Roncesvalles to Zubiri

This was a beautiful day for walking! It started out as a bit of a misty morning but we stopped after only 4 km in Burguete to see my son and his wife who had stayed there over night. After a leisurely breakfast we didn't start off until close to 10:00 but by then the sun was shining brightly. Sunny but cool - can't get better  than that for walking all day. Our goal today was Zubiri. My son and his wife planned to walk the 40 kilometers to Pamplona because they had already discovered there were no available hotels in Zubiri. We planned to stay at the albergue so weren't too worried.

Having been fortified with a good breakfast, we found the walk to Zubiri pretty straightforward although we heard later that some people found it extremely hard after the hard previous day getting over the mountain. We sure have noticed a difference in our endurance compared with those who just started a couple of days ago in SJPP or Roncesvalles and we're feeling quite pleased with ourselves to note that we really are stronger than we were a month ago. More walking, more strength - perfect!
Look at the crowds we started off with this morning from Burguete. Of course those who started from Roncesvalles were already long gone. These are the very late starters.

The road undulated as always. We did some climbing and walked on fairly decent terrain. It was an enjoyable day although we saw one poor man fall on his butt and land in the mud - much to the amusement of his family and friends.

 

At one point we were on a country road that had a bit of a bank on one side and slight drop off on the other. We heard some noise and turned around to see a herd of sheep coming up behind us taking up the whole road! We stepped to the side as much as we could but there was little room. We hoped the sheep would feel like walking around us not through us. They looked big and had horns!!

But as they got closer, one of the men whistled to the dog and suddenly the dog moved the sheep  away from us and left about 3 feet between them and us as they passed. Good dog!!

The job done with no muss and no fuss - and they all calmly continued on their way.

We were starting to get worried about whether there would be any place to stay in Zubiri as so many people had passed us. And as it turned out there were no places left in albergues or pensiones when we got to Zubiri. The albergue was 'complet'.

Luckily, someone said they thought the hotel did have a space now.  So we went there and sure enough they did so we grabbed it while we could. It felt very luxurious to have our own bathroom and we had a great sleep and started out for Pamplona with a nice breakfast at the hotel.

Oh boy...There are some things about this ipad that drive me crazy and one of them is how difficult it is to complete a post of any length. If the blog is more than a couple of short paragraphs and I ever go back up to correct something it will not let me get back down to the end of the blog to continue. I don't know if this is an ipad issue or an ipad/google issue since my blog is a google thing. At any rate, if they're just playing silly buggar with each other I wish they'd stop....of course - there's a good chance it's just me:(