The journey south contimues like the cold weather has forgotten when in the Northern Hemisphere as one goes South the weather warms.

Maybe those who preach Global Warming Climate Change are confused so to our weather as warmth has not shon upon us in abundance yet. In simple terms we froze and are still layed up to ard off the bone chilling ffects of cold weather plus the forward movement of the motorcycle.

The trip out of Madrid was a real easy and relaxed ride no real traffic issues, clear signage as we followed the A-4/E-5 and excellent smooth wekk maintained roads.

We stopped for fuel hoping to have breakfast at the same time as yet again a holiday or special event in Madrid meant no restaurant, faced with a col sandwich from the fridge at the servo or a 25km ride the ride won over. Some 25kms later the next Service centre greeted us with the unversal food sign removed refuelling only available. Still furthure down the road a Spanish Hotel,cafeteria & bar came into sight I pul;led over and we entred expecting or hoping for food as theire were a number of cars already in the parking spots.

Jackpot a lovely Spamish hotel with great Tea & Coffee and I had even a toasted fresh bun with butter (no at all usual in Europe) and apple jelly and even better the total cost of $4.

The toilets were so good I photographed them as shown in the album. With clear painting that indicated who used which side and what one did in them.

Our ;unchtime stop revealved hundred's of parked trucks and I had notice overhead signage indicating restrictions at certain times for vehicles over 3.5T. I also saw massive parking areas at the sides of the roads. The Police presence increased and at a set of diversion lanes I thought is that Policeman calling me in, No is it Greg,No then I realised he was calling in every heavy vehicle off the E-5 and down a slip road.

We pressed on to Saint E;lena arriving around 2pm and booked straight into our Desporaido's abode and had our motorcycles securely parked under cover in a locked garage.

With much of the afternoon still remaining a walking self guided tour of this out of the way atypical Spamish village resulted.

Our attention shifting from the abundance of differing artitectural housing styles to the town bull ring.

None of us are fans of bull fighting but the opprtunity to freely wander a ring soon had us at the ring.

While it was laregely negelected but undergoing renovations we soon moved into the ring and behind the scenes at the first aid room, the Presidents area, the bull holding pen and the ticket box.

Dinner back at the hotel didnt commence until after 8pm so the intermediate time was spent doing this blog & the photo's.

Our meal once we got some idea of the Spanish only menu saw Kerrie with an excellent deer dinner while my Jambon (ham) turned out to be just that a plate of ham. Reordering got a salad to go with it and remove some of the excessive salt flavour.

We did prior to dunner enjoy some sunshine at the hotel outside dining area over looking a view of the valley and the E-5.

We were not there long when we looked at the Autovia and soon realised that trucks were now continuous. It all added up. They hold the trucks in those massive parks at certain times then releease them so they form a non stop convoy. Just talking and counting it was soon evident that hundreds of trucks passed every 15mins often taking up two of the three lanes.

Evert 20mins a Autovia cxontrol helicopter passed overhead with automatic data gathering equipment under it's belly and so a quick response could be organised if any trouble accurred. I also saw Autovia breakdown trucks on regular patrols.