Walked from: Cádavo Baleira

Walked to: Castroverde

Distance: 8km

When: 19 October 2019

(Image: leaving Castroverde)

It’s rained a lot so far on this trip. And that’s ok – I’m English, I have the wet weather gear. But there was something about hiking 31km in pissing down (yes, that’s the technically accurate meteorological term) rain that simply didn’t appeal. So after walking for just two hours, I bailed in Castroverde, the one town before my originally intended destination of Lugo where I knew I could get accommodation.

(Image: view from my hotel room)

I sought out a €20 hotel room with the world’s smallest shower but an excellently functioning radiator, and basically hung out in my warm, dry room all day reading, seeing the latest horrors of the Brexit debacle unfold in front of me on social media, and watching, for the umpteenth time, the finally two Harry Potter films. Not a day lost – I noticed certain clear parallels between the forces of good and evil in J K Rowling’s magical world and what’s happening in my own county right now, and I’ve started calling the current Prime Minister of the UK Voldemort. Whatever gets you through, eh?