined in with the shots, although he took offence when time asked him 'are you local?' As he though he'd said 'are you loco?'. The bar mans name was now Loco.

On the way back to the hotel Steve fell over, but he still made it back in one piece, all of those rank shots of Jays washing up liquid had took their toll. However, he did have a bed incident also, while mark and Tim were innocently fast asleep he somehow fell out...