Once we were back in Spain we got a lift from Calpe with Kate after the slowest train ride in history and were soon back with our beloved van at the Oliva house.
We got back to find our van in fine fettle (other than the broken headlight courtesy of Kates horsebox) and temperatures at the highest they’ve been on the trip so far. We couldn’t really stick around and not climb anymore so we had a mission on our hands to get everything together and get the van back to normal so we could get going. After hours getting all our stuff together and doing some DIY on the van (the bed was a bit broken and so was the bike rack) we left the house to go to Barcelona at around 20:00.
The clear out
We knew we wouldn’t make it in one go so we decided to just see how far we could get. We managed to get about 3 miles down the road when Leah realised she’d left her sun glasses in the car and we had to turn back, a close shave but it was a crisis averted. Second time lucky we got away and pressed on into the night.
It was gone 3:00 when I finally decided to jack it in and stopped about 80 miles short of Barcelona. No amount of Red Bull can take away the monotony and although I could stay awake I felt like I was going slightly mad and needed to stop!
In the morning we pressed on to Barcelona and the closer we got the busier and busier the roads became until it was grid locked.
Is it London? Nope it's Barcelona
I was very much reminded of London but it was much sunnier and this London has a beach. Its Londonesque traffic, slightly more mental drivers and crazy road markings added up to a rather stressful drive through the centre. It was incredibly unfriendly to a large red van with the steering wheel on the wrong side and bike wheels sticking out the sides at the back.
After a long hunt we finally managed to find a space big enough and parked briefly, got the bikes off the back and went for a scoot about. We needed to find somewhere better to park (i.e. not 45 cents a minute!) and although the city looked awesome we kept focussed and made a beeline for tourist information. The woman in the tourist info hut told us where we could go to park but unfortunately it was about 6 miles down the road out of the city centre. We managed to find the car park, had a look at the nasty beach nearby and decided to get on the bikes again and make the 6 mile mission back into town without the burden of expensive parking.
The naff beach at Barcelona
We got into the city centre after a cool ride along the sea front where there was loads of stuff going on (even though it was fairly late afternoon by now) and we couldn’t help thinking that we could really do with a large helping of Euro’s in our pockets.
By the time we got into town most things were being packed up and we saw a vast number of shops and stalls that were tempting us. In the end we decided that we needed to come back another time with some serious spending money and bit more time to explore. Another trip is already planned (non-climbing) and we’ll be making the most of it when we get there.
We rode back to the van in the warmth of the evening and decided to have a go at getting as close to Ceuse as possible that evening. We ended up leaving Barcelona at around 8:00pm (a recurring problem with our journeys) and drove relentlessly into the night.
With about an hour to go we decided to call it quits and stopped in an “Aire” at the side of the Autoroute. We found a good spot in the trees and went to sleep.
There was only a (relatively) short drive left in the morning so we had breakfast in the sun and pressed on to Gap, the closest town to the crag.
Breakfast at an aire... Bit nicer than Watford Gap
On Arrival we saw a McDonalds and pulled in for some free internet action. After checking a few bits over and finding out where we could get the guide etc. we headed into Gap centre to find the climbing shop and get the guidebook. Gap itself is a really nice medium size town which is almost completely pedestrianized. We wandered about in the sun taking photos and finally found the climbing shop, after asking a policeman where it was. We got the book and headed for an E’Leclerc to get some supplies.
While we were there we discovered their value brand “Eco+” its ridonculously cheap and there’s loads of different stuff to choose from. We bought a selection of their tinned veg for evaluation and some treats to make the pain of the infamous Ceuse walk-in a little more bearable and headed to the van. Next up was to solve our gas problem, it seems every country has different gas bottles all with different attachments and it makes it very difficult to change your gas while you’re on the move. We had to get a new bottle but fortunately got a deal where you got a free regulator so it could have been a lot worse as they are 25 euros each!
Once our gas issues were solved (excuse the expression) we dug out the guidebook and navigated our way towards the crag. After a long climb up the hill in our incredibly slow van, we caught site of the car park that we would be sleeping in and the crag at the top of the hill.
It is MILES up the hill!
The crag a million miles away!
We both shuddered at the thought of walking all the way up and having to climb once we got there but we got ourselves and the van sorted and prepared for the monster day to come.
We awoke at a sensible hour and after getting all the kit together we packed our bags until they were rather heavy and looked ready to burst.
The kit we had to lug up the hill
After locking up the van we started the walk up the hill, it’s long, really long! It’s also very steep and very dull. It’s not really my idea of fun to go hiking before a hard days climbing and when we finally got to the top I was ready to collapse, it had taken us about 1.5 hours!
We had some lunch and tried in vain to climb something. The routes couldn’t really have suited me any less well, there is no good rests, they are long, not very steep and are covered in poor hand holds and worse footholds. We both managed to do a 6c+ on our second go and we were ruined already!
The view from the top was good
After another long walk to the other end of the crag and checking out some routes for the next day we decided to get back to the van. We couldn’t really see a path so we came up with the genius idea of making our way through the bushes until we found one, unfortunately we didn’t find one for ages and when we finally made it to a proper path we could barely hold our own weight on our legs. It must have taken us almost 2 hours to get all the way back to the van and we arrived exhausted and hungry.
