The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain

For over 10 days without even a glimpse of sunshine, the duo struggled bravely on. Yvonne trained from Porto to her artistic haven in a small village outside Faro in the south whilst Randall slogged out the kilometres on foot heading for Santiago de Compostella. But in both places our heroes were being climatically tested. It would be an understatement to say that we were surprised by the weather.

This blog necessarily focusses on the walk as the artist cannot now be interrupted in her work to capture the essence of Portugal in watercolour.

As I write this in Tui on the Spain-Portugal border, the sun is finally showing itself. Over the five walk days we have mainly been in very light drizzle with constant coats on, coats off mode. The weather has mostly been cool. There are quite a few fellow pilgrims on this Portuguese Caminho which we believe is growing in numbers each year. Good for local business and in fact better supported that way than we have seen in France.

We meet all sorts of people from all over the planet but including a fairly high proportion of baby boomers and even an old fellow over 80 who we passed sprinting along a couple of days back.

Accommodation has been good, if variable, food has been copious if basic and the people good. Roman bridges and Roman roads are plentiful as is the mud and water, water everywhere. We average about 20 kms each day and we are all in good spirits as we fix the world during the many discussions along the way.

Anyway, what else could we be doing if we were not here?