Lanzarote. Sunday 6 January. Mirador del Rio ride.

I arrived here on Thursday after a problem free flight with only 30 people on the plane. I am staying temporarily at apartments in central Costa Tequise. I move to the originally booked Apartments along the coast in Puerto del Carmen on Tuesday.

Today weather was sunny with bits of clouds, a fresh NE wind and temperatures reaching 22C.

I did a 30 mile ride yesterday into the northern mountains and planned a similar ride today but going further north to a viewpoint on the far NW edge called Mirador del Rio.

I started with a gradual 450ft climb to the main road north the LZ1. With a 9.30 start there was very little traffic about even on the main road. However I joined the parallel service road which had no traffic at all. Then onto a side road heading up and west towards Teguise in the centre of the Island. I turned off this onto an even more minor road winding its way up through a barren treeless landscape interspersed with whitewashed houses and the black soil of cultivated areas.

At Los Valles I joined the LZ10 main road which goes south north up the centre of the Island. By now I had climbed to 1000ft. I continued on and up taking care to avoid going over the white line at the edge of the road. The tarmac drops away suddenly into the gutter with a drop of between a few inches and a foot. Obviously no litigation culture or Health and Safety officers here.

The road climbed steeply with views opening up behind me and I came up to a row of great wind turbines spinning sedately. Soon after the wind turbines I turned off onto a little side road for La Nieves, another viewpoint. This has one of the best views on Lanzarote but has little mention in the guidebooks, probably because the road is too narrow for coaches. I stopped there for elevenses, some trail mix, and sat on the rocks on the edge of the cliff with nobody else around. From here there is a vertical cliff dropping 1900ft to the Famara Bay, a favourite for surfers with great breakers crashing onto the beach. Looking south most of the central plateau of the Island is visible to the distant volcanic cones covering the far south.

I continued north on the backroad reaching a height of 2030ft, the highest road on the Island and about 50ft higher than the main road. Then it was down on the main road on a series of twisting hairpins to the village of Haria dotted with palms. Then more ups and downs before taking a little side road. This is an unsigned and unofficial route to the Mirador del Rio viewpoint with little traffic. The road twists its way up on the edge of a sheer 1500ft cliff with views down to the coast and the nearby Island of Graciosa.

The Mirador is a viewpoint building built into the rocks including a caf? which was my lunch stop. This really is a caf? with a view.

Then it was a twisting descent on smooth tar round the base of the shattered cone of Mount Fuja and back to the LZ1 and a tailwind back to base.

Only 42 miles but it felt like a lot more with 4000ft of climb.

Edwin