No matter where you go, that's where you are: Day 1: St. Jean Pied de Port to Pamplona (85km)

I guess it's a leftover from work: set expectations and then exceed them. Initially I thought to at least make it over the Pyrenees; stage 1 in the "official" Camino. Then when I got there I thought: "Perhaps a little further." When I got to Zubri I thought: "This isn't such a nice place, let's keep going to Larrasoaña, the end of stage 2."

Arriving at the albergue there I had an interesting discussion with the guy running the place. It went something like this: Guy: "You want a stamp [for the pilgrim passport, proving where you have been] or a bed?" Me: both. Guy: "Walkers have priority, you'll have to wait." I knew this, having read it in my pilgrim guide, so I say: "OK I'll wait." Guy: "You will probably have to wait until 7pm." [it was about 5pm, I'd been on the road since 8:30]. Me: "OK I'll wait." Guy: "We'll be full anyway." Me: "I'll have the stamp then."

Pamplona was 'only' 16 km further [I realised how my perspective was changing; last week 16km was a really long distance to ride] so I pushed on, getting to Pamplona to find the hostel I had expected to stay at fully booked.

So I continued along the Camino through the streets of Pamplona (a rather nice ride to finish the day it must be said) to end up at a rather decrepit local hostel. Actually, it was a very decrepit hostel, run by a caricature: he was very overweight, was dressed in dirty pants and a singlet, had a roll-your-own dangling from his mouth and acted very much like I was disturbing his peace and quiet. I pictured him sitting upstairs somewhere with a beer in his hand in front of the television as I was knocking on the door downstairs. Since I was, as it turned out, the only guest in the establishment, I probably was disturbing him.

Still, the sheets on the bed seemed to be (relatively) clean and he assured me I would be perfectly safe, despite the fact that the room door had no lock and couldn't actually close anyway. Who was I to complain? I unpacked everything, discovering that pretty much everything was soaking wet - or rather, everything not in the water-proof pannier bags was soaking wet. The pannier bags had done their job, but the handlebar bag, in which I had foolishly put my camera and other belongings, had proved to be only water "resistant", meaning everything inside was soaked. I found a few pieces of string and made a temporary clothes line out on the little balcony and hung things out to dry, before setting off into town in search of a camping store to replace my lost water-proof pants and buy some gaiters.

At dinner I noticed the guy at the next table looked like he was dressed for walking. I struck up a conversation and, not surprisingly, it turned out he was just starting the Camino. We had a nice chat about life and other things, finding - again probably not surprising - that we had a lot in common. The joys of travel.

Lessons learned today (some of them):

It is possible for me to ride 85km in a day, over the Pyrenees including about 1600m climb, in pouring rain and gales. That feels pretty good (not the actual doing it part, but being able to say "I did it").
The Ortlieb "roller" waterproof pannier bags really are waterproof. Everything else I had however is not.
Waterproof shoes are good at storing all the water that streams down your legs once your socks get saturated.
It was a smart move to line my 'water resistant' sleeping bag stuff bag with a plastic garbage bag before I left.
I haven't 'slowed down' enough yet. Once I'd had a cafe con leche and a bocadillo after crossing the mountains in a thunderstorm I felt I needed to get going again.
Driving a car, seeing a series of bends going up a mountain pass is a good thing. Seeing the same thing when you've been riding a bike up that mountain gives you a whole different feeling.
When they warn of sudden changes in weather in the mountains they are not kidding.
There's lots of interesting things and people to observe when you take the time.