Just after midnight, I claimed Pinch'n'Punch rights for the month of October, much to Rita's disappointment. During the night, the wind picked up outside, causing the side-awning to flap to such an extent that it was annoying. More importantly, it might also be annoying to our neighbours, so I got up and went outside and lowered it. By morning, the wind had disappeared, only to be replaced by fog, which didn't really clear for the rest of the day.

In the morning, I watched the NRL Grand Final between Penrith Panthers and the Brisbane Broncos. After the excitement of the AFL GF last week, I didn't expect this game to match up, especially considering that Penrith had won the last two Grand Finals, and now held an eight point lead just before half-time. But Brisbane then went on a scoring spree, scoring the next 24 points to hold a 16 point lead with just 20 minutes to go. However, Penrtih then staged a remarkable comeback to score the next 18 points to take a 26-24 lead with 2 minutes to spare, and took a hat-trick of premiership cups. Quite a year for amazing Grand Finals.

Because of the foggy weather, it was looking like being a quiet day. So in the early afternoon, we hopped on our bikes and went out to explore the surrounding countryside and hills. The first thing that surprised us, and made us feel a little bit homesick, was getting up close with several plantations of eucalypts that bordered the roads. We were amazed by the size of the trees that were growing in such high density forests.

We rode on, and were surprised that even though it looked like a continuous forest, there were fences running through the trees. We also saw some For Sale signs in some of the blocks of trees. After a couple of hours riding, we came across a small village that was described online as having one of the oldest Basilicas in the region. But the first thing we saw as we entered the village was a small cafe/bar attached to a house. Some people were already having a drink there, so we decided to join them.

As we sat there having a drink at an outside table, we (i.e Rita) listened to the locals' conversation in Spanish. It turned out that several of them were musicians in a local group, and one of them worked for the company that managed the silviculture and general management for the surrounding plantations. It turns out that the plantations are owned by many local landowners (hence the fences through the trees), but many of these landowners are now old and unable to manage their trees (and their children have all run away to the "big cities"), so the state-owned forest management company takes care (for a fee) of all the management, harvesting, replanting etc. It was quite an interesting conversation to overhear, and led to Rita having a long talk with the cafe owner, and finding out when their music group practices, if ever we are back in the region again.

After about an hour we headed back to our bikes and went to explore the Basilica. Unfortunately it was closed so we didn't get to see inside (and let Rita play her flute), but we did appreciate the exterior of the building.

We then continued on the same road, and rode down the hill to the town of Foz. The town centre was a bit touristy, so we continued riding along the coast and back to the campground.

That evening, I watched the Rugby World Cup, where Australia defeated Portugal 34-14. Not a bad result, but then again Portugal are not exactly a powerhouse side. Good to get this game over before we enter Portugal in a couple of days time.

The morning started sunny, but then changed as the sea fog rolled in and stayed around. We have found as we have travelled around in Vanumbra that campervans come in all shapes and sizes, and this morning we bore witness to that as a neighbour unlocked the rear door on his van and rolled out his little car for day trips!

Given the second foggy day in a row, we decided to move on from Foz and had a 1000h departure. Our plan for the day was to head south-west to the famous pilgrimage town of Santiago de Compostella. Along the way we stopped for fuel, and had an experience that I hadn't encountered for many years, when a service station attendant came out as we arrived and filled the fuel tank. I guess that's why they used to call them "service" stations!

We arrived at the campground in the early afternoon, and soon thereafter we were on our bikes to go to the pilgrimage centre of Santiago de Compostelle. The town was much larger than we had anticipated, and we had some wrong turns along this ride before we reached the old part of town, which was on the far side of the modern part of town. But eventually we came upon lots of perdestrians all going in the same direction, so we figured we were on the right path, and relatively soon we were in the central square in front of the cathedral, along with lots of pilgrims who had arrived on foot, and many who had arrived on bikes. Many were just sitting in the square, seemingly just happy to be off their feet!

We wandered around old Santiago for a while, looking at the passing parade, listening to conversations in a multitude of languages, having a cool drink in a cafe and listening to some circulating buskers. After a few hours, we hopped on our bikes and started to head home. But just as we left the old town and started the climb up the hill, I heard an ominous sound and felt my feet slip, and realised that I had broken a chain as I attempted to change gear for the hill. So I pushed my bike up the hill, and as we were taking a breather, Rita intercepted a local lady walking by and asked her for the location of the nearest bike shop. She thought for a while and then pointed in the direction we were already going, and gave us the name of a big shopping centre that was near a bike shop. So Rita headed off on her bike in that direction, while I continued to push my bike along behind. After 20 minutes or so, I got a call from Rita saying she had found the bike shop, and we arranged to meet near the shopping centre entrance.

We met up, and headed across the road to the bike shop. The sales/repair guy came out and had a look at my bike and confirmed that the chain could not be fixed. However, he had replacement chains in stock and could fit and adjust it for us. However, since it was already1730h, we wondered when he would be able to do it. When he started his sentence with "I won't be able to have it finished until..", we started to worry. But when he finshed his sentence with "...1830h. Is that OK?", we were very relieved, and kept smiling at each other. So we both said "Go ahead". As luck would have it, the bike shop was directly alongside a cafe, so we headed there for a drink and some food. And even there, we landed on our feet, getting food and drinks for two for less than 10euro!

We buzzed at the entrance gate, but found that the proprietors must have been at lunch. So we waited around for a while, and then buzzed again and, second time lucky, we were admitted. We drove carefully down the narrow roadway, with hairpin bend, and arrived at the Reception. Since we were out-of-season, we had our choice of spots, so we chose one on the high side with a bit of a view. We then had our relaxed lunch, and then walked out the bottom of the campground, through some of the town, and arrived at a beach. To say that Rita was happy was a gross understatement.

I found a position in the shade on some large rocks at the end of the beach, while Rita was quick to strip down to her swimmers and start exploring the water, along with a diver who was snorkelling a bit further out and collecting mussels from the submerged rocks. Rita struck up a conversation with him (her Spanish is quite useful) and found that the main business in the neighbouring town was commercial mussel farming.

After her swim, we continued past the rocks and around the headland to the next town, where we discovered this cute little boat tied up on the beach.

Because of a long day yesterday, and the fog of the last few days, we had a late rising. We then went and collected the morning baguette from the office and paid our bill in readiness for leaving, which we did around 1100h. This was after we studied the campground apps and decided that we would head for a little village with the strange name of O lgrexario. We knew nothing about this place, but it looked nice, and the fully equipped campground was a very reasonable price.

(I realise as I am composing today's entry that, for the next couple of weeks, the maps are going to be more difficult to fit into the page because we will be heading from north to south, and the maps will be in portrait, rather than landscape, orientation).

The trip was pleasant and landscapingly attractive, and soon after Pontevedra, and before crossing the Vigo River bridge (see below), we left the highway and headed towards the ocean.

After a short drive, we were approaching our destination, but the streets were becoming narrower and steeper. The campground app had warned us that the site would be difficult to find, and they were right. So after getting lost a couple of times, we backtracked and eventually found the campground on the low side of the road, and down a steep driveway. But the view over the campground was impressive, to say the least.

We had a short wander through the town, but decided to save more exploration for tomorrow, since Rita had decided pretty quickly that she wanted to go to the beach again for a longer swim.

Instead, we found a local cafe/bar and stopped in for a drink. It was clearly a venue favoured by the locals, with a group of four older men playing a very noisy game of dominos (with the tiles being slapped onto the granite table), and a group of younger people hanging around as well.

After a while, one of the younger guys came over and asked where we were from, having heard us speaking English. He seemed to take great pleasure in practicing his English with us. After we explained the Swiss - Australian situation, he warmly welcomed us to his home town.

After an hour or so in the bar, absorbing the local environment, we made our way back to the beach and then on to the campground. Going in the opposite direction, we got a good view of the layout of the campground and its position at the foot of the hillside behind (covered in coppicing eucalypt trees).

This place was so relaxing, we decided to stay a day or two longer, and settled down in the morning to do some writing (music therapy report for Rita, blog for me). I know that sounds like we were working, but the environment around us was so pleasant, it didn't feel like work. In the late morning we went for a walk down to the beach and then around the headland, where we saw a couple of mussel boats coming home with a load aboard.

As we walked back to the van for lunch, we couldn't help but notice that we were again surrounded by huge eucalypts. Maybe that's one of the reasons why we feel so relaxed and at home.

After lunch, Rita couldn't resist returning to the beach for a swim, while I continued working on the blog.

That morning we had reserved a place for dinner that evening at the Roade Restaurant, after checking out their menu board outside the restaurant as we walked back to the van for lunch. The thing that surprised us was that our table was booked for 2100h, which we though might be a little late. But when we got there that evening, we found that we were one of the early birds, and diners were still rolling in at 2200h (we are in Spain after all).

The food was great and, given the location, we made sure we ordered fish dishes.

We left the restaurant at 2300h (two of the first to leave) and walked home in the dark, to finish the day with a quiet drink under the outside awning, before retiring for the night, two happy souls.

The morning started foggy, but soon cleared into another beautiful sunny day. So after doodling around the van for a couple of hours, we walked down to the beach and then around the headland to the adjacent town of Aldán. Along the way, we saw two good examples of buildings that we had seen plenty of in the last couple pf days. We speculated between ourselves about what function they served, but then resolved the issue by asking a local who we met on the path. It turns out that they are very old stone buildings that used to be used for food storage over winter. Nowadays, I guess they are just used for junk storage, like our garden sheds back home.