Kiwi Roaming

It was grey and overcast on our penultimate day, it was also very windy, another gift from hurricane Gabrielle.

Today we walked from Caldas de Reis to Padrón. To be honest the walk was pretty similar to the previous day with more elevation. Steve and I started out earlier than Imogen and she caught up with us at a cafe 5km in where we had shared a tortilla and croissant. We saw more and more grapes planted along the walk, some close enough the walkers were helping themselves and increasingly we walked below vines which on a sunny day would have provided great shelter.

With temperatures closer to 20C the wind was the only deterring factor so we made exceptionally good time. It was Sunday and the MAMILs were out in force today – middle aged men in lycra – on both mountain bikes and gravel bikes and included a race that really struggled with the sheer volume of walkers on the shared track. We celebrated dropping below 40,000m today!

People – I have commented on the people before, as it was weekend the large groups of Spanish folks also increased. Generally there are many couples, quite a few mother / daughter groups and otherwise mostly solo walkers. We met a Romanian woman who left Lisbon a month ago and was so excited to meet people from Aotearoa NZ she took a selfie with us. We also nattered with some Australians for a wee while who said they would love to do this again and take longer so they could meet more people. We have been tracking along with two very young loved up couples – an American couple who look like they are in their mid 20’s and a Polish couple who find absolutely everything hilarious so are fun to follow.

Heading into Padrón is a town called Pontecesures which is an industrial town, very barren and dirty. We arrived into a wave of rubbish and as we walked discovered there must have been a massive event on in Padrón today creating the rubbish all over the place – and were amused to see council workers blowing the rubbish around with leaf blowers!

Imogen was about 45 mins behind us after she had a lovely sit in a park enjoying the quiet. So Steve and I – for the first time on the whole trip – settled down at a bar and enjoyed a drink! Our plan had always been arrive, shower, nap, head out and enjoy a drink before it’s dark but the reality has been we’ve either been so exhausted we didn’t go back out or we got there so late it was dark before venturing out.

We liked the older centre of Padrón, narrow pedestrian streets with lots of statues and artwork. Imogen had scoped out a Mexican restaurant for our dinner tonight so after finding our apartment and showering we headed off there – it was very windy and much cooler (like 18C) this evening so we donned our merino. The Mexican was interesting, lots of vegan options which we ordered via a tablet on the table. We enjoyed our first paella in Spain and some amazing guacamole – but the rest was average although it was lovely to go out for dinner.

Steps 34,570 or 21.7km