Greetings from Mollinosecos

Yesterday we started really climbing into the Montes de Leon (over 1500m) through forests of Chestnut and Oak and up past the treeline into alpine heathlands. These areas are snow covered in winter. The scenery is spectacular, I love the mountains, at each summit or around every bend another panorama unfolds. The alpine heathlands are dominated by purple and pink heath which are still flowering (there is diversity here but most shrubs have flowered and set seeds, I´d love to see them in Spring). One common flower (also common in the Pyrenees) is a fragile pink 4-petalled flower than comes straight out of the rocky ground, there are no green parts so I assume it´s not photosynthetic and maybe parasitic on surrounding plants (it cannot flower and set viable seed unless it can draw nutrition from somewhere).

At the summit we stopped at a very special albergue, in Manjarin a ghost town dating back to the 11th century. It´s run by an eccentric (Tomas) and his sidekicks. They are a strange hippie/Christian/wannabe Templar Knights group (The Templar Knights were a group of warrior monks from around 11th to 14th century when the church shut them down). These guys run an albergue without electricity, running water, proper toilets etc really basic. In the mornings and afternoons they run little ceremonies that involve prayer, clanging together of swords and battle axes etc (scary, Ray and I almost made a run for it!). They dress as Templars without the armour. Sleeping quarters were upstairs under the attic - with about 3ft head clearance, (mattresses on the floor), from your place on the mattress you could touch the ceiling. Supper was a watery potato soup with bits of suspect meat (Ray reckons one of the many cats around here, I suspect semi-rancid meat) We were relieved when morning came and we could make a dash for it!

The Templars were big around here particularly in Ponteferrada where they built a humongous fortress. They kept order along the camino. But best of all they loved to get kitted up and head out to the Orient to massacre a few ´heretics´in the name of their loving God. No doubt the followers of Islam also liked to massacre a few ´infidels´in the name of their loving God!

Today we walked about 20km to Mollinasecas, mostly straight down along treacherous rocky paths. It was wonderful to get to an albergue and have hot showers and wash clothes etc (it really makes you appreciate the little luxuries of life). Tommorrow we´ll walk through Ponteferradas, this town was basically a Kights Templar town but more on that tommorrow.

Some thought on the birdlife on the camino
I have not seen one brightly coloured bird since starting. The local Robin makes some effort with a little rufus patch but if it ran into an aussie Robin it would die of shame (you call that colour, I´ll show you colour!), think of the Flame robin, the Scarlet robin, the Red-capped robin, the Pink robin and the Eastern Yellow robin. Then come the Blue wrens, the Golden Whistlers, the numerous species of Honey eaters and the parrots/lorikeets.

I´ll try another post with photos a little later
greetings to Liz L glad your enjoying our adventures and yes pass on the blog address! yes it is a real test of physical fitness but more so of mental toughness!!!

The track was difficult today (I prefer climbing to the descent) but Rays knee and ankle held out ok.
Hi to everyone and don´t forget to post messages!