• Todays mileage: 44
• Total mileage: 273
• Disasters: zero (unless you count mile long hills at 8% a disaster. If so then there were loads)

The day started badly with my pigeon spanish letting me down again. My breakfast order came back as plain toast (no butter) with a pot of tomato puree. Not exactly what I’d ordered – toast, butter and jam ! At least I got coffee right.

In reality a plain breakfast was required as I’ve had a bad stomach for days now. So following breakfast we had a trip to the chemist for some Bisto tablets.

Getting out of Rhonda was easy & we soon hit the open country on quiet roads.

The road climbed and then descended all the way to Yunquera. Long uphill & long descents never greater than 10%.

Now Sarah was loving the route I’d chosen. Apparently…

“I’ve not fucked up yet – but have potential !”

Flushed with success I routed us on a quiet back road from Alozaina. This quiet road took us nearly to Coin before we had to join the main road.

Navigating through coin was a sense of humour test. It’s a rats nest of very hilly streets and was quiet busy as well. Also Windy Maps routing let us down – well my version did anyway.

After we cleared Coin it was a slog to Alhaurin el Grande where I had my emergency gel. To this point we’d only had breakfast, a can of coke and a bag of crisps all day.

There’s not much accommodation round Coin but the Alhaurin Golf hotel were offering rooms for €50 on Booking.com

The hotels lovely but in the middle of nowhere ! Chilling out before food Sarah worked out we’d climbed 20,004 ft in total. Not bad ?

After chilling we decided to eat at a local resturant. The thought being that the hotel would be a ripoff.

So off we walked the 250 yards to a group of 4 resturants, picked one & went for food.

Big mistake. Poor quality “chips with everything” food & pricy. Oh and frozen mixed veg. Grrrr. Such a contrast to what the spanish eat. Suppose its to be expected in an area where the Brits come. Anyway we needed carbs before bed.