Day 10 – Portugalete to Islares

Very big day today! We set off quite early from Portugalete, about 8am but unfortunately we had not done our homework and struggled for 20 minutes to find the route (we did, however, have a very nice walk last night when we should have been looking!) headed for Castro-Urdiales or possibly Islares. For the first time, we woke up to a beautiful sunny day, cool in the morning but stunning all day. The section of trail out Portugalete was once again a bit commercial and industrial but we made quite good time to Playa de la Arena, where we had a coffee and tortilla (a sort of Spanish omelette). The walk from Playa de la Arena through Pobeña to Onton was just stunning – we were along the coast for the whole way watching this boat that was going about our speed and we kept thinking how good it would be to have Rambler there and pull in to one of the bays for a bbq and swim!
Up until Onton, it was as though the lights had gone on and the folk who started the track suddenly decided to use coastal paths instead of going from peak to peak but unfortunately it all changed at Onton and it was a steep descent followed by big ascent up to Saltacaballos before once again descending into Mioño where we had a light lunch at about 2pm. At this stage we had walked about 22km, most of it in sight of Castro-Urdiales: although our itinerary said the stage was from Portugalete to Castro-Urdiales, our accommodation was actually a further 8km along the Camino as a place called Islares – we were supposed to get to C-U and call the local taxi, then return in the morning (or not) to walk this part of the route. I’m sure you can guess what we did!
We struggled the 7.4km into C-U – Alison had a slightly bung knee from an earlier incident involving one of my poles and her legs and poles and I had picked up a bit of the old Wally Grout from eating a pineapple two days earlier (yes, pineapple!) so we were really struggling. It was a beautiful town with sensational beaches full of people that we just walked straight through and headed for Islares – still got some work to do on the “stop and smell the roses” concept!
I’m sure Islares was a beautiful town too but it was all we could do to limp in after 37km and a bit over 11 hours on the road – 1km short of the 200km milestone but I don’t think we could have walked another inch!