March 6, 2023  Arcade to Pontevedra

Today was spectacular!  When we got up the sky was dark and foreboding.   Dark clouds were hanging on all of the surrounding hill tops and threatening to roll down and soak us with rain.  It wasn't raining and the temperature was quite nice at around 14 C.   So the three of us headed off at around 9:30 am.

 It wasn't long until we came to a narrow one lane bridge across some tidal flats. It was quite long and quite narrow so meeting on coming cars meant that you had to flatten against the railing.  On the far side we climbed through some very old homes which were clinging to the side of the hill overlooking the estuary.  It was really steep but a really interesting spot.    

The trail  had now left the settlement of Arcade and was through some very rugged country side with a lot of very steep up and down pitches.  It was a very interesting hike as the trail had a lot of twists and turns and you never knew what was around the next bend.   There was one really interesting section of about 1 km in length where the trail was nothing but exposed boulders. Carved into the boulders were grooves where the cart wheels had run for hundreds of years.  If you look at the picture you can easily see cart wheel grooves. 

After we left the section of boulders we came to a place where a huge new freeway is being constructed.  They had carved a huge notch in the hill which had to be 70 meters deep 350 meters long  for the new freeway.  I guess it was the modern equivalent to the ancient cart wheel grooves.  

Along the way we talked to a young lady from Finland who is working in Portugal but is here doing a Camino.  Later on we caught up to three fellows we had seen at our hotel the night before.  They are all from Spain and are doing a Camino together.  We stopped and talked to them for quite a while.  It looks like they are on the same schedule as we are.  

By  11:00 am the clouds had been scared off by the sun and it had gotten down right warm.  All the jackets were in the back packs as we strolled into town around 1:30 pm. What a beautiful 12 kms walk.

Terry