directions_bike by Chris Riches -

Roquetas de Mar to Adra

The main focus of the morning was bike maintenance and fitting new inner tubes, tyres, brakes, brake cables and an additional water bottle holder, which I purchased from a Decathlon store nearby. The new tyres improved the handling of the bike, especially off road.

Luckily the latest checkout time of the campsite was at 5pm rather than the more usual 12pm which gave plenty of time to fit the new parts and pack everything up. I filled up the water bottles with ice and mineral water then at around 2.30pm when I left, the flags of the campsite were pointing in the direction that I was heading – west.

There were plastic covered greenhouses built on much of the landscape that I passed through, and most of the space between the hills and the sea was filled with them. Some new ones were being constructed as I cycled passed, and occasionally there were open water pools, presumably for irrigation. The hills on the right throughout the afternoon were looking more and more like mountains.

In the last stages of the ride, when cycling passed the greenhouses you could feel the heat radiating out them. I stopped at a campsite just east of Adra, which was only a few hundred metres from the sea.

Distance: 26 miles

Maximum temperature: 32 degrees C

Beach near Adra

directions_bike by Chris Riches -

Adra to La Herradura

The temperature in the morning started off relatively cool, but was quick to rise in the strong sunshine and once I had passed through the busy town of Adra, the route went alongside the coast for most of the day.

The coastal scenery varied from grey isolated beaches to steep cliffs, to beachfront resort towns, where there were some fairly large waves.

I stopped in the middle of the day in Castell de Ferro, for a rest and to get some water and ice, then by the middle of the afternoon the air temperature cooled slightly as the cloud cover increased.

Entering the Granada province, the area of coastline was called the Costa Tropical. The Sierra Nevada mountain range extends to the coast here and the landscape was notably greener. The mountains looked impressive and the highest parts of them were covered in cloud.

The largest single climb was right at the end of the day, with the road winding up out of Almuñécar and then descending in to La Herradura where I was staying at the campsite.

Distance: 56 miles

Maximum temperature: 27 degrees C

Castell de Ferro

Playa La Rijana

La Herradura