According to plan I left Quillan at 07:00, or there abouts, with a strong wind behind me all the way. It felt fantastic finishing this part of the journey, the end of the Pyrenean chain. Why? Well, I feel a slight sense of achievement having completed what I imagine to be the difficult part of the trip; I’m sure the worst of the weather is soon to be behind me; I’m looking forward to starting work in Segovia; and since I have a “Rough guide to Spain” I will feel a lot more confident planning each day’s ride with regards to accommodation.

While passing through the mountain gorge on the far side of Quillan the black clouds on my back were constantly threatening to over come me but as soon as the the road and I had dropped to a certain level they seemed to evaporate out of sight, making way for the early morning sun which showed off the colours of the rock face and the mountain foliage.

Since the sun was soon low in the sky I felt cold cycling in my shorts which brought to mind childhood memories of the Valentines who owned the local sweet shop, or more particularly how their youngest son was made to wear shorts to school the whole year round, as a result in the depths of winter the bare skin of his young legs would protest to the cold by coming out blotches in various shades of purple and blue. The three Valentine brothers used to go home for their mid-day meal so when the bell went for lunch some of the kids would give Trevor (who was in my sister’s class) small bundles of change wrapped up in scraps of torn out pages from copy books upon which we would have written our sweets order.

Half way through today’s ride as I stopped to take a photograph of the Pyrenees range I was leaving behind I figured I would get a good shot from the bridge just around the bend in the road ahead of me. Once there I was stunned when I turning to look back along the direction I had travelled by the sight of a towering snow capped mountain far in the distance which looked like it was wearing a ruff of white clouds close to the snow line. With the early morning sun striking the main bulk of the mountain but not yet high enough to illuminate its base an illusion of the mountain floating on thin air was perceived.

Although there is a star rating system in place there doesn’t seem to be much consistency with the campsites. Last night’s in Quillan was three star and charged € 5.80. Today’s two star site is charging me € 8.67 and its standard is grim with dirty toilets and wash basins, an cold showers). The two star up the road (Al Fourty) was asking € 13.70 per night.

Last night my tent was pitched on a section of the campsite bordering the forest, a forest which stretched as far as the eye could see up the mountain side. While I slept (or tried to sleep) by the roadside not long after leaving Bayonne I could hear the rumble of care tyres on the road from quite a distance as they approached my hide. In a similar way, lying in my tent last night I could hear the gust of winds approaching from far up the mountain, only on this occasion its aural warning was the rustling of the tree’s leaves, getting louder and louder as it approached. The noise brought to mind the breaking of huge sea waves on the shoreline. The real un-nerving part was the moment just before the wind reached my tent; the line of trees marking the forest’s edge and the start of the campsite were coniferous but the bulk of the forest was of deciduous stock so as each gust of wind made its way down the mountain towards me the chorus of rustling from the deciduous trees grew ever louder, only to ambiguously die suddenly as it passed through the silent needles of the conifers. So when the gust finally took hold of my tent it appeared to come from nowhere.