Simon Butcher

We left Valdepeñas mid-morning, and headed north. Realising that we didn't have much time left, we thought we should try to travel as far as possible, but we decided nevertheless dropped into Toledo to have a look.

Toledo still has a significantly visible Roman influence, and the historic architecture has been well preserved. Having said that though, street level is crammed with identical tourist shops selling all sorts of multi-coloured plastic crap that belittles the whole town. If UNESCO wasn't so politically motivated, they'd be able to revoke their World Heritage status to reduce the level of “budget tourism” and help preserve what could be a beautiful tourism destination.

Needless to say, I couldn't get over how touristy it was.

After lunch, we drove up towards Madrid, but didn't get close. Something about the ring road around that city makes it somewhat impossible to do anything except get back onto the ring, or off on another motorway! We gave up very quickly and carried on driving until soon enough we were back in France.

Shortly after crossing the border, we were pulled over for a spot customs check. The two customs officers were so excited when they discovered that I was born in Australia, and even more excited when they found Scott was carrying an Australian passport. One of them told us he was a huge fan of the All Blacks, and how he follows their every move.

I couldn't bring myself to tell them that the All Blacks are from New Zealand!

By the time we reached Bordeaux, it was already quite late at night. After looking around at a few cheap hotels that were fully booked, we finally found a Campanile with vacancies and went off for some more bloody McDonald's. They were closed.

Well, they were closed for dining, but their drive through was still open. Between my broken French, the bird's «Français méridional» accent (from what I remember), and using the horrible little squawk-box you have to place your order in from the passenger seat, it was probably the most complicate order I've ever made with the fast-food giant. Of course, Scott and I did complicate things further with different sundaes, drinks, size of fries, and so on…