Kiwi Roaming

Steve woke about 2am with a horrendous headcold, one I’d been fighting off since Porto to be fair (so my fault), I messaged Imogen about 6am to turn the alarm off and let him sleep. Steve and I got a quick breakfast in the hostel mess hall with other walkers about 8am then walked into town to find the one open Chemist shop while Imogen enjoyed the included breakfast.

It is Sunday morning so everything is closed. I said to the Chemist “você fala inglês” and he replied “a little” then proceeded to speak perfect English. After interrogating Steve and finding he doesn’t have loads of medical conditions he dispensed the good stuff, we also got muscle rub and K-Tape then headed back to the apartment where Steve slept for another hour. Observant Imogen noted the name of Steve’s drugs makes them sound like they are for a different affliction altogether – Google lens assured us that Gripe e Constipacao is actually cold and flu!

By Midday we decided to make a start on walking so walked about 60 minutes along the waterfront before decided to call an Uber. Steve was improving but told me later he felt like throwing up about when we got into the Uber.

Today’s section is from Via do Costelo to Caminha and meant to be 27km but we reduced it to 17km.

The day before we had been feeling like all of the walkers passing us with no bags were cheating and here we were taking a ride up the road a little. We skipped a long stretch that was beside the road, stopping at the seaside town we had planned to stop at for lunch anyway. After wandering with some confusion we eventually found the vegan friendly bakery Imogen had marked on the map and enjoyed a lovely lunch of omlette and steak sandwich for Steve and myself, and vegan chicken sandwich for Imogen. It was about 2pm when we finished and Steve declared himself ok to walk so off we went! the drugs seemed to be kicking in and Steve was feeling much better already.

Again we walked alongside the sea, luckily for us this was a flat stage and Steve claimed the fresh air was helping him feel better – I would say it was the drugs. As we headed north the Atlantic breeze started to intensify and by the time we reached our destination it we had some serious wind to walk into. At one stage we followed local walking routes through a pine forest which was lovely and peaceful.

With the wind intensifying it was freaky seeing how rough the river looked as we emerged in sight of Caminha, knowing we had to cross this river in the morning. The walk into town was long too, partially on boardwalk and then on a cycleway. We cut away once the buildings started and walked the back streets to get out of the wind and it’s a lovely wee town, our apartment on a small incline behind the other buildings near the square.

Casas Sebastiāo – this 2 bedroom apartment was small but gorgeous with the best showers we have experienced on the camino! huge and hot. Lots of room for Imogen to do yoga and a well provisioned kitchen, lovely views out of every window. We opted to go out for pizza and pasta 3 mins walk away so we could see a little more of the wee town knowing we had to leave very early in the morning. This was our last night in Portugal!

Steps 27,554 or 17.90km (so we still walked a decent amount)