Okay, if we ever gonna get to Santiago by Wednesday we had to have a plan. Er….. lets just walk as far as we can today and see what happens. Good.
We left around 8am. Felt pretty good to. Two previous days doing not a lot walking wise had left us kinda rejuvenated. On we went. Our first Goal was Portamarin, 20 k away. As is the case in the mornings in Galicia there was a fog first thing. Usually this lifts as the morning progresses and the sun comes out. Today however it just stayed. This made walking much easier as there were no heat issues. The first 5 k took us to Barbedelo, which had we continued yesterday we would have reached. Cést la vie.
We passed by. We carry on through the mist along easy country paths shaded by trees. Very reminiscent at times of being in Scotland! There are little stone markers along the way here at every 1/2 km, so you always kinda know how far it is to the next village. By 10.30am we had reached Ferreiros. We stopped for 20mins to rest feet, smoke etc etc. At this rate Portomarin was on by noon.
The slightly unfortunate side effect of misty weather is that if there is a good view you cant see it!.
Portomarin is an odd place, as the original town was flooded by a new dam construction in the 60´s and rebuilt higher up the hill. When you cross the river before it you can see the remenants of the old town.
We decided to have lunch here and put the old feet up. Now i ain´t one for long stops but in this case it was a wise move. We ate lunch, relaxed etc and left Portomarin just after 2pm. As the weather was still in our favour we decided to go to Ventas de Naron, 12k up the road. The break had recharged us. We zipped up the hill out of town and continued at a good pace, reaching Ventas by 4.30pm, despite a 15min break for Al to get his footy bets on!
Amazingly we still felt okay. Right decision time again! Could we, should we walk the next 14 k to Palas do Rei? If we could make it this would put us back on track. What the hell, lets do it.
Motivated by the fact that if we made it this would be our longest day on the road we bashed on. Downhill into village, uphill out. It never changes!
On we went, passed places we could have stayed in, even past bars! A woman drove passed us and gave us a card to a pension in Palas. If we made it, we would stay there.
Would we make it before dark!?
At 7.30pm, after almost 12 hours on the road we finally got to our goal- Palas do Rei. 46km done!
We were knacked, but elated that we had achieved this.
Tomorrow would be easier, but still 30km to do to stay on target.
We ate, then crashed. a very good day.
Adois zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
oh for goodness sake, will you both take easy, its not a race!
Clock keeps ticking cars keep passing, day goes by slowly by….. and although as a rule i try to avoid guilty feelings, i couldn’t stop them this morning. talk about ignoring your mate’s emails and texts. i just thought you were going out for a walk to get the milk and rolls and were making a bit of a fuss about it. All i remember about backpaking in spain was the heat, heavy rucksack and the constant moans of my travelling companion – or maybe that was me. Very, very impressed. Well done. I guess this means i still have to sponsor you. Cheers
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