When first I saw her standing there forlorn,
I thought she wore a coat upon her back,
Fashioned 'gainst the bitter cold of dawn
By kindly hands that pitied her. Alack,
It was not so. This was her natural hue,
So different from the others of the flock;
And there she stood alone as if she knew
Her manners and her mien were wont to shock.
Anon appeared a dog, a noble soul,
The goatherd and the master of the way,
And not the first I've seen perform this role.
He ventured up to me as if to say,
I stand on guard, no matter who they be,
However strange they look or seem to thee.
It was cool this morning as I left the gite, ten degrees, and the wind was whipping up from the sea.
As I stopped to take a photo of this strange-looking goat, a cross between a Saanen and a Nubian perhaps, its guardian, a big Saint-Bernard-ish dog came rushing over, not threateningly, but just to make sure I wasn't intending any harm to his herd.
The breakfast at the gite was better left alone, so as usual I was loking forward my coffee and tortilla at the first tavern. It was about six kilometres on, and from there, it was an easy walk into Luarca, the recommended place to stop.
Luarca is one of the loveliest seaside towns I've seen. One of the Germans thought that it looked very British. Indeed it does, rather like a Cornish town with its steep cliffs and narrow harbour, but bigger and busier. I would have liked to linger, but had only covered 15 kilometres, and as the next step was a long one, I was planning to even out the distances.
The albergue, one kilometre after Pinera, is basic, but not crowded, so I have a bottom bunk. There is a Gulf Islander here, Ted from Quadra,
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