Spain

We waited in Port Bacares for another night for the wind but it never showed so decided to give up and move onwards to Spain. A spot near to the Ebro Delta sounded particularly promising as it was billed in the book as “one of the windiest places on the Spanish med”. There wasn’t much time to get to Ibiza so we decided to skip to the whole of the Costa Brava and drive on down to Tarragona.

We spent a good seven hours on the road including a 2 mile tailback for the border caused by over enthusiastic border guards?? no, just some guys handing out leaflets.. and arrived that evening in St Carlos de la Rapita. The Spanish seemed to be putting a lot of money into building decent roads and the driving was a lot quicker than on the French side. Another bonus was that even if they were re-surfacing the road they didn’t close it off, we’d met with many “route barre” in France which had resulted in a number of detours adding costly mileage. St Carlos looked to be a pleasant Spanish town and it was much sunnier and warmer than France. After a couple of beers (and a good time on the PSP) we decided to walk into town to see if we could find somewhere for tapas. Before setting-off the 3 mile walk into town hadn’t sounded that much, however, once we started along the busy road that smelt of shit we soon realised the error of our ways. We tried to walk along the sea front but the path was equally treacherous. After 40 minutes or so with no sign of any bars a good 20 minutes still to get into town and with the darkness approaching Ste decided to call the abort and suggested we had back before it got too late. There were a number of cross words spoken given the long drive, hazardous walk and now a 40 minute walk back to the van which had little food in it, however, the journey back was fine and Ste managed to put together a meal before we crashed out.

The next day we cycled into town to get a feel for the place, try and find some wifi and check the conditions. The forecast looked light for that day but afterwards it was predicted to build to a good 40 knots for the next few days. Ste decided we should cycle out to the spot and have a good look at the ebro delta along the way. We set off in the sunshine with only water and two bananas for sustenance. Ste assured me it would be more than adequate for the 10 miles out and 14 back to the campsite. The road was flat and predominately straight but with little shade. We saw a large amount of bird life; egrets, herons and many other sticky legged birds including flamingos. We also saw snakes, frogs, crayfish, and hundreds of shrimp. When we finally made it to the beach at Trabucador we agreed it had been worth the cycle. There was a lovely undeveloped white sand beach on one side and on the other side of the sandbar a decked area and pier with perfect flat water conditions. We sat and enjoyed our bananas and then began the long cycle home.

Needless to say it wasn’t the nicest ride in the hottest part of the day with no food nor shade, some cross words were had when we got back to the town at gone 3pm and all the restaurants were closing after lunch (SD - 20 miles @ around 15mph would have been fine as the terrain was flat... Sarah's moochy pace unfortunately brought the average down to about 10 so it did take longer than planned in the heat of the day). However, we found a nice supermarket and got some food went back and crashed out at the van. Later on we headed back to Trabucador after we had spotted kites up in the distance. Once we got there the wind was too light to get going but we enjoyed a beer on the deck. The next day we checked out of the campsite and headed straight to the spot. It was fairly windy so we tried to get going early on but there just wasn’t quite enough. We chilled out in the sun for a bit and as the afternoon drew on the wind increased to a decent amount. We both headed out on the water and had a great session on the flat water. The highlight of the session definitely had to be when we were both some way out and spotted Flamingos flying overhead.