Apologies in advance….this is going to be a short one today. Its taken 10 1/2 hours of relentless torture to get safely to our campsite in Riaza and so you will understand if we are not super keen to re-live it….. we also need to eat and sleep very very soon.

Last nights meal was not quite up to the same standards as the previous night but it was definitely up there. It’s apparently a thing in Spain to have a “destination” restaurant as part of your campsite. I am certainly not complaining and suitably re-fuelled we head back to the tent around 2130.

We already know that tomorrow is going to be a tough ride but nothing, and I mean nothing could have properly prepared us. Today was an absolute beast of a day and the person typing this now for you is an empty husk and a shadow of his former self….honestly, I am totally broken. I am praying the pictures will do it justice (and do most of the talking) so I don’t have to.

We expected a lot of open space of course and beautiful scenery and of course lots of climbing …..but this part of Spain takes “nothingness” to a whole new level. We barely see a car or a person all day, we don’t see a single shop or bar and I can count on one had the number of houses we see. It’s just a yawning chasm of total and utter emptiness!

The highlight of the day, apart from it being over, is Marcs truly brilliant performance on BBC Radio Hereford and Worcester. I am clearly hobknobbing with a star of the future!

Unsuprisingly, given we are in the middle of nowhere, our nature count moves on from cat, dog, fish, tree, flower and now includes stork, deer, rabbit and vulture …some of which we get on camera ( and most we don’t!)

We make incredibly slow progress….it’s hot, it’s relentlessly hilly (we just bob up and down around the 4000 feet mark all afternoon) the garmin consistently lies and we haven’t had a phone signal for about 6 hours to cross check and there is a stiff wind in our faces all day. Our misery is complete when the Garmin takes us down the most insanely steep gravel track. Even I, whose motto is “in Garmin we trust!” has to concede that a really bad day is getting worse. We eat all our food, we drink all our water and with 10 miles still to go we both know this is as tough as it gets. We eventually stagger into Riaza (looks nice too exhausted to care) around 1730 and literally collapse into the campsite.

It’s fair to say that today has absolutely destroyed us…..tomorrow has to be a better one.