So far on this trip, my sleep hasn’t been good, which seems more and more surprising as the days pass, because of all the daily exercise and fresh air I am getting.

With today being described as the wildest, and most strenuous stage of the pilgrimage (32k with 1145m ascent and 853m descent), the lack of sleep was quite worrying.

I woke just before 2am and was awake for a solid three hours.

I could hear that Hamish was also awake from about 4am.

We finally got up at 6am, and were about to take our bags out into the corridor to get ready and pack, when we heard an almighty shattering of glass in the corridor just outside. One of the pilgrims had dropped a glass and it was in smithereens on the tiled floor. I had my crocs, but unfortunately Hamish’s shoes were outside the albergue. Despite the setback, we still managed an early departure at 6:45am with no injuries.

Walking in the pre-dawn dark was exciting and bracing. It was chilly and we wore all our extra layers and I was so thankful to Hamish for insisting that I bring the gloves that I had thought unnecessary for an August heatwave in Spain.

Stunning to see Venus at our back with Jupiter above, and then the belt of Orion…it’s actually useful to have a former astronomy scholar as a husband!

So wonderful to see the changing light of blues, amber and coral in the sky as the dawn develops.

Hamish ate his first roadside bramble as soon as he could see them. He’s like a roving bear when it comes to brambles.

Whenever there’s a strong smell of Vicks, or the sense of a spa nearby, there are eucalyptus trees… in one sense, so alien looking and Jurassic and in another way beautiful, and yet also non-native and flammable.

The scenery today was spectacular. High plains and undulating hills akin to many Scottish hills. There were many wild horses on the steep hills…which is not such a Scottish sight.

The weather was also reminiscent of Scottish days out on the hills…wet, windy and cloudy. We felt so grateful for all our wet weather gear, which kept us cosy and dry in the wild elements and enabled us to keep our spirits and morale high.

It should be said here that Hamish has devised a method of towing me up hill with the use of his walking poles. Somehow he just knows when my energy is flagging and without any prompting, he proffers his walking poles out behind him.

I “hook up” by holding the wee baskets at the ends of his pole tips and then I just walk normally up hill, seemingly without extra effort and as fast as if I was walking on flat ground.

It’s miraculous really, because it’s the process of a joint energy which doesn’t cost either of us extra energy, and yet produces a synergy which propels us both up the hill with relative ease. I have even managed to rest my eyes between steps!

It’s something that has happened every day at various points, today being no exception. I have called it the Hamish Mule Train.

Bumped into Julie, our French Canadian friend from the first day, at the crossing of the Hospitales route and the Pola de Allande variant route.

We joined her on the ground and had a catch up of the past days (she had walked the variant to Polo Allande) and she told us she had just managed to book into an albergue at Berducedo.

We had thought that there was no available accommodation left there, so had planned on an extra 4.6k to La Mesa, but she called to see if there might be two more beds for us… success!! Oh how my feet rejoiced and did an internal happy dance!

As a celebration, we shared some Albariño wine out of our plastic bottle with Julie and then made our long descent to Berducedo.