According to Gronze.com it’s been 23.9 km since we left Pamplona at 6:20 this morning.

We found the streets packed with young people who had clearly been out enjoying each other’s company, presumably accompanied by substantial help from liquid friends. In an outdoor culture such as Spain there’s no need to spend it huddled indoors from inclement weather systems. Instead, one can be outside with friends as we found when we wandered over to the cathedral last night after dinner. The streets were packed, the restaurants were overflowing and everyone was clearly having a great socially expansive time. No fights, no aggression, no vomiting on pavements, clearly not the UK.

We were out of Pamplona within 30 minutes or so and well on our way to Alt del Perdón. The countryside around Pamplona is highly productive of grains, sunflowers and rapeseed.

In the foothills of Alto del Perdòn is the small village of Zariquiegui in which there once was a small café at which one could get breakfast. The room still exists, but there are no tables, no toilet and no breakfast. Instead the chap sells bananas, croissants, bocadillos and coffee. With nowhere to sit, a small crowd had quickly gathered. As we’d climbed towards the café, thunder and the occasional lightning bolt had warned us that rougher weather was on the way. Raindrops started falling on the assembled throng which produced a general kerfuffle as anoraks were dragged out of rucksacks, coffee drunk and bocadillos munched quickly.

The final ascent was surprisingly gentle and once more Dorothy and I got to revisit the metal sculptures on the top. Interestingly they appeared to be far smaller than I remember them but comparing pictures taken last time with today it’s clear that memory is flawed.

It’s rare to get an opportunity to get close to these wind turbines.

On our way up we’d been barged out of the way by two cyclists who I’d thought initially were very impressive making it up what was quite a steep gradient. Their legs were flailing, they were somewhat out of control and were clearly afraid of having to stop and restart, all of which I put down to the effort that they were having to put in.

Nonsense – they had bloody big batteries and most certainly shouldn’t have been riding them up narrow confined tracks with poor pilgrims having to push into the vegetation to get out of their way. I could only hope that their batteries would run out of juice on the way up. Unfortunately when we got to the top they were busily running around taking selfies of themselves with the statues before heading off down the wind turbine service road instead of the much trickier, but much more fun gullies leading back down to the plain. Shortly after they had disappeared, a dozen or so proper cyclists on manual bikes (apart from two ridden by much more elderly chaps) appeared, had a group photo with the sculptures before disappearing down the gullies. Perhaps I’m grouchy but I’m now all for banning electric bikes unless there’s a genuine medical need in which case they’re brilliant. Too many idiots with little or no cycling skills are currently hurtling around the place on 50kg bikes barging pedestrians out of the way on narrow lanes. The argument that these same idiots would be in one tonne cars instead has merit but it’s still irritating. Rant over.

The descent off Alto del Perdón has typically been via a sea of large pebbles which makes for a very dynamic surface which for those unused to such surfaces quite dangerous. Interestingly, the cyclists had carved out a route through the pebbles and had made the descent far safer. Many thanks to them.

We grabbed lunch in Uterga. The lady serving wasn’t in a particularly good mood but the food was decent and the sparkling water delicious. Uterga is a mere 7.1 from Puente la Reina so we took our time and stopped again just outside Óbanos where we lolled around on a patch of grass eating ice cream. The final leg into Puente la Reina was past a bunch of allotments that I photographed last time when they were far further along but still …

We’re in our rooms at Albergue Puente where we’ve stayed twice before. We’ve showered, our laundry is being washed and dried as I write and we’ll shortly head out to grab an evening meal, hopefully of salad and vegetables. It looks like the temperature is set to rise into the mid 30s tomorrow, rising again over the coming days into the 40s so we’ll have to start getting up and out before 5 am to make the most of the cool morning breeze before lunchtime. Fingers crossed there will be a breeze otherwise it’s going to be hard going. We’ve walked in temperatures in the high 30s before and it’s not fun.

Buen camino