Once again we slept past everyone else in the hostel. These pilgrims are a dedicated bunch, up with the lark. We had breakfast and headed off knowing we had a pretty easy ride to Santiago ahead of us, and we had accommodation booked in, a rare sense of planned-ness which wasn’t altogether welcome as it took away a bit of the mystery about the day. Will we get mauled by wild boar or washed away by a flooding river? These are the things that give the spice to life!

We headed straight into a sunny morning and a long downhill section, it feels great to get the first kilometre under your wheels without pedalling! We were soon paying for it by climbing back up the other side of the valley, which warmed us up nicely.

We were on a main road for most of the day and the traffic was relatively heavy, which was ideal for instigating our regular mid-morning road position argument, but thankfully it was relatively short-lived today and by first lunch all was well with the world. We rolled along enjoying the flowering plants and shrubs that crowded the roadside.

The distances to Santiago on the road signs were becoming tantalizingly small; I was excited by 33 km, but Anna only got the bug at 19 km out.

When we got close to the outskirts of town we tried to find a minor road route in, but after a few hundred metres of beautiful country lane (and the most insanely steep hill we have encountered thus far) we found ourselves back on the main road, so we accepted it and bumped into town alongside the lorries. The town centre it didn’t disappoint. We needed to find a bike shop and the search took us through beautiful steep narrow lanes with old buildings on either side bristling with shop signs selling everything you can think of. We found the bike shop with its penny-farthing sign outside only to find that is was, of course, closed for lunch. So we went off to find the hostel.

We searched around the area we knew the hostel to be for a good 20 minutes. There were roadworks going on, and a JCB-mounted pneumatic drill was hammering away in the street, which made it a bit hard to concentrate. It turned out the hostel was behind a small, unobtrusive door right by the epicentre of the seismic activity. With some trepidation we went in, making sure to find out what time the roadworks start and finish. We decided 8 am – 6 pm was ok so we presented our passports and booked in.

Upstairs we got chatting to a German guy called Martin who had walked the French route of the Camino from St Jean Pied de Port in France, a distance of 850km! After having a day off he had decided to cycle home to Germany, so he wanted to go to the bike shop to to buy a bike. We decided to head there together after lunch and in the meantime showed him how our panniers worked and tried to think of things he would need to think about.

At the bike shop Martin mananged to get a bike, panniers, a multitool, a drinks bottle and some other kit, as well as an all-important Camino cycle jersey all for €850. A bargain; we felt we had done badly at €28.50 for 8 brake pads and a mirror!

Martin’s friend Nils met us at the bike shop and then we went on to meet some of the others guys they had met on the walk outside a café for beers in the glorious afternoon sunshine. They were a great bunch, and it was nice to see them all chatting and swapping stories about their experience. It was interesting that hardly any of them seemed to be doing the Camino for “religious” reasons, but I would say they all seemed to get something spiritual out of it. They were all keen on going to the Mass at the cathedral but it seems that the massive swinging incense burner is the big draw rather than redemption.

We met a guy called Anton who comes from the Velebit area of Croatia, which is where one of the Rewilding projects is based. We were asking about the area and its culture and he confirmed that it is very beautiful and we should definitely go! We were asking about the history of Croatia and that included the independence and civil war era, which was 1991-1994. He is 38, so he was a young teenager during the war. He said his parents lived in the South, which was in the warzone, and he and his twin sister were sent North to Zagreb, which was a more stable area. It is so strange to hear those kind of stories from people who seem so similar to me. It sounds like (and is) a massive cliché but it does make you realise how lucky you are, and that your problems are really not that big a deal! Anton’s parents have passed away now (although not as a result of the war), and he walked the Camino partly because his Dad had done it. I didn’t want to pry any further but I was glad for him as it seemed like he had just completed something important – it was a good time to meet him!

Some of the group were heading home that evening, so there were 5 of us left who decided to go to dinner. It was a good chance to hear more stories from the walkers. Jean-Philippe had slept in a donation-based hostel where Martin had stopped for a coffee but then declined to drink it due to hygiene concerns. There were some pictures and it looked pretty basic, but that is one of the things I’ve been realizing on this trip. You don’t need to wash your hands every five seconds, and a grubby glass probably won’t kill you! Anyway JP was happy with his night’s sleep, and delighted the hosts made them coffee in the morning!

The main thing everyone seemed to agree on was that you have to walk your own Camino in your own way and for your own reasons. Everyone nodded sagely at this, and I could only nod along in incomprehension. I think it must be like Vietnam; if you weren’t there you just don’t know!

– Dave

This morning it wasn’t raining (hooray!), but it was overcast and the air was still, which is ideal for riding. We slept in past everyone else getting up and leaving the hostel, so we had a quiet breakfast then packed up and got on the road by about 9:30am. It was still cool as we rode down the steep hill out of town, but perfect temperature for riding uphill again after crossing the river. On the way up, we saw two Camino walkers waving at us to pull over so we inched our way towards them uphill in granny gear and said hello. They were lost and didn’t know where to pick up the Camino trail. We were sorry not to be able to help them, but said that if we saw the trail up ahead, we’d shout. As we continued on up and around the corner, there was a trail sign, so I went down the hill (a tiny bit, but still more than I wanted to!) and gave them a cheery shout and a wave and they headed on up.

For some reason, Dave and I were both a bit shitty with each other all morning in spite of the ideal weather, cheery walkers and gentle ups and downs. I had been getting gradually more annoyed over the last two weeks with Dave’s road position and it all came to a head this morning when he continued to refuse to use the hard shoulder. Every time we stopped, we argued about it over chocolate biscuits then continued riding, still angry. The only benefit was that my legs appear to be anger-fuelled and we made amazing progress!

Thankfully the mood improved after first lunch and we were enjoying ourselves again. The sun was making the odd break through the clouds, we had been going alongside the Camino trail all day, greeting walkers with rings and toots and shouts of ‘Buen Camino’ once again.

After a delightful 10km on a tiny quiet country road, we joined the main (ish) road again and found it to be quite busy! Luckily the hard shoulder was a bit bigger and in better condition, so we uitilised it as cars and lorries zoomed by at 100 km/h.

We had vaguely planned to stop in Melide today but we’d only done 40km by then, so went to the grocer instead to stock up for dinner and continued on – down a hill, across a river and back uphill again, as we’d done all day. It was a good amount of up and down though and we did pretty well, arriving at a hostel in the afternoon with 50km under our belts and another 50km to do tomorrow to reach Santiago.

The hostel is modern and fairly busy, has amazing showers and washing machines (double luxury!), but for 20 Euros for both of us, we’re better off at a campsite. Once we get past Santiago, there should be more campsites and fewer Camino hostels again.

After chores were done and snacks had been eaten, we wandered around the tiny village. It’s a typical Spanish village, some places beautifully maintained, others crumbling down, and every inhabited house has veggies growing in the garden and chickens clucking around. There are dogs lounging around in the streets and some fields grazed by lazy-looking cows. What’s new for us today is that there are loads of strange mini buildings on stilts in people’s gardens around here. Dave thought they were chicken sheds and I laughed off the idea, but it turns out to be true! The famous elaborate chicken houses of Galicia. Well what do you know…

– Anna

We woke up in our hostel dorm to find the room was freezing cold. Our single dorm-mate reckoned this was to make sure we got out early, although it didn’t make me any keener to get out of bed! After a shivery breakfast we headed out into the day to find it was raining (obviously) and there was also a heavy mist – you could only see about 20 m.

We set off to find that we were at the top of a 7 km descent at about 7% – great fun usually but not when you have freezing rain battering into you at 50 kph! Halfway down a shadow appeared from the gloom, which resolved itself to be one out our Czech friends from yesterday, carefully negotiating the descent. We whizzed past, managing to muster a cheery “Buenos dias” as we went. He didn’t seem full of joie de vivre but who could blame him!

We were still on the Camino trail for a while so we passed a few pedestrian pilgrims, who still somehow manage a smile and a “Buen Camino” even when they’re soaked through. We dropped several hundred metres in altitude over about half an hour, then had to stop for a restorative apple pastry and re-adjustment of waterproofing. A couple we had passed on the road just before wandered up, announcing they had gone the wrong way. I was more concerned that the guy was wearing shorts and trainers and the lady was wearing open toed sandals and clearly at risk of frostbite, but they seemed happy enough and we chatted away under the bus shelter for a few minutes before they continued on the path of righteousness.

Anna and I headed off too, and soon found ourselves in Samos admiring the Benedictine monastery of San Xulián de Samos while munching salted, deep fried sweetcorn (great calorie to weight ratio!) under a thoughtfully provided shelter by the river. It was still raining.

We pushed on through the morning and arrived in Sarria, the major town in the region in the early afternoon. We decided to treat ourselves to an inside lunch since we were soaked and cold, but we chose poorly. Back on the street after a very disappointing hamburger we were forced to seek out a bakery that provided us with a massive empanada. Aaaah, that’s better! It actually stopped raining for a bit.

Heading out of Sarria we ran into some more hills. The intermittent freezing rain made temperature control very difficult. My hands were still freezing cold in my soaking wet, wind-permeable “waterproof” Sealskinz gloves (anti-plug there!), although my toe warmers were keeping the wind off and the accumulated water in my shoes had finally started to warm up from the empanada-fuelled blood flow. Anna was wearing gore-tex shoes and kept complaining she was too hot. Poor Anna. But at last, a ray of hope. The rain stopped and the sun started to make cheeky little appearances from behind the clouds. It is absolutely amazing what a difference it makes to your day when the sun comes out in these conditions. Suddenly we thought we might survive the day.

We were getting tired and were hoping to find a hostel in the village of Paradela, but alas, when I asked some guys outside a bar (all in Spanish, very proud of myself), they said  there was nothing till the next town, Portomarin. They reassured us it was all downhill and we would be there in 20 minutes, but after our last experience, Anna was sceptical. For the first kilometre out of town it looked like she was right, and she wasn’t shy about saying so, but after that we hit a glorious steep winding downhill section that would make for awesome race footage. We went whizzing down in the sunshine, all thoughts of coldness (and photos sadly) forgotten, and popped out by the huge many-armed lake where Portomarin nestles. We made our way round the lake and came to the bridge that leads into town. From an adjoining road came a few tens of pilgrims making it into town as well after an exhausting day’s walk. Their path was separate to ours for most of the day and I realised that I’d quite missed them!

We crossed the bridge and started up the hill to town. There was an awesome mural on the wall of the public baths, and a great view of the lake. After taking a couple of photos, where I became genuinely angry with a motorist for daring to enter the frame at the wrong moment I went to set off on my bike and unceremoniously fell over into the road, where I lay cackling like an idiot. Realised I was a bit tired at this point.

We went round town looking for a hostel for less that €10 so we could stick to our budget for the day. That went out the window though when Anna found we could have a sweet private room and access to washing and drying facilities and bike storage in the Portosantiago hostel for €30. After conducting the usual shower (oh my god, how good!), clothes wash and shopping we had a quick (late) siesta before prepping tasty stew and enjoying with a bottle of Rioja from “Spain’s best vineyard 2011” we picked up at the supermarket for €2.70. All is right with the world again! Bring on tomorrow! Buenos noches!

– Dave

It didn’t stop raining all night last night! But we were dry in the tent and I used earplugs to get a good night’s sleep in spite of the hammering rain. When we started packing up inside the tent at 7am, the rain stopped, there were hints of blue sky and we were able to break camp and set off in lovely conditions.

As we rode out of the campsite through the village, the mist was rising off the cloud-shrouded hills around the valley, and the colours were wonderful after the rain. Fields of poppies all bright red, bobbing their heads under the weight of the water on them. We headed back to the road, the N-VI that has been serving us well for the last few days. Today, as yesterday, we were taking the N-VI alongside the new (and huge) A6 motorway. Neither road was very busy, but thankfully most of the traffic was on the A6 and we had the N-VI mostly to ourselves again.

The sun and the clouds were with us all along the N-VI as we headed gradually uphill, north up the valley. When we were on the same route as the famous Camino de Santiago, we saw loads of hikers and greeted each other with the customary ‘Hola! Buen Camino!’. When we stopped for first lunch at a picnic spot in a little town, we chatted to a Dutch lady who’d cycled from home to do the Camino de Santiago.

Then we continued uphill, steeper now, criss-crossing the A6, under or over as the weather was getting steadily worse. A cold wind was blowing and the rain came and went. The phrase of the day was ‘Oh look, it’s raining over there!’, then it’d rain over here for a bit, too.

We crossed the county boundary into Galicia [pronounced Galithia], a country renowned for its lush green hills, good farming and lots of rain!  So of course it was raining as we entered the county.

When we finally made it to point at which we were going to leave the N-VI, we were already tired and it was raining quite hard. We stopped for a chilly second lunch then carried on up and up and up.

We met a few other cyclists on the way, all with quite a bit less luggage than us but we were all having just as tough a time going up the mountain.  A friendly Czech guy took a picture of us at a viewpoint.

When we finally made it to the top of the pass, we thought we were going to get to go down for a while, but ended up going straight back up again!

It seems like we had been going for hours uphill in the rain this afternoon, but we’ve hardly gone any distance since we left the N-VI! When we’d one 50km for the day, we came to the top of a hill in the rain and saw a hostel, so decided to call it a day. We finished the day 850 meters higher than we started but the total climbing was more as we went down quite a bit too!

The hostel is far from the best accommodation – it boasts the world’s worst showers! But alas, we are clean and warm and dry and full of delicious home-made lamb stew and sweet tea from the bar! There are a few locals chatting noisily in Spanish and one Camino walker kindly talking to us in English.  He did the same distance as us today but without wheels!

– Anna

We thought we were in for rain all day today and we were knackered so we set the alarm for 9 to make the most of our luxury two star hotel. I was worried we might have to check out by 10, but Anna pointed out that was unlikely since nothing opens here till 11. Fair point, and so it proved.

When we woke up sure enough it was still raining! We had breakfast (muesli with powdered milk) in bed then reluctantly started getting ready to head out. We loaded the bikes in the underground car park and headed up the ramp to find that against all expectations the rain had stopped and the air had that beautiful clear crispness that follows a good downpour. So we set off in good spirits and superfluous full waterproofs, which had to be removed fairly rapidly.

It was a pretty, cloudy day, and the clouds made fascinating shapes against the distant mountains.

It was mid-morning on Saturday and the traffic on the motorway was a nightmare. Don’t know how we got through it.

We only had 30 km to do today to reach our campsite at Villamartin de la Abadia. There were a couple of climbs but the majority was flat or downhill and we covered the distance quickly, stopping for a quick lunch of cheese, avocado and chorizo rolls on the outskirts of Ponferrada just after crossing a beautiful river valley with a great view of the viaduct further upstream.

We got into the campsite about 12 and the weather was still good, so once we’d had a shower and hand-washed our cycle stuff we hung out in a little plaza and had some more food. Anna made the most of the afternoon sun with a quick siesta. After that we played frisbee for a bit – totally worth carrying a frisbee!

Siesta!

Once the shop opened at 5 we went and got some food for tomorrow and came back to cook dinner. The promised rain finally set in at this point, so we have just spent the last four hours stranded under the shelter at the campsite cooking, eating and chatting.

As we were packing up a lovely German couple came over with a bottle of wine and declared that they thought we would like to share it with them. Rude not to, so we had our first wine of the trip chatting about our respective travels. They have travelled a lot in Spain, and came from Santiago today – it’ll take me and Anna about 5 days to do that in the other direction! They have also been to the UK – they think the Highlands are the most beautiful area, and they are very taken with the ‘park and ride’ concept. Probably wouldn’t be on my adverts for visiting the UK, but maybe it should be! There are no photos as we were separated from our cameras by lots of falling water.

We finally made a break for the tents and I am writing this up with the rain hammering down on the fabric and knowing I’m going to have to go outside in a minute and put the cover on my leather saddle. D’oh!

– Dave

Our campsite last night was lovely and flat, but it did have its issues.  It was cloudy when we went to bed, so it was unusually warm and we felt sticky and grotty in our sleeping bags.  We could hear the dogs barking angrily in the town about a kilometre away and we felt a little uneasy about the whole thing.

In the night, Dave woke to the sound of gentle footsteps on the old crunchy leaves around our tent, accompanied by the odd grunt and snort of wild boar! Thankfully he didn’t wake me, and just nervously awaited their departure in silence.  I guess they love the sweet chestnuts that were strewn all over our campsite!  A little later in the night, we both woke up to hear them fighting and squealing in the next field and stayed awake for a while feeling nervous, hoping we weren’t going to get trampled or mauled.  The boars were in my dreams, then we woke again a little later to hear more piercing squeals from another direction.  We both kind of knew that they wouldn’t bother us, but it was disconcerting.

For the first time on the trip I was glad to hear the alarm go off at 6:30!  I think we were both still pretty tired but happy to get up.  We packed away pretty smoothly under a clouded sky and it was unusually dark when we set off at 7:30am.

The blanket of clouds was rippled in places, making it seem as though we were looking up at the surface of the ocean from below.  As we rode west, the sky behind us was getting lighter as some sunlight managed to make it through the clouds.

We had more ups and downs to do, getting alternately hot and cold.  The clouds that had kept us warm in the night were now preventing sun-warming and by the time we’d had whispered breakfast on a bench in a silent sleeping village, we were quite chilly.

Then we got back on the road and the rain started.  A gentle patter that lasted all day!  We encased ourselves in our rain gear and sweated up hills, then shivered down them.  We stopped in a small town for a snack before going on to meet the main road in the valley.

It was pretty grim riding today and after one particularly cutting shout of ‘This is shit!’ from me on the way up a steep hill, Dave asked whether I’d rather be back at my safe cosy desk in London, warm and clean and dry… … Nah.

When we finally made it to the main road N-VI after 30km, we were knackered and so desperate for a shower that we stopped in the service station and paid 3 Euros each for the privilege of standing under a jet of water in a little shower cubicle!  Not ideal but we did feel better afterwards.

Back on the road, back in the rain.  But look – it’s downhill!!  Finally!  I think we were too tired and the weather was too gross for us to really enjoy it, but it was a relief not to have to work the legs for 20km.  We sped down at 40kmh without pedalling, had the whole road to ourselves, the heather-clad hills rolling by, the rain spiking our faces, our fingers chilled to the bone.  Through a few tunnels, around a few switchbacks then into the valley and the town of Bembibre.

We rode into the centre of town, grey in the drizzle but bustling with people, unlike the sleepy villages of the last week.  At a loss as to where to go to find a hostel, we stood in the rain in town and discussed the matter.  Then a man strode up to us and said (in English! nobody here speaks English!), “Hello guys, do you need some help?”.  That would be great, thank you.  We had a little chat and he pointed us in the direction of a cheap hotel and we checked in, miles over budget for the day at 40 Euros.  But I think we earned our first solid accommodation of the trip!

The rain drizzled on outside all afternoon as we went about our chores of shopping, eating, laundry, sorting kit, internet and napping.  We are still getting used to the strange opening hours, usually 10-12 in the morning then 5-8 at night!  And our terrible Spanish is inhibiting efficiency of chores.  There don’t appear to be any self-service laundry places here, so we spent about 20 minutes in the laundrette, trying to establish whether we could get our clothes washed.  We never found out what the issue was, but got our stuff back clean and dry two hours after leaving it there, so I guess it worked out ok.

We feel slightly better for having a rest this afternoon, although the stairs to our 1st floor room keep reminding us how tired our legs are.  We’ve been doing some route planning and should be in Santiago de Compostela in under a week.  After that we’re heading to the first rewilding project of the trip in Portugal called the Faia Brava Reserve.  Looking forward to the journeys and the destinations!

– Anna

We woke up just as the sun broke over the hills, and managed to pack away and have breakfast in about an hour and get on the road.

We chatted away as we rode, commenting on how much we enjoy the morning part of the ride, once the initial unpleasantness of getting out of the sleeping bags is dealt with. There were lots more storks (all those cranes we saw before turn out to be white storks (Ciconia ciconia)) hanging around in the fields, looking up at us and sometimes flapping away on their huge wings as we sped past.

There were some big hills on the morning ride today, including this 2 km beast. It did have an equally steep downhill on the other side though, which was fun!

Anna pointed out some strangely shaped clouds in the distance, which turned out to be formed from two massive cooling towers from the power station at La Robla. The cement factory there probably accounted for all the quarrying we saw. We hoped to find some shops and wifi in La Robla, but when we got into town it was still only 10 am, and things didn’t start opening till 12, so we pushed on. We did eventually manage to access the outside word by sitting on the steps of a hotel in a town called La Magdalena, and getting on their unsecured network. Funny how you care less about that kind of thing when you’re trying to travel on €30 a day!

We pulled into a beautiful village called Riallo at about 2 pm and sat down outside a popular looking bar for a drink and to continue our internet tasks. We were trying to plan our route for the next few days. At this point we got chatting to a guy who’d retired to the area from Barcelona. He didn’t have much English, and our Spanish is still awful, but he started recommending a different route to us, since our one apparently contained too much uphill. After about half an hour of negotiations with him, two of his friends and a younger guy with a smartphone who showed us the suggested route (which was supposed to be 62 km of downhill to our next big town of Bembibra) we said “Gracias y Adios” and they left. Anna was keen to push on, but I had had enough for the day and said I didn’t think I could do it. Anna said “of course you can” which of course I took as a challenge, so off we went. We forgot to go to the shop, which we had meant to do before setting off.

The first part of the ride was indeed downhill, along a beautiful quiet road which crossed and re-crossed a wide, shallow river banked with mixed woodland in springtime bloom. Things started to go wrong when we took the wrong turning at a roundabout and did about a kilometre in the wrong direction. This might not seem like much but when you’re tired and hungry it’s a big deal. So I started sulking and we did the next 2 km in an awkward silence. We got to the bottom of a steep uphill and stopped to have a good argument. I said that Anna hadn’t listened to me when I said I wanted to stop at Riallo, and she said that she’d offered to stop a few km back if I wanted to. I said I wasn’t going to take responsibility for calling a halt when it was in the context of her wanting to go on and me spoiling the fun. Anna said we could go back and camp at a spot we’d passed which looked flat and near the river, but I refused to go back, said I felt fine and started off up the hill. It turned out to be a very big hill. By the time we had got to the top we had managed to argue to the point of exhaustion, so we both apologized and agreed to get on with it and find somewhere good to camp, since the promised 62 km of downhill to Bembibre was clearly lacking.

There was a great view from the top of the hill across a plateau of heather and trees at the side of the road which dipped into a wide valley and then layers of blue hills in the far distance.

We went up and down a couple of long hills before I spotted a likely looking campsite by the side of the road just before another massive hill. There was running water and a flat (ish) grassy area and it was partially hidden from the road by a bank and some small trees. I checked it out and decided (probably due to desperation) that it was suitable. We got all the gear and the bikes down the bank and I started to cook while Anna looked for somewhere to put the tent. She pointed out that my description of the grass as “a bit hummocky” was a massive understatement, and the ground was in fact exclusively made of hummocks. I had to acknowledge this, as well as the high density of biting insects, and the dubious presence of animal dung near the stream. We decided over dinner that it was in fact an awful campsite. Once this was agreed we made the painful decision to press on. We had a quick wash from the water bottles (not recommended) and cleaned our teeth hoping that we would then be ready for bed as soon as we found a vaguely suitable site.

We lugged the gear back up the bank and onto the road and pedalled oh so slowly up the hill to the pleasantly named village of San Feliz de la Lavenderas. They had a beautiful old church with a stork nest (complete with baby stork on the bell tower), but on the downside, no hostel or campground.

We were following Google Maps down a track that was supposed to lead us back to the main road when we met an old guy who told us that it didn’t actually go back to the road at all, and shepherded us back towards the village. Two other guys then set us on the right path out of town. We were so tired by this point, and almost as soon as we left the village Anna spotted a flat bit of land by the side of the road that supported some big sweet chestnut trees, but no signs of cultivation. It was a great campsite apart from the spiny chestnut shells, which had to be cleared away in case they punctured the groundsheet. They were certainly capable of doing this; they went straight through our gloves as we used our hands to pick out the last few after an initial foot-sweep. We got the tent set up as it got dark and crawled inside, still sweaty and gross, to try and get some sleep.

So, my lessons learned from the day: 1. don’t blindly accept advice relating to gradients from non-cyclists; and 2. if you need to stop, put your foot down!

– Dave

I didn’t sleep well last night, I kept having dreams about being simultaneously fined by the police and flooded out by the river. Neither of those things happened though and we were undisturbed yet again, Hurrah!

It was cold when we got up; there was frost on the ground except for a 2 m radius around our tent, obviously we are very warm people! We had tasty chocolate porridge with dried fruit and coconut flakes for breakfast, highly recommended! We were packed away and ready to go in 1.5 hours which is our best so far; we plan to get down to 1 hour once we become a well oiled camp breaking machine.

We set off towards Riano as the sun broke over the mountain top by our campsite, and as we headed down the road we were treated to multiple sunrises as the sun dipped in and out of view behind ridges. We were still following the river as it rushed along past farms and through lovely red-roofed villages. We saw (maybe) a crane in a field to the right, he stayed still while we stopped and watched him, but made his escape as soon as he saw the camera!

We came to a picnic area that was full of blossoming cherry trees. The trees in turn were full of bumbebees; their low drone filled our ears as we stripped off some layers and chilled out taking photos and enjoying the sunshine.

Just before Riano the river met a huge lake, and our pace slowed considerably as we stopped every 50 m to get that perfect view of the mountains reflected in the lake. Here is our best effort, of course it doesn’t do the real view justice!

We got to town and saw the sign for the campsite which was 500 m up a steep side road above the town. We decided to check it out and toiled up to the top. The owner said that the site was shut due to snow damage so he couldn’t let us stay because he had no insurance. He was very apologetic and phoned the youth hostel in town to see if they were open. They weren’t, and at this he changed his mind and said he would leave the gate open for us and if we didn’t find anywhere in town we could pitch our tent for free. What a hero!

He also gave us a recommendation for a good breakfast venue, so we headed down into town and took full advantage with a massive burger each. I also had my first coffee since getting to Spain and it was glorious!

We were looking for somewhere to shower and do laundry, but the tourist office was shut and the hotel we enquired at didn’t know of anywhere. So we found a quiet spot by the lake and have set up here for the afternoon. We had a refreshing wash in the freezing water and did our laundry by hand.

Anna went into town to get food, but everywhere is shut except the bakery so we are chilling out here in the sunshine until the shops OPEN at 5 pm! After that we will head to a bar to get wifi, then sneak back into the campsite. So all in all a very relaxing day at the beach!

– Dave