Wednesday 26th April 2023

Wednesday is transit day, and we had to drive from central to Northern Spain. It was about a three hour drive.

And all was going well until having just passed Zaragoza, right in front of us, a truck left the road and burst into flames. Thus closing the motorway.

The truck and trailer burned well for nearly an hour, the fire brigade tried to put it it, but in due course we were allowed to turn round and drive back to the previous exit.

Had we have been twenty seconds earlier, we might have been caught in it.

Just horrible.

And it was all going so well. We had packed the night before, so just had to get dressed, have breakfast and load the car. Today we counted the steps from our room to the breakfast bar four stories below, and it was 63 steps. Easy going down, but hard on the way back up!

The car was loaded, and we waited for the buses to be oaded and everyone get on, then set off in convoy back to the motoway, along the gorge then across the plains.

Really, not much to report about the journey, in this area of Spain the roads are excellent, well signposted and lightly used, so we made good time. The weather was fabulous, and it seemed all so perfect.

Then, over half way into the journey, there was a fireball ahead, and then thich black smoke. The traffic all came to a halt, and once out of the car we could see the road on fire, and the tryck beyond well alight. Locals had called the emergency services, so we just had to wait for them to come. Took about 15 minutes before the first fire engine arrived, then a second, before the police and ambulances.

Only the fire engines came past, as they tried to fight the fire. What we didn't know was that behind us, the police had opened the cetral reservation and they were turning traffic round. It came to our turn, and we were lead across to the other side of the carriageway, once we had done a three point turn, and followed all the other traffic taking a country lane to the next junction.

A column of now pale smoke hung in the air.

I guess we had lost an hour, so plans were changed. We stopped at a service station for lunch, but was really just a petrol station in an industrial area. We had a packed lunch, and then climbed back in the car and drove off, still in convoy.

The road took us down a long ravine, twisting and turning, hugging the rock face for many miles until it crossed the river by a narrow metal bridge that was single track and relied on people to give way to allow traffic coming the other way to cross.

Just then to climb the valley the other side, then drive 5 more miles through rich countryside to the village of Bordun, and our hotel for the next three nights.

After unloading the bags and cases the tour went back out, Jools stayed behind, and we went a short distance along another narrow gorge to a meadow site where we hoped to see several new species, including the Spanish Festoon.

And after half an hour of serching, a shout went up, and a pristine specemin sat on a conifer sapling in the warm afternoon sunshine.

I was doubly blessed, as late in the afternoon, a Large Tortoiseshell landed on my hand for a moment: a real close encounter.

Near to six, we all got back on the buses for the short drive back to the hotel, back along the gorge, in which I took a video.

It then dawned on me that I had just the one day left with the tour, as Jools and I would head back towards Valencia as our flight was Saturday morning.

Back at the hotel, I catch up with Jools who had sat in the garden while we were away, reading.

Dinner was served at eight, but before then, with Jools and I sitting on the patio, I spotted two exotic looking birds on a fence:

HOOPOES!

I looked towards the library where faces of the rest of the tour were looking out too at the two birds. The birds must have heard me, and flew off, we did not see them again, sadly.

Dinner was splendid local food, served in two dining rooms, with wine, and afterwards we retired to the library for coffee and a relaxing chat, while darkness fell outside.