The other day I was bragging in my blog about stumbling upon a hidden medieval village that nobody knew about. I forgot to mention in yesterday’s blog that, as we were sitting there in the morning having a cup of coffee, Mike spotted five coaches driving up.

As we drove away, we saw they were from Emerald Cruises, the same cruise Lynda is doing with Chrissy! So people do know about it; we were just lucky enough to be there when nobody else was around.

Anyway, back to today.

There is a cycle trail near here that I want to do. It’s the one thing I actually researched before we arrived. But with temperatures forecast to hit 38 degrees, we figured we’d tackle it first thing in the morning.

Unfortunately, this morning we weren’t organised enough. Instead, we went to the library to upload a video, then headed to the midpoint of the trail. The plan was to ride one direction and backtrack, then ride the other direction the next day.

But when we arrived in Tondela, the midpoint, it was too fricking hot to even think about a short ride. So we sat in the shade for a while until the shade disappeared.

We didn’t really like the town we were in, so I navigated to a smaller village where we could also pick up the cycle trail.

The start of the trail was down a very steep hill, and I’m starting to get a bit nervous every time we head down one of these narrow, steep roads. What if there’s nowhere to turn around?

Thankfully, at the bottom there was a little grassy car park right beside the trail.

Then we made a decision we probably should never have made.

We were here, the cycle trail was there, so why not go for a bike ride in the middle of the day?

And it really was the hottest part of the day. The van was showing 40 degrees!

But off we went anyway.

Thankfully, the breeze you get on a bike certainly helps, and there were plenty of shaded sections. It was such a nice trail, extremely smooth, with beautiful views over the Dão River. We were cruising downhill at 18 km/h without even trying. I’d forgotten I much I love riding a bike.

But it was hot, and it would be uphill on the way back. So we turned around at the 6 km mark, not wanting to overdo it, and slogged our way back up.

By the time we got back to the van, we were properly heat-stressed. We dumped the bikes on the ground, climbed inside, and blasted the air conditioning until we’d cooled down enough to put the bikes back on the van.

Then we headed 2 km back to the village where we thought we could spend the night. It was a beautiful little spot with just a few houses, a church, and a river running through it.

There was a little bit of shade in the carpark, and a tap which I dunked my head under like a duck. 

It wasn’t an official place to stay overnight, but we thought we could probably get away with it, so we lay down for a while.

But then the sun shifted and the van was no longer in the shade. I couldn’t bear the heat any longer. Despite drinking plenty of water throughout the day, I had a terrible headache.

There was an official motorhome parking area in the next town, about 20 minutes away, complete with toilets. So we headed there, enjoying the air conditioning along the way.

But when we arrived, it was an ugly town and the toilets were locked. By this point it was already 8:30 pm.

So we headed back to the little village we’d just left. The sun would be gone soon, and hopefully it would start to cool down.

By 10 pm, the temperature had dropped to 27 degrees inside the van, cool enough to sleep.

It’s forecast to be even hotter tomorrow, so we might not get the big bike ride in after all.

Typical.