I have combined the next three days for several reasons, the first being a lot of time was spent chatting so no pictures were taken, secondly most of the pictures taken fell foul of my wonky camera problem (see foot of page day 6) and third the scenery was disappointingly very similar .... and very like UK and Ireland.

We left Portomarin with several bits of new knowledge, Rob did not get on well in the Albergue...it was also my worst experience, the one room that was open was full, there was no air in the room, the lights went on at 6.30...... and the snoring from the overweight Spanish 100k'ers was terrible. All of which convinced us both we would spend the money and stay in cheap hotels until Santiago.

The second gem was that drinking too much wine is not a bright idea if you are going to walk 20k the next day ( I don't seem to learn, but my defence is that I was led astray by my son)

However Rob redeemed himself by buying some decent cheese, we finished off our journey with a great piece of blue and Brie (It was in his rucksack not mine!)

After the sun rose and a restorative coffee we met Hikaru Takeuchi and 3 of his friends who had had graduated Sophia University in Tokyo 45 years ago....Hikaru is holding up the university shirt. They were charming and good fun, a delight to meet them briefly but they were travelling the last 100Km at a more sedate pace than ourselves.

On day 22 we looked over our shoulders there were two people in the distance waving their sticks at us to catch our attention. It was great to see Anne and Sabina. Unfortunately they came with a stray dog who had been tracking us for two days.

I also had a different washing experience in the world's smallest bath. Apart from that chatting to 'grims and meeting my friends from UK Richard and Sheila, it was all about putting one foot in front of the other. ...but a great time with Rob