Camino Update – 22 April 2022

 
(brilliant stained glass made by my sister!)


Only a matter of days now before we head back to Spain to complete the job. Here’s the latest..........

Shittish Airways!

Firstly, heartfelt thanks to British Airways (“The world’s Favourite Airline”!!) for cancelling our flights to Madrid and bumping us onto later ones that would totally scupper our plans – missing the only express train to León, and consequent domino effect of buggering up 19 hotel bookings! As always, their phone service lived up to expectations; cutting me off after the 3rd press 1(etc.) option. Words were shouted and the Norridge household (including guests) were awoken to an expletive laden rant that is usually reserved for a last-minute goal to defeat one of my teams! Certainly not appropriate for Easter Sunday!

Luckily, the BA website was actually very good; and it was easy to move us from the later flight (on the original date) we’d been bumped onto across to one 24 hours earlier! A mere £136 for additional night in Madrid though – nevertheless better than having to get a taxi 349 kilometres to León! I guess one positive is that we can have a more leisurely journey over to Heathrow, rather than having to be there at 5am! Big shout out for “Two Star Taxi’s” who are taking us to the airport now. Cheers Bradders!

 A modern BA plane yesterday!


Training

It’s fair to say that we’ve not done anything near the amount of training that we did last time. Partly because we are, for the most part, walking shorter distances on average compared to last time. Plus, we are not facing an opening day consisting of 17 miles, climbing 4200 feet, and a steep descent of 1700 feet over the last 3 miles. Luxury!

We did our first “Packs on” walk this week just to see how they felt. It was only 6 miles, but with plenty of climbs and descents it was a good tester. Broadly speaking all was ok. Cate has a bit of sorting out to get hers to be more comfortable. It helps massively that we’re probably only carrying c70% of the weight that we took out to Spain last time.

 



Despite what I said in my last update, I’m still not completely convinced my boots are right. It’s too late now, so it’s a case of shit or bust! I have just got some lovely ultra-lightweight trainers, which I’ll take as back up. They’re Skechers, so are very comfortable indeed; and have the added bonus (so I’m told by my daughter) of being “old people’s shoes” and will consequently keep any young cool hipsters from wanting to walk or be seen with us! Result! They can stick to listening to their awful music (Rap etc) and constantly saying “like” well away from me!

 
young people!

Packing


Utterly tedious! Surely it can’t be that complicated? 3 x socks, undies, trousers & t-shirts. 1 x jumper, coat, hat, laptop for blog updates, guide books and 2 x cameras. Simples! Cate is spending ages on it – but in fairness to her, she’s in charge of the complex areas – namely the medical kit and washing/cleaning stuff. I’ll need a van load of compeed plasters!



Now, before you lot start up about “easy life”, “sexist pig” and all that old tosh, you need to realise that I have to collate all the paperwork – hotel bookings, tickets, passports, money, Camino Credencial’s, insurance docs, E1-11’s etc.; so, it’s no cakewalk for me! And mark my words, Mrs N does not like admin!


Complicated paper work!😒 

The walk

All Camino’s are meant to end in Santiago de Compostela – a lovely Galician city with a monster cathedral and beautiful old town. This of course is where, according to legend, the remains of St. James were found. Hence the pilgrimage, religious connotations and all that.


Santiago  when we last visited - back in 1990!


However, there are a good number of people who wish to complete their Camino by walking beyond Santiago, and onto the Atlantic Coast. Usually this is to Finisterre or Muxia; or indeed, both. Now; if you’ve seen the film “The Way” (and frankly you should have!), you’ll know that the characters in that continue to the coast to a lovely church that is right next to the ocean. That is the Santuario da Virxe da Barca just beyond Muxia. That will be our final walking destination – another 4 days and 84 kilometres beyond Santiago.





Santuario da Virxe da Barca, Muxia.

I’ve just booked all the accommodation to do that final bit. Yes, it’ll be more walking, but it will be much, much quieter. All the “Last 100km Camino hordes” will have got their bit of paper in Santiago and will be onto their next tick the box activity. So, for us, I’m hoping it will give us some quiet days to reflect on our epic journey; and to have a special moment getting to the Atlantic.

And with luck we'll get to spend a bit time at the beautiful Galician coastline......




How it was just near Finisterre, back in 1990 



Next update will hopefully be from Madrid or León!

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Caucasus again

Image
Twelve months on from my first visit to the Caucasus region I’m heading that way again. Last time it was Azerbaijan and Georgia. This time it’s Georgia, and the perceived bad boy of the region, Armenia.     The one on the left is particularly popular with some of our thickest flags flyers! Why? You may ask. Well, the main reason is that I’m continuing my quest to have visited as many countries as I am years old. Current score on that front is 65, albeit by the dubious counting method of including countries that no longer exist. There are 3 of those; West Germany, Yugoslavia and Hong Kong. A more dubious methodology would include 2 more – Guernsey (could it count as a country?), and Kazakhstan, which I have skirted into on a vehicle, but have never actually set foot there. Anyway, for the sake of argument I’ll include the 3 “ex-countries”. So, the score sits at 65 which means I’m bang on target. Nevertheless, with another Birthday later in the year, I’ve got the chance to...
Read more

7th and 8th May – Getting to Georgia and a walk around Tbilisi

Image
Let’s start with a positive. The joy of a late afternoon flight leaving Heathrow meant that it was a breeze checking in and getting through security. The good people at Lufthansa weren’t striking this week (unlike 2 weeks ago when they nearly wrecked a boy’s football weekend in Bavaria) so, excuse the pun, I was off to a flyer! Ever since my truncated trip to Turkmenistan, I’ve become very wary about lack of sleep. As my onward flight to Tbilisi was effectively overnight, I took the opportunity of a very reasonably priced upgrade to Business Class for the flight from Munich. After about 17 free bottles of Franzischaner Weissbier, and several plates of free food in the Business Lounge I staggered onto the plane and slept like a baby until our 4am touchdown in Tbilisi. Alright, alright just 2 beers and a bowl of soup! And I didn’t sleep like a baby either. However, I did manage a couple of hours kip which undoubtedly helped. Obviously, in my less than deep slumber I dreamt longingly of...
Read more

Monday 11 May – Return to Tbilisi via Stalin’s birthplace

Image
I was awoken at 5.30 by the sound of heavy rain outside. By the time I eventually got out of bed an hour later it was still hammering down. Hardly ideal conditions for the challenging drive through the mountains and back down to Tbilisi. Also a timely reminder as to how lucky we had been with the excellent weather yesterday.   I was genuinely concerned about the journey back to Gudauri. Will there have been more snow and avalanches? Will there be hordes of HGV’s stuck on the perilous roads? Could the police have simply closed the roads? Well, I’ve no idea how they manage the traffic on this essential route but our journey up to, and over Jvari Pass (c7,000feet) was trouble free. Yes, it was a bit slow due to snow and ice, but we barely saw any vehicles coming in the opposite direction. We did pass a few queues of lorry's parked on the side of the road each stretching over a mile.     A few hundred metres past the peak of the pass we stopped at the Georgia/Russia Frien...
Read more