AUSSIE SLOW TRAVELLERS

Our host kindly prepared us a 7am breakfast, as we were keen to get to Santiago de Compostela early. All the different routes of the Camino de Santiago converge at the Cathedral there.  We had drizzle for the first few hours of walking, which apparently is typical for Galicia - we've just been lucky. Our rain gear kept us fairly dry and made a good colour contrast for the photos.  Despite our relatively early start, we saw no other pilgrims while walking today - not even the cyclists. We had plenty of Galician scenery to keep us occupied as well as some curiosities, such as concrete mushrooms and hay bales with faces. These hay bales reminded us of one time in Lismore where somebody had painted smiley faces on a whole field full of hay bales - it made us smile every time we drove by. We stopped at a bar for a drink and rest and when we came out the sun was shining. We packed away the rain gear and moved on. At one stage we came across some washing hung above an old lavadero...

Today we excelled ourselves in slow travelling. As we only had about 12km to walk, we took advantage of the hotel's breakfast,  then went back to bed. We left reluctantly at 11am when they came to clean the room. We wandered through the market - not always an easy task with backpacks - then headed out, at first by road.  There were the usual attractions - horreos, flowers, farm animals. We also passed some bee hives - although we've seen bees, we haven't seen many hives up until now. Today we also made an effort to take photos of tractors, for our grandkids.  At the Dornelas albergue we stopped for coffee. We had a chat with the hospitalero about time zones and the increasing numbers of pilgrims arriving in Santiago. Because we were walking so slowly, we got overtaken by many pilgrims. This gave us the opportunity to practise our Spanish, and luckily most people understand our English when the Spanish fails. We had a chat with a couple and their child who live in Santi...

Today turned out to be a great day for meeting pilgrims! We exchanged a 'buen camino' with two ladies just leaving as we entered the bar for breakfast. As we got started on the path, we were greeted from a bench by Christophe from France. We had quite a chat with him, then we met up with him a few times as one or other of us slowed down. We ended up having a drink at the bar in Bendoira with him and a Spanish pilgrim, Santi, whom we'd seen on the path for the last three days. Once again, the path was undulating and varied between shared road, gravel and dirt tracks. There were horreos, lavaderos, churches and farm animals. We passed through small villages and every house seemed to have a productive garden with fruit trees, veggies and flowers. There were many stone buildings in need of repair, including some for sale.  On one uphill beside the motorway, we saw  simple crosses made out of sticks, presumably by passing pilgrims.  Later we came across two bridges, the ...