Day 5 : Puenta la Reina to Estella

  Steve: It rained.

Rain, rain, rain, rain, inclement weather, rain, may as well stand in the shower, rain, rain, drain pipes emptying on my head, thunder, rain, rain, no *^£$^%& raincoat – whose idea was that?

Arrived, H’s bag send to wrong albergue, rain, rain, get to albergue, soaking, laundry, more rain, miserable cafe, lost my glasses, rain, rain.

Time for bed – the sun comes out!

Municipal albergue stinks of Eau de Wet Pilgrim.

Yuck.

Miserable sopping wet photos of miserable sopping wet people and a miserable sopping wet landscape will be not be uploaded as they’ll just put you off. So, take a break and go and watch this

Steve (again, a few days later): Well, you’ve got to tell it like it is.  Just prior to the downpour I did see this at the side of the trail…

Hmmm….

The day was overcast from the start as we wandered out of Puente la Reina.  The first 15 km to Lorca were quite splendid.

Lorca has a first rate cafe on the right hand side as you pass through.  The proprietor was playing Maria Callas at maximum volume. She seemed able to communicate with all the customers in their native tongue – Korean, Japanese, English, German, Danish.  Impressive.

A km or so before Villatuerte the rain started.  I tried to wait it out in a tunnel running under the main A-12 road.  After about 40 mins of waiting it looked like things were easing off so off I went, hurrying to complete the last 4 km to Estella.  Big mistake…

The rest of the day was pretty much as described in my first draft of this post…

But here’s Jen, asleep in the cafe.

Day 5 : Stats

Puente La Reina to Estella

  • Steps 38,048
  • Distance covered, according to Brierley
    • 21.9 km direct, 23.4 km actual walking
    • 664.9 km to go
    • 0.3 km overall climb
  • Other Fitbit stats
    • 34.2 km walked (based on 0.9m stride length)
    • 377 ‘active’ minutes
    • 5,349 cals burned