The countdown begins

Portomarín to Palas de Rei – Day 31 – 24.89 kms

After yesterdays heat and today predicted to be the same, I arranged a picnic to collect at 6am and left my hotel (in the dark) By the time I was through the other side of town the sky was lightening and lots of pilgrims (the real ones and a few familiar faces) were all leaving town early to beat the heat and the Sunday walkers!

The first hour was all uphill…but at the top through the clouds hanging low…the sky was starting to colour up!!!

At this point, marched (yep marched) across the top catching some great views of the hills and the low lying clouds!

A bit of regional road walking, but at this time mostly off road and tracks lined by trees!!! A few up and downs until I came across my first coffee of the day about 2 hours in 7.5kms! Gasping for coffee as you can imagine! Here I ran into my Camino friend, Mark from yesterday…who after his huge day yesterday had had a late start…we left together (he was again going another 8 kms than me) but on the track I was on until my destination!

The sun came up!!! The temperatures started rising by 9am and I was happy I had 10kms under my belt!

These structures are prevalent in this Galician area of Spain…they were used to store grain (keep it dry) in the olden days – 9th century – called horreos!

The clouds were still lying low…as we trucked on with coffee and water and coke stops as needed!

Today on the hills there were often Forrest paths providing much needed shade as the temperatures soared towards 34 degrees! A chance of rain was predicted (which never came) so not to be caught out my poncho came along for the ride! (Hipatia and Jean – no repeat of the rubbish bag day was needed)

Mark and I passed through numerous villages – this one housed a carver….Smokey the bear! And many other objects (including his letterbox) I certainly have a few take home ideas and projects!

This vista on one of the ridges (a pano for Chuck) the photo does not do it justice!

This little church was a must see and stamp your Camino passport – there was a blind man …dressed as a knight, who would have stamped anything you put out…he was going to stamp my hand but I directed his hand to the passport!

And here I saw my first sheep!!! So far it’s only been cows…. But other farming, as we head west, is starting to pop up!

The forests are a bit of a contest of who can grow tallest – in my family that’s George!!!

Through another village…and these girls were under cover munching their lunch! No wonder they are huge – no paddock exercise and lots of hay!

Of course a day is not complete without a pilgrim statue…

Or a Km check…this one was back a bit we are now in the 60’s (my birth decade!)

Up another hill …every time you went down you knew you were going to be going up! That was the day!

Here in front of this church, in the shade, was a stone wall to have a foot break and eat my picnic lunch!!!

This statue is really weird…a man on her back???

Today, we had mostly avoided the short day walkers, apart from the odd bunch of kids that caught us up, the designer gym gear, some drone activity(really) and sunburnt white legs, we had a realatively normal (our pace) walking day….although dripping wet on arrival in my town…Mark took transport to his town and I dived into my hotel for a cool shower and clothes wash…having to clean up the sunblock malfunction in my suitcase ..which was not closed properly this morning (well it was 5.30am) and spread itself through all my toiletries!

Now a beer in the town of Palas de Rey and early start tomorrow again for another hot day and 29kms!!! We will see how that goes!

Three more days!!!!