Ok so wake up in Poitiers and its proper freezing. Daily checks take a bit longer than planned but no major problems found and I cant do another day without music so its time to hook up franken-stereo. Bit nervous considering what happened to the last stereo but as this is now a well rehearsed routine for me with 10 minutes we have music. Ok so its not great but it will do the day and I can always err refine it on route!
Trip down to Bordeaux appears to take forever mainly because I had figured out it was actually 145 miles but we manage to cover it in 3 hours not great but ok. Bordeaux however appears to have its own equivalent of the M25 that we promptly get stuck in. This is the first of many traffic jams for the day. But its ok I was rockin’ out to a bit of thunder although tried to sing and failed miserably due to 1. Sore throat picked up weeks ago and 2. Oh yeah I can’t sing!
Once we’re out of the traffic jams things start picking up and we start making up some lost time that is until we hit the stupid toll roads just before the Spanish border. We pass a sign that we have no idea what it says… we later figure out it means queues 1hr 45 min to Spanish border! It doesn’t help that I got a text from a friend asking if I got caught up in the snow in north Spain, I have had snow all through France I was kinda hoping that Spain would be snow free isn’t it suppose to be hotter down there!?
arggg hit San Sebastian massively behind schedule in fact scheduled has gone out the window!. We then got lost for a bit in but it does looks like a beautiful city but unfortunately we have to crack on as we really need to be at the meeting point tomorrow on time one to revisit another time I think.
By 8 we are no where near our target of Salamanca and in fact no where near our absolute must get to place of Valldolid. We have a discussion and come to the conclusion the best bet is to go as far as possible and then just kip in a service station and can an early start on the road. Go to fill up the car and what do I notice… they sell Monster in the service station. The reaction was even better than pop-eye. One moment a pissed off knackered Owain and the next…. a human driving Machine. 5 hours later and we’ve passed Valldolid, passed Salamanca and well onto Plasencia. Sleeping in the car proofed less than comfortable but will be worth it to go into tomorrow without the stress of having to cover over 500 miles!
Salamanca,
Saturday, December 19, 2009
ODO reading: 155653
Miles covered: 646
