France on the horizon

One of the things this blog has had to accommodate along Mark's route around the world has been time difference. As he cycled east, he kept getting further and further ahead of me so each day I was doing catch up with the blog. Then, once he got to the States, he was 'behind' me and I had to wait until the following day to chart where he'd been on the previous. It was, therefore, quite a novelty when he got back to Europe last week and for a brief time while he was in Portugal we were in the same time zone. For now and the remainder of the journey he is only one hour ahead, meaning that I can make a start on the blog in the morning and finish it later once he has reached his day's destination.

So, at 11.00 on the 10th (noon in Spain)Mark is already across the Ebro valley and heading for Pamplona....

The weather is again set fair for today. I was looking earlier at the forecast for Agreda where Mark stayed last night and noticed that it was only 2 degrees and foggy at 8am this morning. That is entirely in keeping with high pressure in winter. As the earth loses energy to clear skies overnight, the ground gets super cooled and the contact between it and the air condenses any moisture in the air to give fog. As the sun rises higher and the air warms, so gradually the fog dissipates. The problem of high pressure fog is particularly pronounced in valleys as cold air sinks and gets trapped .... so this morning the fog in the Ebro valley on the satellite photo of Spain. However, the fog is lifting, the sun is coming out and it is already 15 degrees in Pamplona. For the rest of the week, the pressure chart looks wonderful.... high pressure all the way to Paris!

For the first part of today, Mark was descending into the Ebro valley following one of its tributaries. Valverde caught my eye - a reminder that in this part of Spain, it is not always cold and frosty (as most of the Google imagery is showing). For much of the year it will be hot and dry and valleys like these will be the only green areas in the otherwise parched landscape of the long Mediterranean summer. The Google Maps imagery has clearly been captured in winter. In fact, much of the north of Spain seems to have been 'snapped' then - probably in the same sort of high pressure conditions which are prevailing this week. When you look closely at some of the images, they are really beautiful - almost reminiscent of Medieval maps on parchment....

The Ebro is Spain's longest river. (The Tagus is longer but it is shared with Portugal.) It has the highest discharge of any river in the Iberian peninsula and its importance can be measured by the fact that it drains almost 20% of Spain's land area, delivering a large sediment load to its mouth where it is building up a large delta. Despite its volume, the river often runs very low - particularly in summer and autumn - after the abstraction of more than half of its water for irrigation. The Canal de Tuesta, first dug almost 8 centuries ago, parallels it course and is the main artery of irrigation over the Ebro's floodplain. The river can occasionally flood badly in spring when snow melt from the Pyrenees joins run off from seasonal rain.

On his approach to the valley floor, Mark crossed this local boundary cutting through neatly tended vineyards. This is Rioja country! Tucked in between the Meseta to the south and the Pyrenees to the north and protected by the Cantabrian mountains along Spain's north coast, the Ebro valley enjoys the warming effects of the Mediterranean without the moderating and wetter effects of the Atlantc and so is ideal wine producing country.


This image shows Rioja vines in winter and is therefore representative of the current state of the vineyards as mark will be seeing them. Amazing to think that in less than a year they will produce fine wines like these.

Mark crossed the Ebro at Castejon which, and as with so many of the rivers we have encountered along his route, the arial imagery shows how a river breathes life into semi arid environments.
Apart from the intensive cultivation which the river supports, there is also, if you look closely, evidence in the form of an old meander loop that the Ebro has changed its course over the years. The image below, which comes from the Panoramio layer in Google shows the river just a mile west of the bridge which Mark would have crossed.

North of the Ebro the route weaves gradually away from the irrigated lowlands and into a landscape of cultivation which is dependent on seasonal rainfall.
Between the river Ebro and Pamplona the largest settlement is Tafalla which, like many small municipalities these days, uses the Internet as a way of advertising itself . If you click on the coat of arms, you can link to the website of Tafalla and explore some of the pages.






The 'Galeria Fotos' has many views of the town and its surroundings. I have included one below since I think it shows a marked change in architecture from the buildings of central Spain. Here in the north there is much more stone and less of the whitewashed walls and red tiled roofs.

Between Tafalla and Pamplona these limestone quarries at Tiebas caught my eye...




They are very similar in scale to limestone quarries I visit each year with pupils when we are doing fieldwork in the Yorkshire Dales.

Ten miles north of Tiebas is Pamplona , capital of the Basque country and spiritual home of the Basque Nationalists. I won't even attempt to give a summarised version of the cultural and historical background to Basque nationalism and would suggest that if you are interested, you follow the link above to the Wikipedia entry which is pretty comprehensive. The event for which Pamplona has earned some notoriety is the annual running of the bulls which takes place each year on the 7th July. On a more positive note and entirely in keeping with the spirit of this blog is the fact that Miguel Indurian, five times winner of the Tour de France is a native of Pamplona. I am guessing that since mountain climbs are
so much part of the Tour, Indurian probably cycled many times the road up to the French border which Mark tackled late today. Below are a sequence of images which I found on Flickr taken along that route....



























.....leading finally at the end of the day to Aurizberri which by my reckoning is just a few miles short of the French border.

Beyond the Guadarrama

A change of plans means that instead of heading for Burgos, Mark is now following the N 110 to Soria and from there on to Pamplona. First, however, he had to get over the col in the Sierra de Guadarrama north of last night's terminus at Somosierra.

The image on the right shows how lines of communication often 'jostle' for position as they seek out the low points on a mountain ridge. The col here is the only major gap through the eastern end of the Sierra and is thus an important link between the north of Spain and the Madrid area. Motorway, highway, minor roads and a railway all use this narrow corridor.

Beyond the col, Mark turned north east towards Soria...

The high peaks of the Sierra which he has just crossed are now to his right and if you look at the image above, you will be able to make out the settlement of la Pinilla bottom right. La Pinilla is a ski resort! If you click on the banner above, it will link to the resort website where the live webcam will give you an idea of the conditions. As you can see above, at 13.00h on 9th February it was a beautiful sunny day with, according to the website, sufficient snow to have about half of the uplit facilities open. Below is a bit of video of skiing at La Pinilla. It reminds me of skiing in the Cairngorms - only there's more snow and better weather!

Continuing on past the road to la Pinilla, Mark descended into the well wooded valley in which Riaza is located. The municipal authorities of Riaza have produced rather a nice web site with a clever 'fly in'. On the web site here are some good images which you can access by following Entrar, Fotos, Panoramicos 360.

It was interesting to listen to Mark's interview on radio Scotland this morning (You can access it here . Fast forward 20 minutes into the Sports Weekly programme). At one point Mark was talking about how cold it was in the morning - and that, despite the sunshine evident on the webcam at la Pinilla. Low temperatures are entirely consistent with a) the altitude and b) the high pressure which is set to dominate the weather of western Europe over the next few days. This will be really good news for Mark as he dashes for the tape....The map above is the expected pressure situation for Sunday and there is little change predicted for the next few days. Winds are very light and from the south and the nearest frontal system......well, wouldn't you know it! As a consequence, skies in Spain will be clear, bringing lots of sunshine and temperatures picking up during the day but cold nights as any warmth is lost to the clear skies.

North and east of Riaza Mark has cycled over very undulating terrain towards Soria and beyond. A whole series of river valleys, mainly tributaries of the Duero (Douro)cut into the plateau and between them land rises high enough to catch the frost of high pressure nights in winter and spring as in this image from Google maps.

At 785 km the river Duero is actually the third longest river in the Iberian peninsula and the second largest in terms of its drainage basin..

According to Wikipedia, it flows in its upper course through a region which , "for the most part, is one of semi-arid plains planted with wheat and in some places, wine grapes. Sheep rearing is also still important."

Below are a couple of images of the river Duero in this part of its course. Firstly at San Esteban where Mark crossed the river and where its importance for irrigation is evident...

...and then again at Soria

Mark passed through Soria this afternoon. Here is some promotional footage for Soria courtesy of YouTube... even if you don't understand a word of the Spanish, it gives a pretty good impression of the town and its environment...

East of Soria, there were another couple of climbs to cross the 1400m Sierra del Madero and then down to Agreda where Mark ended the day. The image below shows his location tonight, poised to descend to the Ebro valley and on to Pamplona and the French border tomorrow....

A journey through the centre of the earth

I have just read the web diary account of yesterday and it seems that I wasn't the only one having difficulty with the roads! However, according to the tracker, Mark is now about 45 miles north of Madrid and bound for Burgos tomorrow. He has stopped tonight just south of the border with the province of Spain called Segovia.

The significance of Madrid, apart from it being a major milestone through Spain, is that it is one of two antipodal points along Mark's route. According to the Guinness criteria, which you can read under the route tab on http://www.artemis.com/ , the route for a global circumnavigation must include two antipodal points.

That is actually harder to achieve than it sounds as there are fewer antipodal points on land than you might imagine. Antipodes are diametrically opposite one another i.e. they can be linked by a line going through the centre of the earth. However, most of the earth's land surfaces have ocean at their antipodes, this being a consequence of most land being in the northern hemisphere. This must have been a significant factor when planning the route. The globe shows how few the options actually were .....if Mark was to avoid Antarctica, the islands of Indonesia, the Amazon basin, Outer Mongolia, the Sahara, some Pacific islands and Siberia! Small wonder that he opted for New Zealand and Spain.

Within New Zealand and Spain, there are three pairs of antipodal cities - Hamilton and Cordoba, Auckland and Malaga and Wellington and Madrid. Malaga and Cordoba would have taken Mark too far south in Spain, leaving Wellington and Madrid as the obvious choice.

However, the Guinness rules are not just as simple as that. The longitude values have to add up to 180 degrees and the latitude values should be the same. If there is a difference on either or both, the total difference should not be more than 5 degrees. Let's check it out.....

If we round up to degrees, minutes and seconds (bearing in mind that there are 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in a degree) , the latitude difference is 52' 6" - under 1 degree. The longitude values add up to 178 degrees 28' 44" giving a difference from 180 degrees of 1 degree 31' 16". The total 'error' is therefore just over 2 degrees - well within the 5 degrees allowed by the Guinness criteria.

Now, there is a much more fun way of doing antipodal points.....

If you click on Holey Moley, you can find out!

Having taken a slightly different tack in today's posting, I think I might take the liberty of bypassing Madrid and fast forwarding to the last part of today's journey which took Mark into the foothills of the Sierra de Guadarrama. The highest peaks in this range rise to around 2500m (hence the snow as in the Sierra de Gredos which we saw yesterday) but his route tomorrow morning will take him across a col at around 1500m. However, in order to reach there, there were two tough climbs today. This is because, as you can see from the map below the highest ground forms a V shaped ridge with an intermontane valley. So, having ascended the first ridge (Sierra de la Cabrera) and dropped down into the valley, it would have been all uphill again!

Incidentally, the underlying geology of this region is granite, as witnessed by a number of granite quarries such as this one in the vicinity of la Cabrera ....

...and below some weathered granite rocks in the Sierra de Cabrera borrowed from Flickr. Because of the way in which granite weathers along its joints, it gives rise to these very distinctive 'tor' landforms wherever it occurs in the world. The view below could be Dartmoor or Ben Macdhui .... blue sky? ... perhaps not!Legislation to designate a large part of the Sierra de Guadarrama as Spain's 15th national park is likely to be passed this year and one of the promotional videos (by an organisation with an unfortunate abbreviation) for that proposal is included below .....

If the embedded video does not play, click here to view it in its original location.

Mark has ended the day today at around 1200m - high enough to produce a cooler microclimatic zone. These images, all borrowed from Flickr and taken within a few miles of where Mark is this evening, give an impression of the surrounding landscape ......

It could be quite cool up there!

A barrage of barrages

First, a 'big picture' to help fix location....
At end of day today Mark had reached the valley of the Alberche, a tributary of the Tagus and was about 50 miles south west of Madrid. The view of today's route (left) doesn't give much away. The snow capped peaks are the Sierra de Gredos which include the highest peak in central Spain - Pico de Almanzor (2600m) . It is worth remembering that altitude causes a temperature drop of 6.5 degrees for every 1000m. Thus the summits of the Sierra will be around 10 degrees colder than the plateau from which they rise giving a sort of sub Arctic climate in winter. Cutting across the area from east to west south of the mountains is the Tagus but for most of its course, except where it has been dammed, it flows in a narrow valley with little in the way of a floodplain. From 'this' height, therefore, the landuse which usually helps to identify a river's course is just not visible. The good news, however, is that the nature of the valley makes it very suitable for the construction of reservoirs which will provide a theme for today's posting.

From yesterday's overnight location, the first part of today's route took Mark through another western spur of the Sierra de Guadelupe - not unlike the terrain he encountered yesterday between Badajoz and Caceres. The zig zag road on the image above marks the route through these hills. Here, the ground is too high to benefit from irrigation and so the landscape is predominantly pasture and trees...

Once across the hills, Mark descended towards the Tagus . There are very few large settlements along this part of the river and I do wonder whether it is the nature of the valley - the fact that it is quite constricted -which has hindered communications an settlement. This lack of large settlements, combined with the fact that Mark had to use minor roads, meant that there have been fewer points of reference today.

I have decided therefore that I will follow a theme rather than a route for the remainder of today's journey; the theme being the river Tagus and the management of its waters. The Tagus at just over 1000 km long is the longest river in the Iberian peninsula but it pales into insignificance compared to some of the rivers we have looked at recently in the US! As mentioned already, its course through Spain is fairly constricted - it doesn't have much of a flood plain until it enters Portugal. Just before the border is the largest dam and reservoir along the river - the Alcantara. The waters held back by the dam extend a full 50 km upstream.

With the Alcantara dam downstream to his west, Mark met the Tagus just to the east of a small dam which holds back the waters of a tributary of the Tagus. Its purpose is just visible on the image below but clearer on the next...

I reckon this is the second nuclear power station along Mark's route - the other one was on the coast of California and described in this posting. Location factors for nuclear power stations include distance from large settlements and water for cooling and the Almaraz nuclear power station meets both of those criteria. Below, a view of the power station from the reservoir....

Just to the east of Almaraz the Tagus is dammed spectacularly by the Valdecanas dam...

This dam is also linked to power production - this time HEP but it also serves to hold back a 15km lake so regulating the flow of water in the river and preventing down-stream flooding - particularly across the border in Portugal. As mentioned previously, the valley surrounding the lake is narrow and rises fairly steeply from the edge of the water so there is limited potential for irrigation here.

Further upstream water is abstracted for irrigation from the waters behind the Azutan dam .....

Further upstream still, at the confluence of the Tagus and its tributary the Alberche, there is the first really extensive area of irrigation and cultivation of the day. From here, if you were to follow the Tagus upstream, it would lead to Toledo. Tomorrow Mark heads north east towards Madrid.