Life is Always Good When the Sun Shines (unless it’s too hot!)

Today was wonderful. Woke up to see the rain had stopped. With a spring in our step and feeling better after a huge feed of proper food last night, we trotted off through the town and began to climb the mountains.  As we walked, the sun rose and shone it’s beacon over the Autumn leaves again and it was lovely to be warm and dry. The ponchos are now back in the bottom of our packs!It was a bit of a slippery start and we had to be really careful as it was all downhill at first and it was steep. The rocks are wet and the leaves and mud make the going a bit slow, but what a beautiful walk!we passed through gates, walked over stone bridges, wandered along the rivers edge and tree lined forest paths. We passed through a tiny village and came across two lovely ladies collecting chestnuts, and passed a farmer and his wife with a trailer load of bracken.

I found my shadow again ! And so, we descended a mountain, climbed another, descended and climbed again! When we got to the top, we came across 3 ?wild dogs or ?shepherds dogs. There was no farmer nearby so we beat a hasty retreat back down for a bit and waited. If the dogs are protecting sheep, it is strongly advised to stay away. We cautiously picked up a rock each and got out our umbrellas, hoping to stave off an attack if it happened, but by the time we crept back up to where they were, they had gone. No photos-we were too scared!

This was the only ‘incident’ today. The walk was absolutely beautiful, although Julie Andrews came to life again! She will always remind me of this Camino. It’s hard not to think of her when you are walking with a singer and you are climbing mountains and passing sheep and goats with arms outstretched enjoying the sun and welcome breeze. I was hot!

We walked on just enjoying the views. We climbed up a long way and we really are in my beloved Galician mountains. My heart was singing today as I came across my first gum trees in ages. They smelled so delicious…the scent of Australia, you can’t beat it. It made me feel so homesick and I started to recite Dorothy Mckellars ‘my Country’ in my head. I walked slowly for a while and thought of home. As we climbed over the huge granite rocks up in the mountains, we were taken aback by the views. We are so high. It is stunning. We are now in A Gudina for the night and we have another big day ahead of us tomorrow. We are staying above a bar and they have great food. It feels like we are nearing civilisation again.