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Neil: Today has been a chapter of accidents but all is well at the end of the day. You can see why the Basques wanted to separate, everywhere is factories and hills with hard working people. This all makes for really unpleasant cycling , joining traffic from left and right, all of it in your face, with sudden short sharp hills. At one stage it looked like we were joining a motorway. Biking software like Komoot or Outdoor active shows the way. I am leading so have to shout over my shoulder to Ceri. We stop at a small shop, I forget to unclip my shoes, smack onto the pavement, people help me up , chain has come off, chain rips the back of my calf. Nothing worse than injured pride and puzzled onlookers. The short hills are extremely steep. Picnic in vibrant town square. Eventually things improve and we follow the valley up towards Tolosa. The Basques have painted out the Spanish signs which adds another stressful dimension! Steadily climbing we reach our destination. We realise we are in Spain as siesta time is upon us. Ceri pens the following addendum!

Ceri: Our hotel has a garage a little way away where we could store our bikes. Getting in was OK as she’d given us a pin to enter and the door rolled up. We left our bikes safely but the pin didn’t work to close the door. We had to press a switch inside, but every time we did this then left the garage, it triggered the door to stop closing and crushing a car. I’ve now started giggling. Neil tried all sorts of ways and speeds between pushing the button and running out but each time he triggered the door to stop moving. I had a few goes too. Laughing more at each failed attempt. We were triggering the beam low down across the entrance. Now imagine the theme tune to Mission Impossible and continue reading. Neil’s decided to try a Tom Cruise approach. (I’m now in absolute hysterics) Surely he wouldn’t!!! But he did!!! He pressed the switch, lay down on the garage floor and rolled and rolled under the beam and onto the street. It worked!!!! He did it!!! The door closed successfully and we laughed all the way back to the hotel. It turned out the lady should have given us a different key to get out. What a day it’s been!!!!

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