Day 32 – 5th June 2009 – Friday

Today was a cloudy start again. We emptied the now brown water from our barrel and filled with clean clear water! And set off fairly early to explore the Picas De Europa mountain range. We stopped in a thunderstorm for Ant to have a fry up and continued climbing until we were beyond the clouds – very eerie. As we came down the other side, the sky cleared and we saw sun again. However, no sooner had the road flattened, when we had hail stones!!! We reached the lake at Riana in the centre of the National Park, but because the weather was so bad, we drove straight through without stopping. We had to find somewhere outside the park boundary to sleep before it got too dark.
We found a perfect spot on the River Esla just south of Cremenes. Picnic tables and parking area right on the river. Only a few fishermen and a couple of local boy racers parked up at various points throughout the evening so it was nice and peaceful. The weather even broke to allow me 30 minutes with my macros lens. There were however quite a few flies, so we decided to try out our new sticky fly tape trap thing…. a decision which cost me a large chunk of hair that had to be cut off 6 inches from the end! – won’t be using those again. I also managed to slice into my index finger with a bread knife, not impressed. Still at least the swelling has gone down in my left eye.
Due to all the rain, Ant had to remove all the under-van storage boxes, dry the contents again and empty the water out, a task which was completed by moonlight. The northern Spanish Mountains in June are not warm, not pretty and not advisable.