Well, a lot of things to say about today! First of all, it rained all night and so all of our washing was still wet, except Al’s new shorts and her shirt – a bit of a logistical problem but usually Able to be overcome by strapping the wet washing on the outside of our packs, but today the rain had set in and was not letting up. That’s the second part of today’s story – dreik pretty much from the start! We set of at about 10 past 8 in light drizzle with our ponchos on – for about five minutes, it was way too hot with them on as we climbed out of Lourenza (a short climb according to the book!)! We then used them to cover just our packs as we hiked up over the hill to Mondeñedo in a mix of drizzle and cloud that finally became rain as we made our way into the town for morning tea/dry off. The rain appeared to be lifting as we sat in Mondeñedo (see the pictures of the beautiful cathedral in the town square) but we put on our pack covers as well as our ponchos in an attempt to keep things dry. Just as well as things got wetter until just before Lousada, around 8km from Mondeñedo where we stopped under a dripping tree for a lunch of yoghurt, cheese and bread and a bit of chocolate. By Lousada, we seemed to move out of the rain into cloud/mist and things dried out a little, so the ponchos were put away with just the pack covers to keep things dry.
The final part of today’s story is that today was the big hike uphill to the top (or close to the top) of the mountains. Although we hit the highest point in the route in a few days time, today was the big elevation change, rising from 60 odd metres in Lourenza to 570m at today’s peak before dropping to 500m at our destination, Abadín, a total of 740m ascent including the up and over in the way to Mondeñedo. From Mondeñedo, we had 11km of uphill!
So the height, combined with the conditions meant that we were walking with less than 100m visibility for most of the day – a bit disappointing but the walk would have been really tough in the sun!
We were very happy to stumble into Abadín about 4pm, and as the cloud finally lifted – foot sore and thirsty. 25km today and 682 in total – getting closer!
steelewalking 