Saturday 27 August 2016

Camino walking day 2

Fortunately there were no overnight thunder storms. The day began with low cloud blocking out much of the view.

We managed to get away shortly after 8:30 with our first stop being the square in front of the church at Portomarin. There were discovered a heap of places serving food and drink that we did not know about previously. The town was obviously a lot livelier than we had realised (a problem when you arrive in a place tired after a long walk).

Some things that I shold have mentioned from day 1.

Our notes warned us that we would encounter cattle as some of our walking was through farmland. There was very limited numbers of cattle on view anywhere. When some were fortunate enough to be outside, most were barned, they were contained by fences mostly of the electric kind.  we were not warned about the smell emanating from the barns!

Back to day 2.

The day promised a walk of 23km with an elevation gain of 340m and loss of less than 200m. Huh!!! The distance was pretty good but not the elevation gain and loss.

The fortress chuch on teh square in Portomarin was impressive. There are no low windows and what windows there are a small slits. Apparently the church contains some impressive sculpyres but alas it was closed when we were leaving.





The other buildings in the square were impressive, too.


The cloud was hanging low over the landscape as can be seen by the next two photos which was taken as we were leaving Portomarin.



At times during today we walked alongside roads. It is surprsing what seems to grow next to roads. There are the blackberries, of course, and these pop up all over the place. The photo below shows a small part of a fairly big fennel crop. Gosh that plant is difficult to get rid of once it is introduced to an area.


We came across quite a bith of heather growing along banks and tracks.


The surfaces we walked over varied considerably. Here Jennifer is walking up one of the grvally ones.


Once the cloud rose we had some lovely views across the countryside. There is quite a loot of forested areas in the region we were walking through. some contain ancient oak trees. Otheres have been harvested and replanted with pines or eucalyptus trees.


Yesterday and today we kept seeing these type of plants in numerousgardens. Some were a good 1.5m tall. The lowere leaves had been stripped of the plants. In the end I concluded that these were probably kale which was being repeatedly harvested.


Looking out through trees at the landscape is fine but doesn't make for good prhotos. It reminded me of comments by Michael when we had been out hiking where we commented more than once that the view would be great if it wasn't for the trees.


In settlements, and sometimew in the middle of nowhere, there were freestanding crosses such as the one below. each one probably has a story to tell. You are lucky that we did not manage to find out what the stories are.


As we had found on our first day, there were small cafes and bars scattered along the trail. This one wa of particular note as not only did it have a "Welcome" sign out front, it offered a toilet, water and hot drinks with just a dontation for the tea and coffee.


We came across quite a few old churches such as the one below. They have survived as many a village has died around them. The Camino and its pilgrims contribute to these ancient builds and the people who care for them.
 

Some of the days walking took us through shaded tracks. As the day warmed up the shade was most welcome.


Our target for the day was Palas De Rei and the sign at the entrance to the town was a welcome sight.



We were pleased to find the hotel where we were staying on the outskirts of the town.

After a shower and a cool drink we felt ready to consider another day of walking.

Distance for the day turned out to be around 24km. This is not accurate as I managed to miss resuming Runtastic following our last refreshment stop.

Elevation gain: 744m

Elevation loss: 541m (some loss was lost when I failed to resume runtastic).

Conclusion: expect much more elevation gain and loss than stated.

1 comment:

  1. Those plants do look like kale that has been harvested a few times.

    ReplyDelete