A road, 'A' roads.

Cycling back to the campsite yesterday afternoon, freewheeling down a steep cliff-side road that ten minutes ago we had just struggled up, suddenly I felt the need to screech to a halt and photograph a road sign.

Why? Because I have an idiosyncratic interest in 'lost highways', once important routes now by-passed by history. 

Being burdened by a peculiar interest is quite common I think. Gill picks up unusual small rocks and pops them into her handbag - though I never spot her doing it. I had a colleague who was obsessed with designer shoes; she had cupboards full of funkily designed stilettos at home but could not explain why she was addicted to buying them. Someone else at work was unable to leave the house unless they wore something red - a scarf, a red streak in her hair, scarlet nail varnish - she could not countenance being able to function at all without a 'red-bit'.

So by these standards being drawn to seek out half-forgotten highways seems a harmless sort of obsession. The N340 is a good example. This was once the main road running almost the length of Spain's Mediterranean coast from Barcelona to Cadiz. Over the course of the last half century Spain's road network has undergone a revolution. New dual carriageways and motorways have replaced the older network. Nevertheless, remnants of the old N340 pop up in every one of Spain's Mediterranean provinces, a scrap of trunk road here, elsewhere a pot-holed old dual carriageway downgraded to a white minor road on the map. For miles it shadows the A7 motorway, little used, neglected, dotted with abandoned petrol stations, rusting and graffiti covered, like you find on Route 66 in the American West. When I happen upon a disregarded stretch of the N340 I become inordinately pleased, like unexpectedly bumping into an old friend.

I have a good inkling as to when I became 'road struck'. We often used to visit Leamington Spa and Bristol to catch up with our kids at university. Both places involved travel down the A38. I became intrigued by it as the road, somewhat bizarrely, links Mansfield in Nottinghamshire to Bodmin in Cornwall for no apparent reason. I decided British 'A' roads were unjustly overlooked national treasures, so I wrote a 'paean' to them. 

A' Roads

Pre-easyJet they linked unlikely places –
Bodmin to Mansfield, via Tewkesbury;
meandering through England’s crowded spaces,
mementos of an age unused to hurry.
Perhaps it's all a myth - that RAC’s

roadside patrols saluted passers-by;
content inside their Hillmans, smiling families
sipped tea; lay-bys were litter-free, July
though blustery, always sunny. Now up-graded
to would-be motorways, sat-nav defined,
a two lane stretch comes as a shock. A faded
re-collection flashes though my mind:
A sunset I once glimpsed near Gravelly Hill-
lost highways? - No, but roads to freedom still.

I should have left it at that. However, when in 2013 redundancy gifted me months of spare time I found myself exploring the northern part of the A38. The notes and video snippets from these jaunts eventually brought together as 'Voceti' the creative project that formed a part of my MA dissertation.

One effect of this has been to turn my use of maps upside down. When sensible people decide that they want to get from A to B, they use a road map or sat-nav to plot the best route. I am more likely to look at a map simply to find an alluring looking road, then plot to follow it. In October 2017 we took a route through inland Spain from Valencia to Jaen via Albacete for no other reason than it looked like an interesting, unfrequented road,. It was, and we happened upon some unexpectedly lovely places, like Chinchilla de Monte Aregón and Ubeda.

So whenever I see an intriguing road I get an overwhelming desire to drive it. Sadly quite a few of them are simply too narrow or steep for the motorhome. Like today, as well as the N380 following the coast, I noticed another road, the snazzily titled GR - 6204. It wiggled it's way directly north into the mountains, heading eventually I surmised into the Alpujarras. I decided to make a solo attempt by e-bike, only a few kilometres up it until I got a bird's eye view of the coast.

After the first couple of kilometres through plasticulture I encountered a different landscape, empty scrubby looking hills dotted with almond trees in blossom. The A7 motorway tunnels beneath the old mountain road. You get an epic view from it - not only of the wild mountains towards the coast, but also the massive engineering work that went into constructing the motorway. Spain's development over recent decades has been nothing short of breathtaking - part of it was laid out before me right there.

The gradient was brutal; the road snaking upwards in a series of hairpin bends. Ebikes are awesome things, but it took full power and the lowest gear to get me to the top. Still, I made it, my knees did not complain too much and I felt great. 

Is there a medical term for my condition - Roadaholic? Asphaltic? Motor new-one disease? I am a Tarmac-head, not a petrol head.