34km (591.1km)
Saturday 16th April
As the day was to be the longest yet I left in the dark, to give me plenty of time for stops along the way. I made it to the perimeter of the village before turning back, the dark and the gloom were too scary for me to venture out alone so I waited for some other early walkers before tagging along behind them. It was all a bit ‘Hound of the Baskervilles’ like; the dense fog, the rain and the mossy trees. I was trying to stay  positive when a happy, enthusiastic pilgrim thumped my rucksack shouting ‘buen camino’ as he passed. I nearly passed out, I did yell out and he was lucky not to get a poke in the eye with a sharp walking stick – we did manage to laugh about my (over)reaction before he disappeared into the mist, no doubt causing more half asleep pilgrims some early morning stress. Today is known as the roof of the way, reaching the maximum height of the whole walk at 1500m. The point is marked by Cruz de Fierro and it is here that pilgrims leave stones from their home countries, apparently symbolising their shuffling off of their old ways and accepting their new ones; having walked for nearly 600 km and having found themselves (?). I was a little disappointed as this scene in the film ‘The Way’ has certainly been embellished with the characters in the film adding their stones to a multicoloured pile of rocks from around the world. In reality it is just a pile of rubble and everyone I saw picked up a rock from nearby and threw it onto the untidy heap.

The rain, hail and snow just kept falling for most of the day but there were enough breaks, with even some sun and blue skies (when all the pilgrims quickly took lots of photos) to lift spirits, dampened by nearly a week of constant downpours.

The walk entered into the region of El Brierzo early on today; this area has a microclimate which I think means still lots of rain, only warmer 😢. I’d never heard of this region but apparently it’s making its mark as a wine region, certainly the 1€ glass I had was pretty good.

Ponferrada was a long time coming, it was supposed to be 5.3km from the lovely Molinesca, but it was more like 9km. It is the capital of the region and has a spectacular castle which I was going to visit tomorrow, only it appears that Ponferrada doesn’t open tomorrow until 11am. Definitely worth a better look around if I do this again!