Righto, well thanks to everyone who has given me props for the blog, its definately given me more motivation to keep it going. this pot is pretty rough its been typed offline over several days as my spanish sim ditched me after i cross the border.

had a great 7 nights in barcelona into order stay for the barcelona soccer match. after 6 nights of gettimg hardly any sleep i ended up getting  bit of a cold again and wasnt feeling great on game day. plus they didnt even sell alchohol in the stadium to dull my extremely sore throat. didnt change my life but i wanted to see a match while i was here. the 7 days flew by in barca as anyone who has been will understand. took a day trip to these mountains with these two guys from the hostel. the Yuval the Isreali gave me the low down on Palastine.

 left barcelona and had a nice easy day of flat, coastline filled sunny day with extreme levels of naked people. had a bit of a cold again probably from lack of sleep and the circus of a hostel id been at in barca. camped in this national park which wasnt the best spot but i boight a new tent in barca as my old tent was starting to get very questionable about its level of weatherproofing. it was time to be reitred. but the new tent is great.
luckily went for this hidden spot as there were park rangers driving by in the morning and I was only out of sight if i stayed low, which made packing up a bit slow.

took off inland and after only 40km my knee wasnt feeling great and found a great camp spot so packed in it early. slow get up the next day with intention to cross into france. thought i had this cycling track to take me 33km into next city and it ended up being a shit fight and waste of two hours. i hate turning back (alex knows this from our moto rides) but when the tracked turned to this foul smelling sludge around the back side of this factory (which i found out later was a bio diesel plant)i accepted defeat after a few metres and ankle deep..

at this town 20km south of the border. knee is ok but i just cant get comfortable on the bike today. going to change my cleat adjustment. feeling generally tired and not that into it today. headcold isnt helping things. couple of coffees and hopefully the crossing isnt too hilly and i will make it into france.

crossed to france just before dark and luckily found a convienient camp spot. weather was average and had the realisation

---jesus christ you cannot go anywhre in bloody europe with out some bastard smoking around you---

anyway . realised my small but effective spanish vocab was now useless and i was back to zero.

overall the five day ride from barca to montpellier, france wasnt that great. i wasnt comfortable on the bike, the last day had to break out my special cycling cream for application to particular sore areas.....

it can be pretty up and down emotionally sometimes riding solo. you can be hating life with sore wrists and climbing a hill and then 5 mins later, you reach the top, a nice view comes around, a particular song comes on my ipod and you're on top of the world and you remember how good it is....

have spent two nights in montpellier which is a very pretty town but overall nothing that interests me a great deal. plan is to head north east towards switzerland.

will have to add photos later