Saturday was a very early start. Very early indeed. We chose to leave the Hotel on the 4:40 bus to go to the North Terminal at Gatwick. (Note: In future, when stayin at the Premier Inn Gatwick Central, walk to North Terminal, ‘cos the bus goes everywhere before getting to the North Terminal despite being a couple of hundred metres away!) There were a lot of people waiting to check luggage in, and when I eventually got to the front of the queue, the check in operative insisted I weigh the bike box. Unfortunately, it is too big to go on the luggage scales, so it caused her a lot of grief, with her supervisor eventually telling her to ask me how much it weighs. I “estimated” (guessed optimistically) that it weighed 20Kg, which she was happy with.
So we made the flight with no issues, and the flight was un-eventful getting to Alicante.
On arrival at Alicante, we had the usual nail-biting wait to see if the bikes and luggage arrived, and un-damaged. Easyjet did their job well, and all arrived, safe and together. We then gathered with others on the “TrainInSpain” group waiting for John Fegan, the organiser, who turned up, and advised us we didn’t have to wait for all the flights as we were a group large enough to fill one of the vans, so off we went to Denia, a journey of about an hour. Many of us did have a snooze on the bus, me included!
The Hotel, the Ogisaka Garden Apartotel is ideal for us, spacious, and well equipped rooms, although Jon and I were a little worried when we only found one bed, luckily there was a sofa bed too. As I had chosen the small bed at the Premier Inn, Jon graciously let me have the big bed in the room. The Fridge was already stocked with a bottle of water, Orange juice and milk. Tea & coffee (one or two sachets) and a couple of biscuits all provided. Although it might not be a hotel which we’d choose to go on holiday to, it is good for our purposes. We popped out to the local supermarket to buy more water, juice and snacks, oh, and a bottle of Rioja. Very local and helpful.
We put the bikes together, nothing major forgotten and all went smoothly. So we went out for a 40km spin along the coast, just to make sure all the bits were working as appropriate. Lovely sunny weather and nice ride. After the ride, we sorted stuff out, had the next day’s briefing, which was not well organised, the hotel is over-run by locals who were here for the Fallas festival taking over the bar and the room used for the briefing. They will be gone tomorrow.
The group went out to a local pizza place for dinner, a glass of wine to help with the sleep. We turned in relatively early, after all we’d had an early start, and a good night’s sleep had by all. Tomorrow is the first big day.