9/4 Saturday Alto de Morga to Bilbao 23km
Last night Albergue Pozueta was full! Lively company including Marc from France and David from South Korea. Marc has several caminos under his belt whilst David is serious mountaineer- he’s climbed the highest peaks on 5 continents but still wants to come to the UK and walk the Coast to Coast.

Great breakfast spread at the Albergue Pozueta - muesli, fruit, yogurt, cake, toast, coffee and fruit juice. Much needed for a 25 km day ahead.

A damp 8:30 start today but a chance to try out my hands-free brolly. Whilst I met or passed a few pilgrims I knew I walked mostly alone. By noon I was pleased to have walked 11km along woodland trails to Larrabetzu where I had a coffee stop.
From there it was just dull road walking with my packed lunch at a handy bus stop. I was expecting to follow the road into Bilbao as the word was it was a pretty flat route!

Well, at Zamudio I missed a turn and was cursing an added km backtracking to the church where I stopped for second lunch. My delay turned out to be fortuitous as along came Mira with his dog. I seem to meet him occasionally but this time we teamed up leaving the road for a 1000ft climb up Monte Avril 7km out of Bilbao. Mira likes David Bowie!

As well as good views at the top there was a picnic ground with showers and water which was the perfect overnight camp for Mira. For me there was still the road walk down into Bilbao and an AirBnB night hosted by Yazan who originated from Palestine.