Where are we going? Alicante? Cartagena? I don't know...

17/1/13

Today dawned with sunshine. Well, there was a bit of sunshine poking through the menacing grey clouds, and the wind was there again.

We had a relaxed morning with a late breakfast because it's only a two hour ride to Alicante where we will meet our new friend to be, Marlena. She doesn't get home from work until after six so there is no rush to get there before that.

Check out the size of that breakfast.

After breakfast I spent about an hour trying to get the Tom Tom sat nav to talk to my intercom headset - without any success at all. I really am reaching the end of my tether with this dud Tom Tom sat nav. I even considered asking a policeman if I could borrow his gun so I could shoot the thing.

On a positive note Suzanne made a new friend. Meet Yago...

Isn't he gorgeous? 

And he loves a cuddle.

Yago lives next door to the hotel and he was very lucky this morning. He got the leftovers from Suzanne's breakfast, and was VERY thankful although his table manners need a bit of work.

Then we found out that that our Welsh friend Leigh (of Isle of man and Assen TT fame) was going to be in Cartagena for the weekend. Cartatgena is only about a hundred kilometres from Alicante, so we should catch up. He's attending a track weekend with about sixty other poms. They load their bikes on a few trucks and send them to Spain, then they all fly down for a few days of riding fun.

So we changed our plans.

We'll go to Cartgena and catch up with Leigh on Friday, then up to Alicante and see Marlena on the weekend. Easy. So off we went on out two and a half hour ride to Cartagena. The wind was bad again, but but not as bad as yesterday. It was cloudy and we encountered a little rain at the start, but it didn't amount to much.

All the way along the motorway there were warning signs about high winds and there were wind socks on most of the bridges. There were also some HUGE wind farms along the side of the road. There were probably a hundred of these generators in one spot we rode past. They're big, and when there is that many of them, they look pretty impressive, if not intimidating.

The farm lands we had been riding through turned to rocky landscape and it looked pretty barren. The mountains appeared to be huge rocks poking up out of the ground.

Suzanne said she'd rather be riding down this track that the motorway. Me too.

More mountains.

The landscape was fairly severe.

Jagged rocky outcrops.

Are we going through there? Yes we did.
It was a lot easier than I expected.

The cloud formations were  really interesting.

Today was the warmest we've been for months. he thermometer on the bike was reading between seventeen and twenty degrees for most of the afternoon. Dare we take the linings out of our jackets yet? Is this really the end of the cold weather for a while?

This amazing building is on the main drag.

We'll have to find out more about it.

We stopped at a cafe and fired up our computer and phones to try and contact Leight to find out where he was staying. It turned out he was in a hotel about on hundred metres down the road. Off we went and booked into the hotel next door. It was so good to go out wearing a T Shirt and feel comfortable. I do like being warm. Then it was off to the bar for a catch up drink, or two.

 It was really good to catch up with Leigh,

he's a top bloke.

 Leigh was very well behaved because he had a big day at the track the following day. Can you tell?

 Dinner time. Yum!

Leigh was travelling with his bother Erin and a mate John, who were both riding on the weekend as well. We enjoyed catching up and it was a fun night, even if it was an early one. The boys did have to be good because it was going to be a huge weekend of riding.

See you at the track tomorrow guys...