Season 7 recap …..Marc and Nick are attempting to cycle from London to Seville and raising as much money as they can for Saint Catherine’s Hospice in Scarborough. Having suffered a visit to A&E, a sprint across the Surrey and Hampshire  countryside to catch a ferry that simply will not wait, experiencing the full Brittany Ferries entertainment repertoire, cycled over 300 miles already and climbed over 16000 feet and having spectacularly failed at both their planned campsites so far, we now find them at end of day five and at the mercy of Senor Campsite Nosa Casa……and he say…..”Si, abierto!” Which is a massive relief because it really is the most amazing spot and I simply do not have it in me to cycle another yard.

In fact Senor Campsite almost falls over himself to check us in, show us to our pitch and confirm that the bar and restaurant are both open until 10pm…..we are in heaven!

As soon as we have set up the tent we take a short walk across the road to the most amazing beach. This is the reward we wanted and that we deserve.

Given our rather poor track record thus far we take the  trouble of doing a slightly more serious check of tomorrow’s planned campsite, a deep dive if you will. I even go to the trouble of sending them a WhatsApp and the message that comes back is “cerrada” (ie closed) ….which is a bugger! We spend around 30 minutes scouting around on Google maps for somewhere that can get us at least half way to Santiago de Compestela where we do have a campsite booked.  We quickly rule out trying to do it in one hit, an out of the question 110 miles and 8000 feet of climbing (nope!!) but in the absence of anything else we decide to find and book a hostel. On the website it looks ok and it’s exactly midway to Santiago, and they accept our booking and payment so, fingers crossed! I replot a route on the Garmin which reveals good news and bad news ….the good news, which I happily share with Marc is it’s only 50 miles away ….the bad news, which I don’t share, is the first 20 miles is all up and one of the climbs looks truly horrific…..never mind, what he doesn’t know can’t hurt him!!

Tomorrow planned and sorted we settle in for pasta dinner again and a couple of beers with the most beautiful view out across the beach…..we have named this campsite “best ever”.

We wake up as is now the norm at 6am, although this time I feel like I slept rather well…which is new and v v  welcome. Given we have only 50 miles we take a rather leisurely approach to packing up and heading (I still haven’t the heart to tell Marc we need to get a wriggle on because it is going to be a slow and tortuous day) and we eventually set off at a rather tardy 730am.

The first 15 miles or so are normal ish….its relatively cool, given the sun is barely up, and relatively flat compared to yesterdays challenge. Then the first of three “notable” climbs (according to Garmin) arrives and whilst it’s hard going we push through and it gets done. Shortly after the second climb hoves into view and it really is a proper “clencher” (no idea what that means but it’s the first word that came to mind and I am sticking with it!). We grind out the inches all the way to the top and allow ourselves a little mini celebration (please remember that all the while I know the first two climbs are simply an “amuse bouche” for what is to come, Marc however is blissfully unaware). We arrive at the bottom of what I can already see is going to be a brutally horrific climb at around 930 and the ordeal begins.

We have, as you know done some climbing in our time but this climb is up there as one of, if not the toughest. It’s often over 15% (which it too much) and it goes on and on and on for over 5 miles. We pause a lot taking on water and food, frequently for 5 minutes at a time without a single word exchanged. At that point I do tentatively ask Marc “are we still friends?”. I am still waiting for his reply!

Eventually we literally crawl on our hands and knees over the summit and begin the blissfully long slow drop down. It’s getting much more “el Scorchio” now (as you can see in the pictures) so the next 30 miles are by no means easy but they are mostly flat or down which feels like an absolute blessing.

We roll into our “hostel” (more about that tomorrow) around 3pm, our earliest finish yet albeit our shortest in miles and our hardest in climbing. Day six is over and I am starting to feel more confident we really can do this….hope I haven’t jinxed it!