Monday 13th October 2014 - Huelva, Spain

This will be our last day acting as support for the cycling heroes. We have had word from home that my mother is very ill and we have booked a flight back to the UK. The good news is that this is the boys last day in the mountains and they should reach the southern Spanish coast this afternoon.
We brought out supplies of Somerset bacon with just in case the boys got homesick and it all must go before we return so the boys called in at our aire for breakfast. Bacon sandwiches made with freshly baked bread (ok, it was part-baked bread but it was cooked in the motorhome) were served with real English tea for Les and coffee for Ian. Provided with real Somerset Cheddar cheese and chutney baguettes, fruit and chewy bars, the boys were ready for the off.
We did some packing and tidying up before we set off after them. As we drove along we kept expecting them to appear in front of us and eventually we decided that they couldn't have got this far and they must have stopped for coffee. Oh, us of little faith! They they were steaming up another long hill. We tooted as we passed and waited for them at the top of the hill. Jane dispensed cold water whilst I found some surplus ice creams in the freezer. Suitably refreshed they set off again and we gave them a final wave as we passed them on the way to the coast.
Many moons ago, I had lent Les a copy of the book 'Operation Mincemeat' by Ben Macintyre and he then passed it on to Ian to read. It tells the story of a British disinformation plan to fool the Germans into thinking that the British intended to invade Greece and Sardinia rather than the real target, Sicily. The plan involved planting false documents on a body of a British man who had died without any living relatives. The man was Glyndwr Michael and under the false identity of acting Major William 'Bill' Martin, his body was released from a submarine off the coast of Spain together with papers showing the false invasion plan. Although Spain was, in theory, neutral, it was known to be cooperating with Germany and it was expected that, if the body was discovered, the documents would soon be in Axis hands. The plan worked well and the Germans were completely taken in by the deception, directing forces to Greece, Sardinia and Corsica thus taking forces away from Sicily and making the Allied invasion there much easier. William Martin's body was handed over to the British Vice Consul and was buried with full military in a cemetery in Huelva.
We were all inspired by this story and Les decided that he would like to visit the grave as part of the trip. We hoped to do this together but circumstances had contrived to deny us. We had to get to Faro for our flight but realised that it was only a short diversion to the cemetery. We visited the grave in the morning and Les and Ian followed in the afternoon. The grave now shows not only the original name of William Martin but also he actual name of Glyndwr Martin.
We went on to an aire 30 minutes from Faro Airport and there met a French couple with an identical Hobby motorhome to ours, a very rare event as we have only seen three other identical Hobby's in seven years. They spoke no English so we had an interesting Franglais chat with them comparing our experiences. We both loved our vans and they had exactly the same niggles!
Meanwhile, Ian and Les toured Huelva to find accommodation for the night.
The boys covered 84km today in 4hrs 30mins, giving a total of 1163km to date.
Photos: The farewell; Riding off to Huelva; The grave of Glyndwr Michael (alias Major William 'Bill' Martin) aka 'The man who never was'; Jean-Michel and Michelle with their Hobby motorhome in Quartiera.