the ups and downs

To reach Soller on the north coast we have to finish the climb to a tunnel which marks the pass.  The road is open exposed to the sun, the landscape now rocky.  It doesn't take us long from our campspot and we are overtaken by more rad cyclists who probably set off much earlier than us, but have probably already cycled 50km.  A passing english cyclist calls out "congratulations" to us as we approach the top. "Thanks" I shout back "but how did you know it's my birthday?".  We are both sick of the friendly condescension of the road bikers.  The descent is long and glorious - we can't comprehend how high we had climbed since leaving Pollenca.

a view of Port de Soller

Soller sits at the foot of a great natural bowl.  The encircling Tramuntana mountains form an impressive barrier in the south.  The town itself is inland from the coast - perhaps to keep out of sight of marauders.  When the arabs were here they planted out the steep hillsides with lemon and orange groves to which olives have been added.  The produce made the town wealthy and it looks a really nice place.  We take a room in a pension so we can rest, explore and soak it up.  

Tourists can reach the town by train from Palma and there's also a road through a tunnel but we eventually leave by climbing the old road snaking up above the tunnel.  It is, understandably, another popular cycling route with quite a few hairpin bends.  At the pass is a cafe run by an englishh couple specifically for the seasonal cyclists who now clap us when we arrive.  Patronising buggers.

a patronising bugger took this photo for us

 We have arranged to meet our friends Claire and Mick with their kids Jess and Jack in two day's time and we are ahead of our schedule so we try to ride slower and take shorter days.  It's not like we've been clocking up the kilometres.  Far from it.  In the village of Bunyola we meet another touring cyclist, a Catalan.  So we aren't alone.  Loaded with water we turn north east and head back into the mountains.  The road is narrow and twisting and the forest provides some welcome shade in the afternoon.  There appears to be nowhere to camp, but then we spy a footpath leading up to some ledges in the woods.  Once again, we strip the bikes on the roadside and then shuttle everything into the undergrowth to avoid being seen.  There are more of the 'Big Game' hunting signs so we post a watch in front of the tent lest an elephant comes crashing out of the woods.

Inevitably there are cyclists huffing puffing up the road in the morning.  We sneak out and join some as if we've begun at the bottom like them.  On one easier stretch of the climb I suddenly notice that Gayle is speeding up.  She's spotted some cyclists slowing down.  Yes.  This is it.  We can finally overtake someone!  We finish with a few hairpins on a steep section that sorts the wheat from the chaff.  And we really are chaffed after our sprint climb.  We take the rest of the day very leisurely.  The road emerges from the thick forest into a high open valley which has been cleared for farming.  It is extremely pretty and very peaceful. We keep stopping for photos and just to enjoy the views.  It really is stunning.  

Now we're heading eastwards with the Tramuntana mountains on our left before taking the road that cuts south and into the huge valley plain that cuts east-west across the whole island.  The land is walled and fenced.  Not much chance of wild-camping.  The fencing is strange to us - much of the land is either olive trees or arable - if there are no animals being kept here, why would you need such serious fencing?  Maybe it's to keep animals out, not in.  It certainly keeps out cheeky cycle tourists.

Alora

We ride into Alora looking for water.  In  a plaza Gayle overhears a mother speaking english to her baby son.  The woman lives here and describes where we can find a water tap.   Villages traditionally have a drinking fountain in the plaza.  We start going uphill to the older part of the town but finally give up, lost, and head back to a supermarket.  While I'm inside Gayle lays down outside and is "woken up" by the same englishwoman.  Emmeline invites us to stay in her spare room in her appartment.  We're delighted.  She's a young single mum who settled here a couple of years ago.  She used to crew on superyachts and now runs an online agency that suppplies services to yachts when they're in marinas.  We have a great evening with her and her two year-old.  

Emmeline (on the right) with her flatmate

The next day our friends Claire, Mick, Jack & Jess drive over from Port de Pollenca for a picnic lunch.  It's great fun to catch up with old friends from  Manchester - especially as it wasn't planned.  Claire had written when she saw that we were in Menorca. 

You know you're on holiday when you've got an ice-cream in your hand

 All of a sudden we are having a very social time of it.  To cap it off we have great Warm Showers hosts in nearby Binissalem. Sebastia and Esperanca with their young daughter Aina welcome us into their home for a night.  Sebastia's a keen mountain-biker and probably knows all of the Sierra de Tramuntana like the back of his hand.  He helpfully suggests us a quiet route that avoids the busy roads on to Palma.  We are so lucky to meet such lovely folk.

I think Gayle was a little envious of Esperanca's workshop

one of Aina's silkworms

lanterne rouge

morning views from the first pass of the day

It's a perfect climate for cycling - no wonder there are hundreds, no, thousands of Europeans here on cycling holidays.  We stop in Port de Pollenca and Gayle has a morning dip in the bay.  An older English couple see our loaded bikes and stop to chat. They're cyclists.  Come every year.  Their hotel has a huge basement lock-up full of bikes - they leave them here because it's cheaper and easier.  (What a good business move that is.) We're amazed.  We've only just arrived, and the cycling so far, apart from the high number of rented cars, has been really good.  But we've just come through Greece and Italy where the only cyclists are locals and the scenery is fabulous.  Why would you keep coming back to the same place?

Pollença

We take a country lane through farmland to Pollença ,stop for a bit of lunch and then opt for a low valley route on a tiny country road which winds between old stone walls. Makes us think of Yorkshire.  The road rolls along and we are swept up by a peloton of Spanish cyclists.  You can't escape the buggers.  They soon leave us for dust.  

just like Yorkshire......apart from the barbed wire fence and the olives

We arrive in a large sleepy village on a hill.  The one-way system is soon ignored because we don't want to descend and then climb again.  Campanet is quiet. 

It's the end of the afternoon and in the main plaza the cafe waiters only half-heartedly try to tempt us to sit at their tables.  Loaded up with water we push on and down into another valley, sticking to the edge of the northern hills.  We are looking for a camp spot but there is too much fenced land.  We pause in Binibona, a mere blink of a village, and on to Caimari.  Too many of these stone walls.  Gates all locked.  Majorca is proving to be a test of our wild camping skills.  We cook our dinner in Caimari, foregoing the plaza which is full of mums and tiny kids all rampaging around - the kids, not the mums, opting for the church carpark.  Gayle goes for a walk to look for a camp but no dice.  So, we gird our loins and start the steep climb out of the town and into the mountains north of town.  We have woods on our right and ancient terraces on the other.  The terraces are old and look neglected in places.  Olive trees in various states.  As the road climbs a track appears and it leads into the vallley floor.  We abandon the road, dash down the track and choose a terrace with a bushy tree to hide behind.  Phew.

Over breakfast we hear cyclists puffing up the road opposite.  We soon join them.  Plodding up slowly as the road zigs and zags through the trees, to false passes, constantly climbing.  A leg burner.  The stream of cyclists on road bikes is incessant.  We get a few comments of the "You've got a lot of gear" type.  When the trees fall away and we get good views Gayle stops to take photos. 

The cyclists just keep pedalling away, heads down, arses up, rocking back and forth rhythmically, staring at the tarmac ahead of them.  Can't see the pleasure, myself.  The ride is wonderful and we reach the pass to discover a pair of walkers who we saw at the bottom have made it up the footpath quicker than us.  We really are the slow-coaches.  At a cafe we have a pee and ignore the plate asking for 1 euro.  A paunchy Englishman in lycra tells us he's on his day-off.  He's climbed this road already, just the other day.  "So why are you doing it again?" Gayle asks.

At this point the road splits.  We want to visit the monastery in the village of Lluc and we need to buy some food.  The road is straight downhill.  We will have to come back up the same way.  Oh well, here goes! 

Lluc isn't a village with a monastery.  It's just a monastery.  Thankfully there is a shop with a few groceries so we're not going to starve.  We are going to be fleeced.  The monastery gardens seem like a good place for me to get over it.  We take it in turns to wander around the grounds and the buildings.  The place is humming with the steady arrival and departure of tourists.  The carpark is full of cars and buses and cyclists crowd around the cafe, because that's what they do.  

I think they do a rolling mass for the coachloads of pilgrims and tourists

Climbing back up to the high road isn't as hard as we expected and we're soon floating westwards and enjoying the views northwards.  A broken wall gives us access to a field to enjoy our lunch.  We sit in the shade of a tree and ponder whether to camp up here.  But it's only 2 o'clock.  Instead we carry on, the road busier than ever with cyclists.  We sing the opening bars of "Daytripper" as they whizz past.  Norwegians, Brits, Dutch, Danes, Germans, Belgians.  Clipped-in, helmeted and lycraed in matching colours.  Even the socks.  What's with all the black shirts - is it a fashion to make yourself harder to be seen??  These cyclists are riding these hills every day, riding 100 km routes in circuitous loops from and back to their hotels.  It's their holiday.  We mooch along in our low gears. It all looks rather competitive considering there's no competition.  Or have we stumbled into the Tour of Majorca? In which case we surely are the lanterne rouge.

Majorca is popular for walkers - but in macho Spain only males are allowed to carry backpacks

our lunchspot

After quite a beautiful stretch of changing views full of chasms, craggy peaks and coastal cliffs (dig the alliteration!) we come to another junction - with a road off to Sa Calobra.  This is today's objective for many of the cyclists - a ride over the pass and down to the sea and then back up.  Bradley Wiggans trains on this road in the winter.  But seeing as neither of us has any, ahem, asthma medication, we give it a pass.  

 
Further along we come to a reservoir.  Above the road are woods and we seek out a nice spot in long grass on a shelf above the road.  The only trouble is we have to unload the bikes and get everything up there without being seen.  It's on a long straight stretch of road, so when there's a lull in cars and cyclists we strip the bikes bit by bit and hide the panniers in the trees.  Up and down in about five goes and then the bikes too.  Is it worth it?  It's always worth it.

cooking dinner whilst nursing my hernia

"Gayle is this elephant grass?  Should we keep an eye out for Big Game?"

big game

dozing Alcudia

Standing outside the Lidl in Port d'Alcudia. If you closed your eyes and listened to the shoppers shuffling out into the sunshine you could almost be transported to Middleton.  Almost.  The sunshine gives it away though. Welcome to Mallorca.  The culture shock of finding the port full of tattooed boozy red Brits (and that's just the kids) wears off once we get out of town and up the hill to the old town of Alcudia.  The cobbled narrow streets and sun-drenched plazas with palm trees are busy with diners eating al fresco, but it feels more peaceful here and most of the village is shutterd up for siesta.  After our picnic lunch we cycle down to the bay and along the road to Port de Pollença which is teeming with tourists but still manages to carry it off with a sedate restrained air.  We're not stopping.  

Loaded up with water we begin the steep road up to a pass.  Two or three hairpins and quite a few rental cars and buses, and we pop out at a little cafe on a clifftop.  Everyone stops for the view.  There are a lot of other cyclists here, on road bikes, in lycra, cleated shoes tap tapping about, doing the funny walk part dictated by the shoes and part dictated by the length of time crouching on the bike.  There are no other cyclists with panniers.

The road winds down into lovely cool forest and then slowly pulls us back up and along the rocky ridge of the Cap Formentor.  There's a lighthouse at the tip.  This is one of the iconic drives on the island and a favourite of the road cyclists who come to the island in their droves to enjoy the superb weather and mountainous conditions whilst northern Europe remains cold, dark and dreary.  Groups of cyclists pass us in both directions.  

"By 'eck, you're carrying a bit of weight, aren't you?" a woman with a Yorkshire accent asks as she rides alongside us.  I sit up and pat my stomach and look affronted.  "I'm trying to lose it as fast as I can" I offer.

In the forest the road is fenced on both sides.  Periodically we pass a warning sign: Danger. Big Game hunting.  The message is clear- stay out unless you want to get shot.  But what's the 'Big Game'?  We keep our eyes peeled for tigers or rhinos hiding in the dark shadows.  And then we're up and out of the woods and onto the sun-baked ridge.  There are stunning views left and right into the sea and across the headland.  

 The tarmac cavorts left and right, up and down, writhing like a dragon's back.  No, it's not writhing.  That's just us.  This is hard work on our loaded bikes.  By the time we get sight of the lighthouse we're about ready to call it a day.  But the rocky landscape is not suggesting any good wild camping, so we return along the dramatic route to the forest and clamber down below the road, out of sight of the cars and cyclists passing by above.  The sun is setting, the traffic peters out.  It's just us and the tigers now.

"Gayle, have you seen my blunderbuss?"

the west end

cartoon cows

real cows

rolling down to Ciutadella

Ciutadella is the old Spanish capital of Menorca and has a very nice feel to it.  Bike paths everywhere.  It's flat, of course, and there are plenty of cyclists.  Tourists beware!  We take a room in a family-run hotel out of the old town and spend a few days relaxing and enjoying the city.  We cook our dinners in the park to the bemusement of local dog-walkers.

I take my bike to a bike shop to see if they can extract the broken bolts stuck in my bike frame.  I ask that they don't drill the bolts out.  When I go to collect later in the day there is good news and bad news.  The good news is that they got both bolts out.  The bad news is that they drilled one out and then started to retap the screw threads.  And then the thread-tapper snapped off inside the frame.  A one-all draw then.  They don't charge me and I don't sue them for incompetency.

There's a ferry to Mallorca every day but the tickets are sold out at the weekend.  It turns out there's a marathon event on.  We happily stay a bit longer - happy to rest.  Gayle is beginning to walk normally - her muscle is finally healed.

the over-priced ferry to Mallorca

tent panto

"It's a tick."
"No it isn't."
"It is.  Look at it.  It looks like a tick, it walks like a tick."
"It isn't a tick"
"Yes it is!"
"Has it bitten you?"  
I crush it between my fingernails.
"Is there any blood in it?"  
There's none. 
"Maybe it wasn't hungry." I suggest.

We've brought the unidentified insects with us from the camp the night before.  We are camping off a farm road that is being prepared for tarmac and had to push under a chain that closed off the road.  It means we'll not be disturbed by any vehicles where we've put our tent up in an abandoned field. Well, except for the bored teenager whose riding a motorbike in doughnuts over by the farm down the valley.

The cycling has been good today.  We're back on the road and visit some of the coastal villages.  We meet four Scots who've just finished kayaking around the island.  Then we find ourselves in a resort village, quiet, just opening up for the season, but at a dead end.  We have the choice to turn around or get back on the Cami de Cavalls.  Five minutes later we're pushing our bikes over large rocks.  Thankfully it's a short push to the next coastal resort where we cut back inland to one of the roads that slice through the centre of the island.  The roads to the coast radiate out from these central roads so it means we have to backtrack if we want to go out to the beaches.

 

We really enjoy cycling the centre of the island - the farmland and old estancias are very picturesque.  We are heading towards the western end of the island but not in a straight line.  The farmers are harvesting their hay for animal feed.  The hedgerows offer good wild camping.  The days are getting longer.

not for road bikes

We find ourselves on a cycling route that takes us to the end of a road up to a dead-end valley.  The road becomes a dirt track.  It zig-zags up the hillside and climbs steeply past some farmhouses that are now holiday lets.  Back on tarmac, but still a steep climb on loaded bikes.  The view at the top is worth the effort.  Behind us the valley we've climbed from and in front of us the western end of the island.  And our first glimpse of the mountains on Mallorca.  A big downhill takes us past a couple cycling the opposite way.  We grin and they grimace.  We thought we'd come a hard way, but their climb looks even tougher.

 
Another day we find a route into another forgotten valley - wooded and green, no traffic on the farm lanes.  We cycle between high stone walls that remind us of north Yorkshire.  Eventually the road drops into a barranco, a gorge.  It's become a dirt track when we meet a Swiss couple coming the other way on foot.  The man tells us that we may not want to continue down as the road deteriorates to large stone cobbles before you cross a stream and then have to climb a gully.  It's very hard, he says.  But at the top is a road isn't there?, we ask.  Yes.  He sees we're not put off.  Ahh, you English will always find a way, says the man, smiling. But is it the right way? I counter.  

 
It's hard.  The gully has been eroded by water and the channel is too deep to wheel our loaded bikes.  We unload and porter the panniers up and then follow with the bikes.  Gayle's leg is still not healed so it's quite hard for her.  It's sunset when we get to the top and the fields are all walled.  Finally we find a collapsed wall and have to porter everything again so that we can camp in the field.