We were awoken to the dulcet tones of Coldplay at 6am. Don’t get me wrong, I quite like Coldplay but at 6am in the morning Chris Martin can seriously do one.

After our lovely meal and beers last night I slept like a knackered baby. The bed was comfy and there were no snorers/farters/coughers/sleep talkers or midnight flushers. It was bliss.

It would be mostly road walking today but there were still some nice sights along the way.

As I exited the Albergue, bleary eyed and feeling like something was missing, I spotted an open taverna. A heavenly place full of pastries, breakfast foods and, most importantly, very strong caffeine.

Buzzing my tits off I tore away from the Albergue at a million miles an hour. I then had to wait for Jenny the limp to catch up. Stereotypes say Germans are efficient but now I’m not so sure.

Micheal had wandered on ahead of us with the plan to meet again down the way. He stopped a few kilometers along the way and we accidentally walked past him, we then stopped and he walked past us and when we went to catch him up he had taken a wrong turn somewhere and we ended up meeting him in Bilbao about half an hour after we got there.

Anyway, back to the journey.

Like I said earlier, it was mostly road walking today. Which kinda sucked but at least there was a whacking great big mountain in the middle to break up the monotony. Road walking and huge hills. My favourite.

As we went over the top of the hill it opened up to a huge park. It was pretty lovely. It was still 2km to the official start of Bilbao so we had a nice, steep downhill to navigate.

I’m sure Bilbao is a smashing place filled with some really cool stuff but because I had essentially been living in the mountains for 8 days it felt really weird going into a place so unnatural and saturated with people.

I swallowed my panic attack and we made for the next Albergue. 4km later and we were still walking. I didn’t realise Bilbao was so big!

The Camino took us past an absolutely humongous church. We took a wander inside and there was a service on. The height of the place would have made an aircraft hanger jealous. It was a truly incredible place to stand and an even more incredible place to listen. The entire place echoed as the people sung some God jams. I left in quiet awe to continue along the route.

At some point we picked up a Japanese fella. Don’t know where or when he joined us but he was there for the last km. He didn’t speak a single bit of English or Spanish and silently wandered behind us to the same hostel. Bloody lovely bloke.

We checked in, showered the last 16km of sweat and grime off of us and then apologised to the washing machine before cleaning our, rather disgusting, clothes.

Ole’ Jenny Kneecaps then shot off to the hospital because she is pretty sure she has tonsillitis and she wanted to get them checked out. I’ll be honest, at her current rate I’m not sure how much longer she is going to be featured in my blogs. Her leg might fall off next and she will have to call it a day.

So this is my view from the place I’m staying.

It is very different to a lot of my previous views that’s for sure. I’ve had 80km of walking with no sea by my side but that changes tomorrow as the route continues along the coast. I may even treat myself to a dip in the water depending on how many buff, bronzed men are on the beach to make me look bad.

BUEN CAMINO