Hasta luego amigos!

[geoffr]

Hi all:

It's fair to say that I've been fairly quiet on this forum for many months now, but as I'll explain, there's a good reason for this.

About a year ago I gave in to the constant nagging of a dear old friend, and agreed to accompany him on a very long walk across Spain.

The long walk is called ’El Camino de Santiago’, or ’The Way of St James’. It's a pilgrim walk that dates back over a thousand years. It also starts at many different points across Europe, but for us it will commence at a tiny French village in the Pyrenees called St Jean Pied-de-Port. From there, it involves walking south up and over the said Pyrenees to cross the border back into Spain. Then we head west along the northern Basque Country for about 750 kilometres, until we reach the city of Santiago de Compostella in the north-west pocket of Spain. That's about the distance from Frankston to Adelaide, and at an average of 25km per day (about 4-5 hours walking) we should do it in about 35 days, with a few rest days thrown in here and there. We may also divert to Bilbao en route, to visit the famous Guggenheim Museum there.

After the walk, we'll have about two further weeks to generally ’bum around’ the rest of Spain and Portugal, using some Eurail passes we've already bought here.

This long walk is a 60th birthday ’bucket list’ wish for my mate Kerry, but just an adventure for me that sounded too good to pass up - especially as I had some long service leave to burn. Neither of us are particularly religious, but hanging out with fellow ’pilgrims’ for five weeks might stir something up!

My wife Penny just thinks we’re both crazy, but has been good enough to humour a couple of (nearly) old farts as they prepare to set off on yet another mid-life crisis fiasco (noting that the first such crisis, of many, was to purchase my Investigator some years ago).

Ages ago, I thought that if I was going to do this walk, I'd need to prepare as best I could. That’s meant learning some basic Spanish (what a wonderful language), getting kitted up in all the right hiking gear (especially a good pair of lightweight boots), and doing plenty of walking.

So most weekends over the past six months we’ve been trudging around the Barwon River or Corio Bay (stopping by the occasional pub or coffee house along the way). More recently, we've been catching the train to Little River, then walking to the You Yangs to hike around the base, up to the peak, then back to Little River or Lara for a tran home. That’s a round trip of about 22km, carrying a 10kg backpack each.

Suffice to say, this has meant I've had little time for sailing (apart from organising sponsors for the annual Queenscliff to Geelong Race on 3 November).

However, I have managed to fit in three great sails in the winter series sailed out of Royal Geelong YC, filling in for an ill skipper aboard his 27ft S80 keeled, “Urgence”. (Yeah, I know: the 'dark side'.)

That's been a wonderful experience, with up to five aboard and some challenging weather during these past few month. I'm now looking forward though to getting my Investigator back sailing for summer, once I return from Spain in early November (and fix some further hull damage caused by a dodgy roller).

I'll post a trip report and some photos from ’The Way’ when I get back.

Until then, adios amigos!

[Ozzie]

Bon voyage mate . We have travelled much of the Med in the other direction but Spain is definitely on our list. Sounds like a top trip.

[cruiserpete]

Wow.... fantastic stuff.

Travel safe, enjoy and look forward to the photos and reports

Cheers, Pete