Kiwi Roaming

We woke up to find it was raining! didn’t last long but we all donned coats for the first wee while. Since it was raining, and after reading overnight how tough the literal route is this next stretch, we decided to stick with the Coastal. Today we walked from Antas to Viana do Castelo.

The walk started on those same narrow walled cobbled streets, we were immediately overtaken by other pilgrims who we saw multiple times throughout the day. To be honest we are slow and were overtaken on this stretch (and many other times during the day) by a man in jeans and jandals. The only time we overtake anyone is when they are having a break so we play a kind of slingshot with folks we are starting to recognise now.

This was our most diverse day yet. Not far in we found ourselves in bush, honestly we could have been at home with the undulating paths full of tree roots winding up and down, but the wilding plants are eucalyptus not pine and there were occasional ruins (probably roman) around the place to remind us we weren’t in Aotearoa. This was also our most uphill day too – and this part through the bush included a series of uphill segments. We crossed a river on an ancient stone bridge which was cool, met a man selling everything you can imagine in his makeshift stall on the side of a track and walked short segments through the edges of town.

Our first big stop was at a church which we thought was at the top of a hill – it wasn’t! but the church was cool. There was a group of cyclist there (brave riding this terrain) and their guide said all of the camino infrastructure was new – a toilet block, cafe, camino stamp and water fountain. It was Saturday and droves of people were arriving with flowers for the adjacent cemetery. A lovely stop for us.

Back into a cycle of bush / road / hills. Lunch was on a few picnic tables at the bottom of est 250 steps up to a church, was an adorable spot which all of the other walkers missed. First thing before it rained Steve had ventured out to the bakery 50m down the road and got us breakfast croissants and pastel de nata, plus had bought us both a delicious roll filled with salami and cheese – so we had an excellent lunch, while Imogen ate the fruit she had been collecting along the way.

Eventually we got to the top of another hill and could see our destination town Viana do Castelo. The walk down was a little treacherous and I was heard to say “I could have used poles” more than a few times. Imogen left us and met us near our accommodation while Steve and I picked our way through the rocks down the hill.

The walk into Viana do Castelo is very long, 3-4km, the Pont Eiffel says on wiki it’s 650m long but it felt like 2km! He was clearly a prolific bridge maker and it is immediately identifiable as an Eiffel design.

HI Viana do Castelo – Pousada de Juventude – hostel is right over the bridge by the river, it’s a large complex with lovely grounds and sits in between sporting facilities including a clay court facility with covered and uncovered courts which fascinated us. Our wee apartment was great! Very well equipped. That said we decided we were all too exhausted to walk to a supermarket and cook, or to the Indian restaurant we had already scoped out – so we ordered lovely Indian from Uber Eats again!

Washing – it’s probably worth talking about washing. It’s day 5 and we haven’t managed to wash clothes and get them dry consistently yet, one pair of socks, a t-shirt or undies hanging on your pack at a time is ok but meant we weren’t really keeping up. There are laundromats in towns but we also primarily have merino clothes that don’t go in the dryer, to be fair we are able to wear our t-shirts a couple of times it’s undies and socks that need washing more often. At Hi Viana Steve set us up a drying room in the living room, appropriated one of the drying racks from the courtyard and put the big cooling fan on to blow our clothes all night – so finally after 5 days we had clean and dry washing! yay.

Steps 30,057 or 19.74km