We packed up the tent and headed out of the yard we had stayed in last night. When changing Sam’s front tyre, Simon remarked how dangerously loose 2 of the spokes were. Sam decided not to fix them at the moment as it was another cold morning and we hoped to get going soon. We shared breakfast of pasta left-overs. Sam dug in first, leaning over to eat from the bowl and dripping some fluid from his nose onto the pasta. Simon and Lachlan went hungry.

We were heading through Sestri Levante, when we joined up with a group of cyclists who appeared to be racing on their expensive Italian racing bikes. Not one to let a challenge go by we jumped on to the peloton, the group seemed happy to have us there as we chatted with them and kept up with the pace. Soon enough we arrived at a tunnel just out of town. The 15Kms of coastal road was mostly single lane tunnels between 1Km and 2Kms long. It had traffic lights at either end of the tunnel to allow traffic to run at certain times of the hour. We had just missed our green light so we waited with the few cars that were parked. The lights went green on the 5, 25 and 45 minute mark and push bikes were strictly forbidden. Pushbikes are supposed to take a mountainous road around the tunnels. Some of the cyclists that we were following before approached us to tell us, in broken English, of the dangers of riding through the tunnels. Doing some rough calculations we could only spend 8mins (max) in one direction before we needed to find safety and at the start of each tunnel we would have to wait for all the cars to pass us before we set off. It was decided that we were going to take our chances, we just needed to peddle our legs off.

The green light was on and the last car entered the tunnel. With adrenalin pumping we jumped on our bikes and sped after the red tail lights that were slowly shrinking into the distance. We rode flat out to try to keep the red beacons in our sights but, with the tunnel over 2Kms long, they were gone and it was just 3 blokes on bikes riding for their lives in a poorly lit tunnel. As the cars were slow to enter the tunnel at the start it had reduced the amount of time we had to make it to safety and with less than a minute remaining we burst out of the tunnel into beautiful sunshine. From then on we decided to limit the distance in the tunnels to under 2Kms.

After the short sprints through the tunnels we arrived at Levanto. The coastal roads ended here so we had to take a short train ride to the start of the Cinque Terre trail. We had hoped to cycle the trail but they are strictly walking paths with many steps. We had a choice to catch the train to the next village on the Cinque Terra trail or cycle to the top of the range and then drop down into the final two towns. With the thought of adventure we took the challenge to cycle. On the first hill out of Levanto we had to peddle up a 19% grade road. It was a difficult climb, but worth it. The amazing view of the coastal towns was everything we had been told about. Late in the afternoon we rolled into Riomaggiore to watch fisherman at their trade as the sunset into the Mediterranean. It was a beautiful finish to an exciting, but tough day… or so we thought.

We caught a train out of Riomaggiore and arrived in Massa late in the evening. From the train station we headed into the city to find a suitable place to stay, but there was nothing in our price range. A few locals pointed us in the direction of a hostel by the shoreline but it, like most things on this trip, was closed. We were lucky to find an hotelier with a soft spot for Australians. He offered us a great deal on a room for the night and even asked us to share coffee and chocolates with him and his wife. A mixed up pizza order and a sneaky kebab (sorry sambo) later we really were done for the day. A soft warm bed in an old three story mansion really was the grand finish to a grand day.