Continental Blog – Day 14

With the last day mileage of 63 miles we will have arrived at a total of 1267 miles as we ride into Gibraltar.

This Blog is late because while WiFi is free in Spain and France, by Law, in Gibraltar it is amazingly expensive so I have waited to get back to London. The plane however showed the total distance from Gibraltar to Heathrow as 1,324 miles. This all seems correct as we took a very wiggly route down through France and Spain to avoid proper roads where possible and to maximise the number of bridle paths !!! We have actually all enjoyed the route and we all thanked Andy Brown for his hard work planning the ride.

The final day saw us leave Ronda in the general direction of Gibraltar. It was noticeable that the first sign we saw naming Gibraltar was a mile from the border and it is fair to say that there is little harmony between the Spanish and the people of Gibraltar.

We took a while to leave Ronda as we stopped by the spectacular Punto Nuevo to take pictures as hot air balloons appeared on the horizon in a quite spectacular manner. This so called ‘New Bridge’ was built many centuries ago and was truly awesome to see. It dropped around 100 metres. It is not a suspension bridge but built of stone arches.

We had been told that it was all downhill from Ronda to Gibraltar but that was another lie !!!!! We climbed dramatically to over 1,400 metres from Ronda at 665 metres and then we went down to sea level. The climb out of Ronda was very dramatic and we were treated to unbelievable views across the valleys.

Hannah excelled on the bike and rode all the way over the mountains leaving her father struggling in her wake. Well almost !

There was a ‘last day of school’ atmosphere as people ambled through the mountains taking every possible opportunity to take coffee on the side walks or pictures of the awesome views. There were no punctures or crashes, no spectacular incidents to report just a pleasant cruise up the mountain to lunch and a leisurely ride down to the border. Everyone arrived safely in Gibraltar and in good health and great spirit.

At the border the Police awaited to escort us to the Sports Centre for food and Mira, the Chairwomen of Cancer Research Gibraltar, met us and marshalled the police and guided us to the Sports Centre where the Minister for Culture and Sport met us and hosted us to Paella and beer !!! Speeches were made and it was an emotional scene. The architects of the trip, Tim Frank with his friends Guy Rafferty and Lionel Jones, who founded Inspired Living, led us into the reception. See the photo’s. To the left is Tim, Lionel and Guy. Below is a picture of Tim with the Minister and Mira.

Hugs were universally exchanged and it was clear that the group had bonded well despite the enormous array of personalities.

Late night activities saw Rob a little under the weather from alcohol and having lost his passport which we believe to have been left in the bag on his bike which was on route back to England when we realised that we had a problem. Fortunately luck was on our side and Rob managed to talk his way onto the plane and into England at Heathrow ! Would you believe that he travelled over 1,300 miles without his passport and got into the UK !!!!

It was a great two weeks and we will all miss each other tomorrow.

Brilliant adventure and great to know all the participants, David and Hannah and all of you who have followed our adventure.

Best wishes to you all.

Post by Andrew Gibson