It’s been roughly 29km from our starting point in Matosinhos to our arrival at B&B here in Vila do Conde. We left a little after 7 o’clock to find the street a hive of activity with people in brightly coloured rubber boots up to their knees wheeling trollies of what appeared to be fresh fish into the industrial complex in our doorstep. Clearly a fish market on an epic scale.

Matosinhos prides itself on being the most important fishing port on the coast but it’s clearly also a port of some significance more generally.

Once out of Matosinhos, today’s route was almost exclusively on wooden walkways. Designed to keep walkers above the shifting dunes these meandered close to the shoreline and roughly 50m from the continuous stream of urban sprawl that accompanied us all the way.

Occasionally, there were patches of gloriously coloured flowers

Or even better, as seen through the lens of the Olympus and our monocular.

Such a surprise to see such a creature. It hung around long enough for me to take the images and then, audience satisfied, it disappeared on more important business.

The coastline along here is a mixture of Porthcawl and Sandfields Beach with the occasional nod to semi professional fishing.

We’re not sure that another 150km of boardwalks is the most interesting way of spending our holiday so tomorrow we’ll head north east instead and we’ll join up with the central route with the aim of spending tomorrow night in Barcelos in the same small hotel we stayed in last time. I’m looking forward to trees, hills and lots of green things instead of unremitting sand dunes and large concrete flats which oddly I’ve not taken any photos of.

Instead,

The final leg into town wound its way through the small suburbs and past these insanely pollarded trees.

Finally, for the scrapbook some pictures of the sea and the occasional cormorant.

Buen camino