Day 3 - Estepa to Montero

If there is a day on this journey that I wont remember so well, it will probably be today. Because, not a great deal really happened.
However today was day three of cycling. Which is more than I have ever done consecutivly before. I have only ever done 2 days in a row of cycling in the past. I've never done 3, or 5 or indeed 25!
This morning I had a look to see how I was doing. I have planned a day off in Ciudad Real. Its an early day off, but due to the above, I'm not wanting to over do it too early. I realised that Ciudad Real was about 260km away. Meaning that at 100km per day, I'd end up hitting the town half way through a day. Which would waste a lot of time. So figured if i could push some extra km out of today and tomorrow, I could get to Ciudad by the end of tomorrow. Which would put me ahead of schedule!

So off I went, got the bike out of the hostals garage, and headed off. Stopping at this garage in the middle of nowhere for breakfast. Tomatoe and Oil on Toast, is about all that was on offer! What I really needed was a good old English fry up!!
Then onwards and onwards. Absolutely amazing power coming out of the legs today. Feeling great! Also travelled through some serious heat. And some extremely barron landscape. Amazing views. Just everything yellow. But made fantastic progress.
Ended up in Aguilera de la frontera. Big sign saying that the road I wanted was closed, and was diverted into the maze of cobbled streets and serious hills in the city centre. Inland spain seem to have all their little towns on the side of hills! Plus cobbled streets, bump bump bump. Tonnes of traffic, its horrible for the bike. Plus lots of people staring thinking "What the?" as I troddle past. Got completely lost in this place. Didnt even want to be here! Using GPS managed to get myself out, back to where I started, and then thought sod it. Lets just go through the no entry sign anyway! Then went straight past a copper who didnt care! Got out, and back on route! Achieved a mile stone of 10% of the journey done! Right on schedule at 2 and a half days in!
Really was deciding how many kms do I today. Hit the town of Boulance which was my 100km for today. I also got to the 100km in record time aswell and still had plenty of the day left. So thought, ok next town Montero which was another 15km on. I'll go there. I got there and thought. Yeah lets call it one. I really dont want to over do it.

No camping anywhere, and just a nice 4 star hotel to sit down for the night. But at 40 euros including breakfast, it is hard to say no. Im sure I will do more camping soon!

Tomorrow I will do 140km to ciudad real. I will break of Andalucia also. A major achievement on route! Looking at the Terrain map, Andalucia wont say goodbye without some serious hills, and Castilla La Mancha will greet me with some mountains. Expecting a very hard day tomorrow. Then I get a day off the bike to go see Ciudad Real on Thursday. Back in the saddle Friday, and then another 550km to Pamplona where another break is scheduled. I actually dont feel like I need the break in Ciudad Real, as Im still going strong and spirits are high. But I'm erring on the side of caution here.

Have been featured on ITV Regional News - Calendar tonight! Big thanks to my brother Jonathan for getting that one arranged!

Todays stats
Start	Estepa.10:00
End	Montero.18:35
Saddle Time	5 hr 25 min 45 sec.
Distance travelled	118.07km
Average Speed	21.6kph
Max speed	59.0km