Q: Wake, Kettle or Committee?

It was early doors when I left the hotel in Valencia this morning, well just turned 9am by the time I’d completed the onerous task of lashing all the soft luggage to Reg, but it feels more like BST than Central European Summer Time, although it was 24c.

The ride northeast along the coast to Sagunto was pleasant, The Med just 50 metres to my right in some places, and the still relatively low sunshine casting a long shadow across the lane on my left of a solo motorcyclist on a cruiser style bike, it felt good. Even on a two lane motorway on a Saturday the traffic was light enough to set the cruise control without needing to make many adjustments.

I must say that as I made a left to head north towards Zaragoza, it struck me that now I was heading for home and I felt a twinge of sadness that the trip was now in its final throes, but that feeling was very quickly replaced with a smile as I thought of my grandson Evan. Unlike a person making an acceptance speech at an award ceremony, I will refrain from mentioning everybody as I think you will understand that Evan stands head and shoulders above everybody else, even though he’s not two feet tall yet, well he wasn’t when I left!

As I carried on up the two lane A23 motorway the lengthy shadow got shorter as the sun rose, and it was no longer to my left but drifting from side to side in front of me as I rode the sweeping bends of the motorway.

By the time I got to the area of Teruel and a few thousand feet altitude it was time to replace the vented gloves with my winter ones, which had dried out from the soaking they had a few days ago. Also it was a wise move to add the windproof layer under my vented jacket as the temperature dropped to a chilly 20c, not quite as bad as when Rachel and I were here in the van one winter when it hit -6c!

It was motorway pretty much all of the 260 miles which was borne out of necessity rather than desire, six hours riding not to use the motorway, four hours to use it. I had also decided to break the journey every hour and at my last stop decided to take the back roads for the last leg. I’m glad I did as I managed to see a wake of vultures, which then turned out to be a kettle, but unfortunately I didn’t see a committee. Let me explain (with the help of Google). These are all terms for a group of vultures depending on what they’re doing, a wake is descending on a carcass, a kettle is in flight and a committee is them hanging about discussing what they’re going to do (without actually doing anything), think of Jungle Book.

I’d seen so much activity ahead of me so stopped at the side of the road to mount the GoPro so I could slowly ride up to them for a good shot, because they aren’t that easily distracted. But before I could get sorted a car came by and spooked them, I managed to capture them on my iPhone which I will hopefully get posted on here.

A couple of years ago I pinpointed a place called Agüero which I reckoned was worth a visit, so I decided to fit it in on this return and booked this B&B in the next village. Much to my surprise the view I have of a different rock formation, that of Mallos de Riglos, is equally, if not better than that of Agüero, so it’s turned out to be a win win!