Day 9. Well, who would’ve thought we would end up participating in a knot tying course? It was more like a therapy session for us. The crew onboard the Portsmouth to Bilbao ferry were fantastic, and we chatted about what we were doing and why, whilst they taught us how to tie reef and sheepshank knots and a Monkey’s fist.
The crossing was flat calm with some beautiful, bright sunshine, something sadly lacking on the trip so far. We all had a chance to catch our breath and sort out final arrangements for our arrival in Gibraltar.
Day 10 brought yet more rain and it was pretty cold too – not quite what we were expecting! We were also reunited with Craig Needham, SATCO from Wattisham, who met us straight off the boat. He had always planned to meet us for the trip down to Gibraltar and managed to squeeze in the first round of the British Superbikes at Navarro the day before. It was hosted by one of our supporters OMG Racing who’ve been incredibly helpful since the start of us planning the tour.
We decided to stay off the motorways as much as possible, as we had two days to make it to “The Rock” – and we were so glad we did. The roads were stunning. Some fantastic sweeping bends mile after mile and some very straight roads as well. We didn’t realise there was such a Roman influence.
We stopped for lunch in Segovia, a gorgeous Roman town with a huge stone aqueduct running through the middle. Then it was quickly back on the road heading for Toledo, our stop for the night. We found a local’s bar for a very overdue beer after 329 miles. After ordering some tapas, it was off for an early night because were we all pretty tired and had another early start in the morning. If you’ve never been to Segovia or Toledo, I’d highly recommend a visit if you’re in the area – they are both beautiful.
