Ponte de Lima - Rubiaes - Tui - Rendola (from Porto - 175km) After - I think - 7 days of walking we are now into a routine, sad but true. We wake at 5am strap our blisters and walk... after a couple of hours we stop for coffee/breakfast... walk some more... look at yet another church... walk some more... arrive at Albergue... shower... wash clothes... buy food to cook for dinner... pack backpack... sleep. In the last 4 days we have walked 90km, this includes 3...

Day 3 & 4: Rates - Casa Fernanda - Ponte de Lima (from Porto - 88km) Well after the initial teething problems (i.e. blisters, burns, hating walking) we now seem to be into the whole flow of walking. After spending the first couple of days dodging cars finally most of Day 3 was off road, walking through vineyards, eucalyptus woods, along streams... when you are not stressing about when you are going to be run over you start to enjoy yourself a bit more. Day...

Day 1 & Day 2: Porto - Rates - Barcelos (53 kms) So... the 300km pilgrim trek (Camino Portugués) to Santiago de Compostela has commenced, actually it started at 5.30am yesterday and already we are feeling the strain of walking. Yesterday we walked 37km to Rates, it was a pretty dire day... by 10.00am it was already about 35º, it took us close to 3 hours to get out of Porto city and then we would spend the next 5 hours walking along a busy main road, shari...

With a somewhat of a port (wine) glow, I apologise in advance if this blog makes no sense. We are now in Porto, Portugal and preparing ourselves for the 300km pilgrim trek we are about to commence... well actually we arent really preparing, we have just spent the afternoon at distilleries sampling the best port in the world. Arriving really late into Porto yesterday, we were excited to find that our hostel was very much alive - with a port and apple strudel e...

After a month of celebrations and emotional goodbyes we are more in need of a holiday than ever... roll on tomorrow! Whilst Ant is packed and ready to go, my rucksack remains empty and I'm still procrastinating over what to take - actually I can't seem to find everything I need, I've a sneaking suspicion that some of my 'essential items' are on a cargo ship, Australia bound - hmm. I'm sure it will work out just fine!