Too warm

Mileage: 160082

At noon, we hiked across the beautiful beach of Saturraran, now exposed due to low tide, over the rocks.

We would have liked to extend our stay for another 24 hours, but unfortunately, the parking machine rejected our attempt, citing the maximum parking duration. So we packed our things and moved on. Our next destination was a campsite near Gorlitz, just before Bilbao.

We decided to take the eco-route, which was supposed to lead us away from the busy roads. So far, this had always been a good choice. However, today the route presented us with problems. After about half an hour, it led us to a small, steep road that greeted us with signs indicating an average gradient of seven percent. Gary had managed the last climbs in the Pyrenees quite well, and we felt pretty confident, but this time it didn't go well. The actual incline at some points was significantly greater than the average, nearing ten percent, making it impossible for Gary to continue even in second gear. We pulled into one of the lay-bys and shut off the engine. We could hear the water boiling in the radiator and a large puddle formed under the hood because the cooling system's pressure relief valve had opened. Then, we strictly followed the textbook. First, we waited for the engine to cool down, and after half an hour we added water. As a precaution, we checked the oil level, which was fine. When the temperature was back in the blue zone, we turned around and rolled down the switchbacks into the valley.

Now we stayed nicely on the wide, four-lane valley road. This worked well for about half an hour, then the drama repeated itself. We were completely on edge.

What was different today compared to the other days? We were out later than usual, it was already 4:00 PM, and it was 33 degrees, somewhat warmer than the previous days. Could these few degrees of outside temperature make a difference? Or had we not noticed the inclines in the past few days?

We took another enforced break, this time giving Gary plenty of time and resting for almost two hours.

We searched for a long time for a website that could show us not just the route but also the gradients of the stretch. We found one and adjusted our route accordingly.

When the shadows began to lengthen around 6:00 PM and the sun started to set behind the mountains, we made another attempt, topping off the coolant and setting off again. The heating was running at full capacity to extract additional heat from the system. It worked! We reached our target campsite without further incidents and actually checked in shortly after 7:00 PM. Overjoyed to have arrived, we embraced each other, then went to eat at the campsite restaurant, and quickly headed to bed. The day was done, despite traveling only about 100 kilometers. Unfortunately, our achievement of crossing the 160,000 km mark on the odometer went a bit unnoticed.