It was 31o C and a cold one slipped easily
down my throat. The cyclists were lying in the hot sun, and yet this
was still England. We were awaiting our pickup from the European Bike
Express, which was on the way down from Middlesbrough. They do three
routes: Alpine, Mediterranean and Atlantic. For some of the cyclists
this was their third trip, a good omen I thought. The Alpine route bus
pulled in, on time to the second, picked up its passengers and their bikes,
and was off. Soon we were on the Mediterranean bus, off and rolling.
The idea is that buses drop you off en route and pick you up at a mutually
agreed point somewhere on the return route.
I was taking ‘time out’ from urban London and its tourists,
to join all the rest of the tourists who had gone to the Costa Brava.
Through ‘The London Cyclist’ I had found out about the Bus
and its enormous specially designed bike trailer. This was a holiday
that had to be taken in a limited time. I wanted to chill out, with some
good food, wine and a little exercise, in other words, fifteen days of
fun in the sun, or so I hoped.
A couple called the Champions were taking their tandem. They had King
of the Mountain racing jerseys – and of course they were dropped
off in the south of France to do some climbing. Meanwhile I and one of
the other fellow cyclists, John McGuigan, spent the night at the town
at the end of the line. Empuriabrava is a large holiday town, with large
campsites, and man made canals with hundreds if not thousands of moorings
each with their own house! It was not exactly what I wanted from my holiday
but I knew that if I looked around I would find many uncrowded places.
The next day John cycled off. I stayed another day as my birthday was
coming up and I wanted to celebrate. And celebrate I certainly did.
I swam in the Med, went for a cycle ride, ate an excellent fish dinner,
drank lots of wine with some Germans, and then smoked a cigar. The next
morning I woke up somewhere near my tent and decided it was time to move
on. The idea was to spend two or three days at a different campsite and
explore the local area in a cycling softy sort of way.
A good campsite on the other side of town in a small National park, called
‘Camping Laguna’ became a favourite. Laguna is still big
but it faces the sea, and the town can be reached by wading across the
Lagoon exit or a fourteen kilometre ride to the nearest bridge. My next
stop going south was a small town called Sant Pere Pescador, a campsite
by the river, which of course was called, ‘Camping El Rio’.
This place is the start of a cycle track that leads all the way to L’Escala.
From here it was a delightful days gentle cycling starting on a slightly
roughish track from the river, continuing by the sea and ending up as
a paved track into L’Escala, a popular resort but at the same time
still a nice old town.
I had travelled down the coast on a boat and had seen some great looking
harbours, from Rosas to a lovely town called Cadaques, and had decided
that not withstanding a very hard climb, I would visit it. At first the
fifteen Kilometre climb seemed not too bad, then perspiration broke out
all over my body – or was it the red wine leaking out of my system? Then
I began to wonder: why was I carrying so much gear? It’s at times like
this that I remember all the stories about the cyclists who cut their
toothbrush in half, have an extra small toothpaste tube and also don’t
carry a bottle of wine in their bottle cage! The hill grew steeper, the
cars hooted to give me encouragement, the sweat streamed into my eyes.
I looked up and the lovely girl in front said, “If you can’t keep
up you don’t deserve me”. Another two Kilometres and I new the
fantasy of the girl wasn’t enough to keep me going, so I changed
the fantasy to an Afghanistan warlord chasing me on horseback and I had
to get to the top before he cut my head off. I collapsed finally at the
top of the hill with clouds all round me, so no vista after all that effort.
Then rolled all the way down to Cadaques, wimped out and booked into a
hotel for this one night. The film the ‘The Bourne Identity’
had its last happy scenes in this town and it was certainly worth the
pain of the climb. Should I come back this way again, I will certainly
revisit this picturesque town by the sea. My one mistake was to buy a
disco ticket without looking or listening properly to the seller. It
turned out to be for young people between the ages of twelve to sixteen.
Embarrassing, especially when the doorman asked me, “where is the
young person that you’ve brought with you”? As he looked
at my one ticket and me!
Back on the Bus, John, the Champions and I exchanged stories and drank
some wine, maybe more than a little, as the bus rolled on into the night,
through France and on to England – and yes we did have fifteen days
of fun in the sun.
About Tony, the author of this article: I have worked,
lived and rolled about this lovely planet from a very young age and in
fact just back from a magazine shoot in Rio. I’m nearly sixty five, still
alive, my get up and go has not completely got up and gone and like good
whisky I’m still going strong. If you would like to contact Tony, his
e-mail address is: tony@annis.co.uk
