Day 9 Sabaris 16km

Although we were not walking far today, just 16km, we were up very early because we wanted to walk in the cool before the sun fried everyone.

It was a good decision. The temperature was cool, with a fresh breeze blowing in from the sea. We had over an hour walking before we began to feel the heat. Although it was beginning to brighten up, we used our head torches to make sure drivers could see us. A good part of the camino today was beside the road on a wide cycle/ pedestrian path. The kind of thing they do really well in Spain and that we do really badly in the UK.

It was all going well until the camino veered away from the sea and then went over a mountain. It was a lot steeper than it had looked on the map. However, there's nowhere to go, but forward, so we just kept putting one foot in front of the other and were soon at the top.

The path levelled out and began to descend. For much of the way, we had a series of short, sometimes steep, sometimes shallow ascents and descents into and our of towns and villages along the way.

I kept looking for a café as my route plan showed cafés in almost every village. It may have been that the camino kept us away from them, but it was about 12km in before we saw a café and had coffee and toastada, then more coffee.

When in Spain, if you need coffee, look for a church, it will be in a plaza (square), and there will be cafés around the plaza.

Refuelled, we set off again and were soon at the albergue, but we couldn't check in for almost two hours, but they let us leave our backpacks. We went along the street to a cafe where we met Emily and her son Louis from Canada. She was of Scottish heritage.

After the land was stolen from the people came the Highland clearances, and the biggest Scottish diaspora from that tragedy is in Canada.

We had a lovely chat and said our goodbyes. We then went down to the beach for a while and had some ice cream. Life on the camino is tough.

The albergue turned out to be great, cabin bunks with privacy curtains, sheets, and towels provided. A really well resourced kitchen - in Galicia, most albergues have kitchens but no pots, crockery, or cutlery. This one had everything. It also had a garden and was very clean with fab toilets and showers.

We were all settled when about 7pm a large group of pilgrims arrived and checked in. Most of them were in one group, I think from Eastern Europe and Roman Catholic, one of them was a nun. I found it difficult to imagine her hiking over that mountain. She was no Julie Andrews. I know, I know...I'll probably have to light an extra candle for that one tomorrowRead more