(Hopefully some pics to follow)
We arrived in Santander as planned then panic! Les's vans alarm was going off and the immobiliser had kicked in. We had to push the bugger off the boat and work on it by those blue and white concrete blocks as you drive onto the bow. (there was a distinct possibility that we could have seen you riding on! ). Anyway, Les disconnected the alarm box and hurled the offending item into the sea. Van still wouldn't start, so he removed the dash and started hacking wires off the loom. Eventually, we got going about an hour and a half late!
We had a very pleasant week at the Torrecerredo. Jim, Pilar and the staff were really good fun. We were not too sure to start with, but they are really OK. Pilar kept trying to get an answer from the Parks about us getting a permit. The boss man was ducking and diving to keep out of her way! Anyway, beds were comfy. Breakfast and specially the evening meals were gut-busters. Good solid grub and plenty of it. After chatting with Jim on several evenings in the bar, we found enough lanes to keep us busy for maybe 4 days without going into the Park area. He even lent us his GPS. A lot of 'em are not shown on the map - you just follow your nose and see where you come out. Some trails were quite testing and technical. However, the load of lanes shown on the map up around Cangas de Onis are a mixture. Some of the jeep trails have now been concreted or tarmaced. Others look like they havent been used in years. Found some nice lanes between Arenas and the North coast. Nice forestry tracks etc.
Anyway, we decided to walk the Cares Gorge on the Wednesday, because Jim said the weather was going to be shite for riding - and he wasn't wrong. We got to Cain after a 3 hour slog, at about 2.30. Jim and a gang of his walkers (a good natured mob of about 16) were already there and were about to set off back to Poncebos. Jim advised us not to hang about long cos it was going to piss down. It did. Started at about 3pm and rained heavy and solid until Friday morning at 8.30am. The rivers, which had been virtually dry, turned into raging torrents by Thursday morning. Massive logs and small tress were being swept down and out to sea. On the way back from Cain, about 45mins walking, we heard a massive bang like a bomb going off, and then a loud rumbling that went on for about a minute. Looking back down the gorge path we could see a large dust cloud by the path we had been on 20 mins earlier. A big rock collapse had taken the path out and into the gorge bottom. Lucky or what? We heard that on the Thursday, another section fell and took out a larger bit of the path and also destroyed part of the hydro electric canal that runs alongside. Dodgy stuff.
Thursday was a complete washout. We decided to drive down into Potes for a bit of a wander round our old haunts and to do a bit of shopping. Got very bloody wet, as did the coaches of Spanish tourists that were wandering around. Nowt else to do but go somewhere else, so we went off back up the Hermida, hung a left and drove into Cangas de Onis. By this time the weather had really got going - stair rods and howling winds. The town was basically under about 3 inches of water. We stood on the famous Roman bridge with our new brolly's, watched the raging waters racing past below, and let the wind turn our new brolly's inside out! Driving back to Arenas, you could see the rivers getting really angry - not much flooding oddly enough - going too fast I guess. We ended up back at the hotel and had a night on the piss!
Friday dawned murky, but DRY(ish). Mike was champing at the bit to get going again, so we kitted up and went off up to Poncebos along the gorge to have a look at a section of road that had collapsed into the river. The water cascading off the rocks had burrowed under the tarmac and washed it all away taking the Armco with it. We had a word with a Guardia Civil to see if we could go on a bit further to Tielve (towards Sotres) where there was another collapse and a rock fall blocking the road. He wasn't too keen to let us go on, but shrugged his shoulders in the end and let us go. The road along the gorge was like a river - maybe under 4 inches of water. Hell of a mess. Gonna take em ages to get it repaired. Having had a butchers, we turned round and went cross country on unmarked tracks back over to Cangas de Onis and the track network up there. Spent a day exploring. Some good some bad. Then we headed up and down between the foothills and the coast. One track led us into a forest that started to feel like something from the Lord of the Rings - very dark and foreboding. Got narrower and steeper and rockier. 3 stream crossings (which were running fast and deep)and I was getting nervous. Mike chugged onwards and upwards while Les and myself talked about retracing our steps. Eventually, Mike came back and said that the forest goat track came out onto a jeep trail. So we pressed on. Jeep trail turned out to be almost vertical with bloody great rocks and washouts that had been caused by the rain. Real struggle, and time was getting on. We eventually made it to tarmac and decided we had had enough, so headed back to Arenas and a hot bath and a beer or three.
Saturday and Sunday were similar, but we started to feel that we were running out of possibilities, although there are more lanes there I'm sure. They will just take time to find. You certainly need a GPS to find the start of some of them.
Anyway, although the weather was awful for 2 days, we had a good time. The whole of Northern Spain was virtually flooded, and several people died. Drowned / swept away etc. NOTHING reported in the UK about it! Amazing!!!
Vic |
