DAY 11 We are in Porto! 650 miles at least from Pau in France (due to computer failure we will have to work out the exact distance later).

We have crossed the Pyrenees and the Sierras of central Spain and climbed in and out of the Douro Valley more times than I care to think about right now.

Our hotel has even been upgraded free of charge to a 4 star hotel which is great news except that the bike bags were posted to the old hotel and haven't been sent on.

We're not even sure if they've got them yet.

The day started well at our hotel in Regua, which overlooks the beautiful River Douro, with a chance to stuff ourselves with food at the breakfast buffet.

This made up partly by the lack of food on the route and allowed us to "carb-up" for the final to the coast.

Martin's tally was 2 bowls of cereals, 2 bowls of fruit, 3 cakes, a yoghurt and an couple of croissants and I put away much the same.

The Goat spilt much of his on his T-shirt but this is now so dirty that it made no difference. We then went for a 10k training ride courtesy of the Portuguese habit of closing perfectly good roads for no apparent reason.

We left the hotel and crossed over to the south bank of the river to pick up the road which the map shows as running alongside the river most of the way to Porto.

When we got there, there was a barrier across the road and a barbed wire fence.

To get around this would have involved a massive trek over the mountains so we had to cross back onto the northern bank of the river and take the more up and down route that this appeared to offer.

About 30 minutes after leaving our hotel we passed it again heading in the opposite direction waving in a deranged fashion at the bewildered reception staff. Still 125k to go!

The scenery was stunning with most of it viewed from the steep climbs that rise up through the vineyards that line the river.

We sweated and toiled upwards for most of the day, the descents being fast and furious but over in minutes and finally we were in Porto.

A SMALL SAGA WITH THE BIKE BAGS They weren't there of course, or at least that's what they told us to start with.

I explained that without them we couldn't put our bikes on the plane without them and that we would have to spend Friday morning trying to buy new bike bags.

At this point the Goat was thinking that he wouldn't bother and he would leave his bike at the airport.

And then just as we were about to leave the bags were mysteriously found.

And now we are in the bars in the old town of Porto where the Goat has been thrown out of a bar for smoking a cigarette by a barman smoking a spliff!

Next to us a man is setting fire to one of the plastic tables. The tour is over for another year.