Day 11. It was Tuesday morning and there was a bright orange thing in the sky emitting heat, and not a cloud in the sky. This was more like what we’d been hoping for. We thought the ride to Toledo was spectacular, but it didn’t come close to what was about to come next. Once we were out of the city, we were back on some lovely roads, with smooth road surfaces, and no cars! It was great having Craig Needham, SATCO from Wattisham back with us again, like Robbie reuniting with Take That haha!
We stopped in Cordoba for lunch but we weren’t that impressed (I’d skip this town if touring Spain or maybe we just didn’t find the right part). We then rode on to Ronda and this was truly the most exhilarating riding so far. It was up through mountain passes, descending the other side, crossing valleys, left, right switchbacks, before climbing again. The views were unbelievable. Without doubt, the most fun, exciting, breathtaking, and challenging riding I’ve ever done. For around 40kms, it felt like we were riding on a private road, reserved just for us. If you ride a bike, please do this one day, you won’t regret it.
Once down out of the mountains, it was onwards to Gibraltar. We’ve had our satnavs set to no motorways, which with hindsight is not the best way to get to The Rock. We’ve made very few wrong turns along the way but getting there proved tricky, avoiding motorways meant nearly missing Gibraltar altogether. Luckily for us, Craig has been here a few times, so took over the navigation and led us in. There can sometimes be a little friction at the crossing but after being redirected to the motorcycle lane, which wasn’t at all obvious to us, it was a quick show of the passports, and we were in.
We weren’t prepared for what happened directly after the border…scooters!!!! They were everywhere and seemingly no road rules either. The place is manic with scooters flying down your left and right-hand sides, how we didn’t hit one I shall never know? Luckily, we didn’t have to go too far to get to our hotel and park up.
We’ve been on the road for 11 days solid and it was always the plan to meet up with family in Gibraltar. Wayne’s wife Ruth had flown in, as we hadn’t seen her since leaving Elaine’s on day one. Harvey’s girlfriend Angela was there to meet him, she had also been at Elaine’s with us, along with Louise, who, without her support and organisational skills, we’d never have got out of Scotland! Richard’s son Ben, who designed our tour logo also flew in to support us.
It was so amazing to see familiar faces as we pulled into the car park after riding over 2,000-miles so far. Louise had organised for us to park our bikes overnight on the military side of the airport, so we dropped them off just around the corner from the hotel, before grabbing a quick shower, pizza and cold beer.
