I am not sure I’ll have a lot to write about today because I am completely exhausted but here’s today’s walk in brief.

First, it’s Sunday, so Pontedueme was pretty quiet. We had tomato on bread for breakfast but with ham this time.

The path out of Pontedueme, starting from our breakfast table, went up, up, UP.

Still, we consoled ourselves with the amazing views as we sweated through our clothes. Or as I sweated and Danny lightly dampened his clothes. It turns out Danny doesn’t sweat much, which somehow seemed quite unfair.

One the first day of our walk we had discovered pilgrim fountains everywhere. They have running water and foot baths with a bench around. On this day we saw a few but nowhere near as many. I would be interested to know if they are a feature on other routes.

During the first half of the day we walked through forest and along some very pretty trails. Thankfully not all the forests were eucalypts.

We saw a lot of grape vines on trellises. This was probably the most impressive.

The roadside verges were full of flowers and there were many lovely scents along the way.

The path took us through very varied scenery, including beneath massive pillars that held highways above wetlands.

We saw beaches and waterways.

For lunch we stopped at a very pilgrim-themed place to have a bite. There was a cute and very tiny dog.

The lady running the stop was lovely and very welcoming. We left after having a very restful sit and picking some wild strawberries from their garden.

Just a short way down the track we saw a huge mural featuring the woman from the pilgrim stop. If only we’d had a photo with her!

I bought an apple in the next little town and we came across a large group of women pilgrims walking so slowly that they ended up being the first (and probably last) people we would overtake. Sure, they overtook us later on but it did feel nice to not be the slowest for a short while.

The path continued to be very hilly.

Towards the end I was really struggling. My right hip was hurting, particularly on the uphills, which was doubly annoying because on the downhills the soles of my feet really stung. Across the day I took 5 ibuprofen tablets and I’m not sure they helped much.

The second half of the day was through countryside that felt almost deserted and was also lacking the plentiful benches of the morning so we stopped and sat in a gutter at one point to eat our snack nuts (snuts) and biscuits.

Classy!

The sandals I bought in England were a nice change for my feet in the middle of the afternoon as we climbed the last hill. A lady pulled over as we were halfway to the top and told us it wasn’t much further. At the tip we found her with her husband manning a little pilgrim stop with cold drinks and a donation box. They asked where we were from and then pointed to all the eucalyptus trees, telling me they were from Australia. Yes, I had noticed that half of Spain looks exactly like the trees around my house, thanks.

We got a stamp and then sat down for a rest. A Dutch fellow came along and sat down for a chat. He had done many Camino trails and usually came with his family.

The couple at the stop took a photo of Danny and I together before we left.

Eventually we made it to Betanzos. The hotel was nice, we had Japanese for dinner and used the laundromat. My feet were pretty swollen and my blisters worse than I’ve ever had in my life! We’ll see how tomorrow goes!