I have had numerous encounters with livestock on caminos over the years. I don’t enjoy it, but I have more or less gotten used to it and have usually been able to forge ahead. But I have on occasion scrambled up sharp brambly hills or walked quickly through ankle-high mud to avoid them. One of the posts that helped calm my nerves was this one from @Farmer John
I am reading @Magwood’s wonderful Camino Torres blog, and see that I can expect to walk through several large ranches where the livestock ranges freely. On one day, Magwood and her group actually went under a wire fence to avoid a bull/steer/? that was planted in front of them on the path. As she noted in her blog, there was no assurance that they weren’t just going over to another ranch where more livestock were roaming around. But they made it!
I wonder if any forum members can tell me whether the bull pictured in the blog was likely one that required evasive action, or if walking on by would have been ok. I know what the big toros bravos look like, and I know that I will not encounter them on any camino path, but I would like to get a better sense of how to react to the male livestock that I will undoubtedly encounter.
And btw, Magwood’s Torres blog is excellent. And with the opening of the Geira (as described in jungleboy’s equally excellent retelling), the Torres is now a feeder into two different routes. When you get to Braga, you can decide whether to continue to the Caminho Portugues Central (merging in Ponte de Lima), or whether to continue from Braga on the Geira, which goes through some of Portugal’s most beautiful natural areas. But first you have to get through the livestock.
Buen camino, Laurie
I am reading @Magwood’s wonderful Camino Torres blog, and see that I can expect to walk through several large ranches where the livestock ranges freely. On one day, Magwood and her group actually went under a wire fence to avoid a bull/steer/? that was planted in front of them on the path. As she noted in her blog, there was no assurance that they weren’t just going over to another ranch where more livestock were roaming around. But they made it!
I wonder if any forum members can tell me whether the bull pictured in the blog was likely one that required evasive action, or if walking on by would have been ok. I know what the big toros bravos look like, and I know that I will not encounter them on any camino path, but I would like to get a better sense of how to react to the male livestock that I will undoubtedly encounter.
And btw, Magwood’s Torres blog is excellent. And with the opening of the Geira (as described in jungleboy’s equally excellent retelling), the Torres is now a feeder into two different routes. When you get to Braga, you can decide whether to continue to the Caminho Portugues Central (merging in Ponte de Lima), or whether to continue from Braga on the Geira, which goes through some of Portugal’s most beautiful natural areas. But first you have to get through the livestock.
Buen camino, Laurie
Last edited: