Another very pleasant walk today after a day’s rest in Vilalba. We got off to a comparatively late start, knowing we didn’t have far to go today, at about 8:40am after a very nice breakfast. Whether it because we are still up a bit in the hills (we started the day at 460m), or the season is beginning to turn, the morning had a real nip to it for the first time, which made walking really easy! Not a lot of villages now we are off the coast but lots of small hamlets which make the walk interesting. We also had a couple of sizeable medieval bridges and some medieval paths again today, but for the most part walking was easy and on minor country roads and dirt tracks.
We passed through San XoƔn de Alba about an hour and a half out from Vilalba (where we met a young German girl returning to the path after a 2km walk in the wrong direction!) then on to our first stop for the day at Ponte de Saa (where the larger or the bridges was). We ran into our first Australian of the walk, a young guy named Danny from Wollongong who was so rapt to see another Aussie he had to give Al a hug! Anyway, it was good to chat for a while and share stories over a coffee.
After Ponte de Saa we passed through the small hamlets, Penas, Contaritz and Casasnovas are the ones shown on the map but there were more, before arriving a couple of hours later at our destination for the day, Baamonde, for lunch (we had a free-ranger join us to clean up the scraps!). Baamonde looked like a real wheat belt type town – petrol station, general store/minimart, a couple of bars, a crossroads and dust!
Tonight is the first of three nights that we are staying away from the Camino at the hotel Bi Terra. They come and pick us up when we are finished for the day and drop us back the next morning, so we have two days with only light day packs! Can’t wait but will be tricky to pack – for the last 5 weeks we’ve had everything right there on our backs!
The hotel is next to a working farm that has one of the cow dung/water pressure mixers – hope they don’t use it while we’re here…
20kms again today/722kms overall and just 101kms to Santiago!
steelewalking 