30 June 2017

30 June 2017

Aulla to Avenza - 32kms

For the past couple of days I have been suffering from an old injury in my left knee, aggravated by the very rough terrain we have been walking on up in the mountains. Today we decided therefore to avoid a very rough track coming up on our journey to Avenza and decided to take to the road instead. Unfortunately it turned out to be a bad mistake as the road was very busy, with practically no hard shoulder and it soon became apparent that we were in real danger. Having started there was no way back so we carried on for about 10 kms until we found a secondary road that offered a bit more protection. 

In the afternoon we were joined by young Martin, an Italian 26 year-old who has been with us on and off for a couple of days. He too has hurt his knee and so decided to tag along with us as we walk more slowly than the Italian group of 9 he was travelling with that morning. Suffice to say that we were very glad when we reached our Hostel for the night, which is run by the local church. The main building was full so the three of us were taken to another building where we had a huge room with about ten beds all to ourselves. In the middle of the night I heard some sounds outside as if someone was trying to get into the building. I rushed out to find these were three Boy Scouts who had been on an outing and were returning to their base which was on the first floor of the building we were in. The scare over, we were able to return to sleep to wake up at 5:00am.

Tomorrow we go to Pietrasanta some 25 kms away.