Travels Past & Future

30/04/2026 Thursday Another 20km day today. We were down for breakfast by 7.30am, where we also made a bread roll for lunch, cake for morning tea and filled our travel cups with fruit. Todays walk was listed as having very few services, so we made sure we had enough food. It was raining when we were about to leave, so we put on our ponchos and headed out. That's the last we saw of the rain. It started out as overcast and steadily improved throughout the day. Our stop for morning tea must have only recently reopened for the season. We ordered a cup of tea and ate our cake. We tried to only stop every hour, not counting the times everyone waited for me to catch up.  Walk an hour - 5 minutes rest. Walk an hour morning tea, repeat, lunch, repeat, afternoon tea. Our walk was a combination of boardwalks and forests with welcome shade, with the occasional road thrown in. We were going to walk the final part into Ancora along the boardwalks, but the sand dunes had totally reclaimed ...

29/04/2026 Wednesday Rest day today.  We all slept in, apart from family making calls at the normal time because we didn't tell them about the rest day. We finally made it down to breakfast by 9.30. We had planned to see the town, but rain changed our plans. We went to the laundromat to wash our clothes and bank to change the large notes that the Australian banks or Travelex gave us. Had pasties and frozen Acai with fruit for lunch and went back to our rooms and read our kindles. Dinner tonight was at the restaurant downstairs from our hotel. Last night was a quite affair, tonight, not so much. We sat down lucky to get a table of 4  and after we ordered, the musio started, then she invited someone up to sing, he was brilliant, then karaoke started. We stayed until dinner was finished, enjoyed the karaoke singers that could sing,  then left at around 10.00pm, a late night for us walking the trail. We should sleep tonight, but can still here the vibrations from downstai...

28/04/2026 Tuesday Today was a 26km day. We asked for a breakfast box, which sounded good. But the bread was stale and no butter. Ham and cheese sandwich, chicken bread roll, egg, orange and juice. We ate breakfast and put our luggage downstairs. Once Kim's hiking poles arrived (the taxi driver had given her the backpack yesterday, but not the poles and she was in too much pain to think),  we set off along the foreshore for a short time and then said goodbye to the coast for the day. Street walking was the order of the morning, hard on the feet and calves. Oh, and up hill. Lots of hills today. We stopped at Cafe O Lampiao where we received a nice cup of tea and Maria biscuits with peach  jam. Perfect. He also gave us a bowl of shell peanuts. We instantly thought of Dad watching the football with a bag of shell peanuts and a plastic tub for the shells.  Watching football with Dad also meant shelling and eating  peanuts. Back on the trail we eventually came to a b...

27/04/2026 Monday . I'm so tired right now, but if I get behind on the journal I'll never catch up. We had a late start today at 9.00am. It wasn't the plan but that's when we left. Todays walk started out along the board walks along the coast. In some places the sand dunes have decided to reclaim the boardwalks for themselves, so we were walking on sand. Our procession line was the same as usual, Alison followed by Julie, Kim and me lagging behind. Lucky I have patient sisters who wait for me. We decided to put our hands in the Atlantic Ocean, which wasn't as easy as it sounds with backpacks on. We all got our shoes wet, but unfortunately Kim's feet sunk a little in the wet sand just as a  small wave came in covering her shoes. Her shoes are waterproof, but not when the water goes over them and into the socks. She changed into her sandals, which for some reason she put in her pack today. We all had socks or shoes hanging from our packs hoping to at least dry...

26/04/2026 Sunday - The official start of our Camino Portuguese. Breakfast at 7.00am, bags down by 8, and we were on our way. RAW Travel's schedule had us catching a train to Matosinhos to avoid walking the outskirts of Porto and the airport. This would have meant walking 25km on our first day, so caught a taxi to Labruge and walked 17km instead. The perfect sky's of yesterday had disappeared and the fog had set in. Driving out of Porto we couldn't see the river. Once we arrived in Labruge, our driver dropped us off at the Alburgue and we walked the 900 metres to the coast. All we could see was fog. The shoreline was somewhere out there. Walking along the board walks was hard on our legs, especially since the storm 2.monrhs ago had damaged some of it and it was at a 45 degree angle. An obstacle course was not on the agenda. A man stopped and spoke to us near a memorial, so I got out my phone and put on GoogleTranslate and asked him to speak into it. He said that the Ge...

25/04/2026 - Porto - Bookshops, Hills, Towers and Bridges. We explored Porto today, starting off with a 9.00am booking at Livaria Lello, the magical bookshop that inspired JK Rowling's moving staircase in the Harry Potter books. It truly is magnificent. Kim booked our spot and made sure she got Gold tickets. We arrived 1/2 hour before our allotted time (Opening Time) and were second into the store, which meant we got a photo on the stairs without anyone else in view.  5 minutes later to store was full. After soaking in the experience, we each bought a book for the value of our ticket and headed out the door. Next we visited Torres dos Clerigos. Julie decided her knee wouldn't like the 225 stair climb to the top of the tower, so she stayed in the park and people watched. The rest of us ascended the tower and the views of Porto were spectacular.  The climb back down was tricky as we had to navigate the people on their way up. Lunch by the river at a Cafe, and we were off aga...

Friday, 24 April 2026 – From Lisbon to Porto: Castles, Miracles, and a Chapel in the Sea Today we finally headed to Porto. Alison had the brilliant idea months ago to book a private tour from Lisbon to Porto, and it turned out to be the best decision. Our driver, João, picked us up at 9:00 am, and we slipped out of the city, leaving the morning rush behind. The scars of the storm Driving north, we couldn't help notice the pine forests. Many looked brutally harvested, but the truth was worse. A cyclonic storm tore through here a couple of months ago, flattening homes, villages, and vast swaths of trees. The ones still standing are permanently bent—eerie sentinels of what came through. Petrol watch €2.13 per litre. Back home in Australia, we grumble at $2.65. Perspective is a funny thing. First stop: Óbidos We entered through the Porta da Vila, a tiled gateway into a 12th-century medieval hilltop town (because of course it's on a hilltop). Our first order of business? Gin...