It's been quite the day! Setting out for an apparently routine walk, we changed our minds and went the opposite direction. We try to change up our local walking and we transited several new areas today.
I like this shot from last night. This honey bee on our chives appears to be looking up at me.
Thinking to come up our local climb from the back side, we instead walked past the turn off and coming to a street with a 'No Exit' sign we again almost passed by. However, Annemarie noticed a small figure of a walker at the bottom of the sign, meaning we could likely get through. So we climbed up the street and a very young spotted fawn crossed just in front of us. I motioned to Annemarie to be on the lookout for the mother, and a second later she too passed in front of us. The fawn was a newborn, just days old.
With all the walking we've done in our community over the years you'd think we'd have seen a fawn feeding. Nope, this was a first.
We passed through and found ourselves on a neat little path and came upon a great place to take a moment.
We passed by the woman who told me that she was clearing the blackberry brambles. I asked her how much she was doing and she answered, "all of it!" Another 'triple P' thing, a Pandemic Pruning Project! That's a very tough job she's doing.
Further along we found the cotton wood trees were in full seeding stage. It was coming down heavily on some section of the trail and looked like a like dusting of snow. Dad, this wan't far from your house and you might be noticing more hay fever these days.
It was making life miserable for this slug!
Then we descended through a beautiful forest trail.
I finally found the moment to film these two enormous trees. I've been looking at them for a while wondering when the right moment would come along.
Today the Osprey were available for picture taking.
Home again and gardening again, I began to hear sirens coming our way. I was thinking that it was a typical training exercise, but then a fire engine turned into the university. Soon there were 4 more separate sirens coming from different directions. I decided to walk down our street to have a quick look. I bumped into a fellow from the press, with appropriate social distancing, and he told me that he'd been monitoring the calls. Apparently there was a major natural gas leak and there was indeed a 5 alarm response from 5 different fire stations! Guess I'll have to watch the news tonight; )
As if that wasn't enough excitement, a large plane passed over, not once but at least 6 times. I tried using my phone to take a photo, but that wasn't very satisfying so I used my travel camera. I figured the military was training in our area. Lots of this has been going on recently.
Then the Bald Eagles arrived and began to circle! A pretty decent day.
Yet another halo! We've had halos almost every day when the sun is out. I believe, based on my own unscientific observations, that this is the most halos I've seen over such a short time.
Out on the virtual camino we are still trucking along, walking most days. Yesterday we cycled about 40 kms, and while our group says we can count our riding as part of the camino distances, we won't. I don't really enjoy cyclists while walking on the Camino, particularly the Frances where there are generally so many. We were going to walk to O'Cebreiro today, but I changed my mind when we had such an interesting day of reality walking. So we will walk to just the foot of the climb. This stage is actually a steady uphill grind throughout the day, but the more fun, steeper climb will have to wait for tomorrow when we are fresh.
The walk out of Villafranca isn't particularly wonderful given it's along the highway.
There is a higher route that can be walked that takes you off the road, but when the weather is poor like it was both times I passed this way, I've learned it makes more sense to just stay on the road. You move faster when you need to and miss the mud! On a sunny clear day then the alternate route would likely be excellent.
Back towards town.
As I learned to love in Japan, when it's raining hard the road tunnels are a nice dry place to walk for a while. Noisy though.
We passed quickly through Pereje. It definitely looked better in 2018,
Arriving in Trabadelo in 2018. Just 9 kms left until the end of the stage!
La Portela. We stopped here on our way through and Neil and Sarah stayed here the previous night. We all stayed in the brown hostel on the left where dinner was also available. There is really little else in this village. I took this photo in 2018 as I passed through. Blue sky always looks better than grey rainy skies like we experienced in 2013.
In 2013.
It was raining in 2013. All the wildlife was tucked up and away!
You can see the rain coming down as we arrived into town in 2013.
So many cats in this town. Ken, you should have stayed in La Portela!
In 2013, we all experienced trouble getting past a local black dog which was fairly aggressive. Neil and Sarah went out the morning before and told us that their encounter with the black dog was quite scary. The next morning it was our turn to deal with this dog, teeth bared. Not fun.
I think the small church is particularly nice because the stone work is a bit different.
This would be Vega de Valcarce where Ken stayed in 2013. In 2018 I like the look of this small town, and I wished we'd known to stay here in 2013. It was literally just a couple of kilometres up the road.
Ken's recollections;
Arriving into Las Herrerias in 2013.
A nice little town where it turns out that you can pay to get onto a horse that will carry you up to O'Cebreiro if you don't fancy the climb. You can see the horses beside the fellow in the yellow jacket.
I stayed in a small family run hostel in 2018 just after leaving the village, and I believe I was served Ken's favourite soup!
That's it for today.
Buen Camino!
As if that wasn't enough excitement, a large plane passed over, not once but at least 6 times. I tried using my phone to take a photo, but that wasn't very satisfying so I used my travel camera. I figured the military was training in our area. Lots of this has been going on recently.
Then the Bald Eagles arrived and began to circle! A pretty decent day.
Yet another halo! We've had halos almost every day when the sun is out. I believe, based on my own unscientific observations, that this is the most halos I've seen over such a short time.
Out on the virtual camino we are still trucking along, walking most days. Yesterday we cycled about 40 kms, and while our group says we can count our riding as part of the camino distances, we won't. I don't really enjoy cyclists while walking on the Camino, particularly the Frances where there are generally so many. We were going to walk to O'Cebreiro today, but I changed my mind when we had such an interesting day of reality walking. So we will walk to just the foot of the climb. This stage is actually a steady uphill grind throughout the day, but the more fun, steeper climb will have to wait for tomorrow when we are fresh.
The walk out of Villafranca isn't particularly wonderful given it's along the highway.
There is a higher route that can be walked that takes you off the road, but when the weather is poor like it was both times I passed this way, I've learned it makes more sense to just stay on the road. You move faster when you need to and miss the mud! On a sunny clear day then the alternate route would likely be excellent.
Back towards town.
As I learned to love in Japan, when it's raining hard the road tunnels are a nice dry place to walk for a while. Noisy though.
We passed quickly through Pereje. It definitely looked better in 2018,
Arriving in Trabadelo in 2018. Just 9 kms left until the end of the stage!
La Portela. We stopped here on our way through and Neil and Sarah stayed here the previous night. We all stayed in the brown hostel on the left where dinner was also available. There is really little else in this village. I took this photo in 2018 as I passed through. Blue sky always looks better than grey rainy skies like we experienced in 2013.
In 2013.
It was raining in 2013. All the wildlife was tucked up and away!
You can see the rain coming down as we arrived into town in 2013.
So many cats in this town. Ken, you should have stayed in La Portela!
In 2013, we all experienced trouble getting past a local black dog which was fairly aggressive. Neil and Sarah went out the morning before and told us that their encounter with the black dog was quite scary. The next morning it was our turn to deal with this dog, teeth bared. Not fun.
I think the small church is particularly nice because the stone work is a bit different.
This would be Vega de Valcarce where Ken stayed in 2013. In 2018 I like the look of this small town, and I wished we'd known to stay here in 2013. It was literally just a couple of kilometres up the road.
Ken's recollections;
Rain--steady drizzle--and everything is wet. There’s a washer and dryer here, which is good--my rain pants are musty, my fresh socks soaking wet--and that helps to offset the atmosphere here--the hospitalera ain’t so hospitable.
How to be grateful for the rain? You can be grateful that it isn’t raining any harder.It brings out the smell of the wild fennel along the roadside.
It’s good preparation for the rain farther on in Galicia--this was drizzle; that will be something else entirely. Walking wet is not the same as walking dry. It makes you appreciate the sunny days even more. All of the landscape I’ve been admiring for weeks--vineyards, wheat fields, olive groves--need rain, and supposedly it was a very dry summer this year.
Arriving into Las Herrerias in 2013.
A nice little town where it turns out that you can pay to get onto a horse that will carry you up to O'Cebreiro if you don't fancy the climb. You can see the horses beside the fellow in the yellow jacket.
I stayed in a small family run hostel in 2018 just after leaving the village, and I believe I was served Ken's favourite soup!
That's it for today.
Buen Camino!
No comments:
Post a Comment