It’s up up up straight out of Granada, and it’s not long before you leave the tarmac and are into the Sierra Nevada mountains. I hadn’t expected the scenery to be so spectacular, I had expected it to be more barren, but by the second climb of the day, the wow's were coming thick and fast. We wound our way up through strongly scented Pine trees, on 4x4 gravel tracks, until we got above the tree line. Then the scent of pines was quickly replaced by the scent of Broom flowers. There was so much colour and the mountain flowers were aplenty. At times the tracks were too steep for us to ride, so the hike-a-bike began. We had expected no water, but thankfully we came across a couple of streams that were still flowing. The temperature peaked at 38 celsius so we were grateful for the extra water.


We put in a fairly long day on the bike so we could get to Refugio Tello in the hope there was water, and there was! It was bliss to soak our tired legs in the water trough, looking out over tomorrows mountains.