Before our walk, wearing a kilt was something I’d done only a handful of times at various events. Jeff, on the other hand, had been wearing various utility kilts for a few years or so – thus it made sense for him to hike in a kilt. However, his Home clan tartan worsted wool kilt…

After 40 days of walking and 5 rest days, we’ve made it to Santiago de Compostela. We’ve each walked more than 1,000,000 steps and have covered more than 800km, and have had an absolutely awesome adventure. How did we celebrate this achievement? With beers, wines, and 2.1kg of very nicely cooked chuletón beef 😋.

Since my post from Foncebadón, we’ve done a lot of walking, and have finally crossed from the Castilla y León region into Galicia. You might think that neighbouring regions of Spain would be similar… but in terms of the trail, the difference was immediately obvious. Gone were the often graffitied metal way markers, replaced with…

Today, roughly 5.6km further than the Cruz de Ferro, and roughly 3.2km further than Manjarín, we traversed the highest point on the Camino de Santiago (on the official route, not off-piste up a farmer’s track or similar) – what3words address ///wrongly.portrayed.scatters. While many people choose to believe that the Cruz de Ferro is the highest…

Today marks the start of our second calendar month: we started our journey from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France on May 12th and we’ve just arrived in Foncebadón, Spain today, June 12th. We’ve – thankfully, I’d say – passed through the mesetas, as the scenery was getting a bit samey and the lack of shade wasn’t the best…

What do the above have in common? Jeff, as it turns out 😄. The Moody Blues On arrival at our accommodation in Villafranca Montes de Oca (day 14), we bumped into Kerri, a lovely Swiss lady we’d first met way back on the trek to Zubiri (day 2), and at a few other points along…

What’s the good of wearing braces? An interesting question, and one this post most definitely won’t answer 😜. Along much of the Roman road we recently walked – a subject covered by Jeff in his recent post – woad plants were present. I find the irony of this quite amusing – something stemming squarely from my…

Sahagún is generally considered to be the halfway point along the Camino, and that’s about right. Ultimately, it depends on whether you’re travelling past Santiago de Compostella and on to Fisterra / Finisterre or not (we hope to, but will see how our feet feel once in SdC). It’s also more definitely on the León…

Since my last post on Day 14 from Villafranca Montes de Oca, we’ve covered a lot more ground (80.29km, in fact). We’re on day 19, and are now ensconced in the small town of Castrojeriz. We’ve firmly left the La Rioja region, and are in the largest autonomous community in Spain by area, Castilla y…

Today marks the end of our second week, as well as marking Jeff’s 54th birthday, and it’s been a blast. We’ve had great food, great drink, great conversations with new friends, and generally misbehaved 😜. Here’s a brief synopsis since my last post from day 10 at Nájera: Day 11: Rest day in Nájera Day…

Day 8 After returning to a longer walk (18.76km) after our shorter rest days, we ended up in Viana. We’d been hoping to stay in accommodation owned by a sidrería, but it turns out they shut the accommodation ages ago and still haven’t updated their website 🤷‍♂️. Thankfully, we managed to get a late lunch…

Today marked the end of our first week, and what a finish it was. We arrived in Los Arcos after a short-ish 12.63km walk, to be greeted by a brass band playing for the local fiesta, and then discovered that the town’s annual bull run was being held in the evening. Not only that, but…

It’s the end of day 6, and we’ve taken the decision to have a half day. As mentioned in We passed 100km!, we had planned on a long day today and a rest day tomorrow (every week, walk for 6 days and rest for 1). However, we decided to walk for half a day on…

Today we passed our first 100km (116.15km, in fact). The journey from Puente La Reina to Estella was 23.98km and other than an initial steep climb – thankfully early in the day before we were too tired – it was fairly uneventful. We had planned on a long day tomorrow and a rest day on…

Day 3 Day 3 saw us walking from Zubiri to Pamplona, a journey of 20.9km. The going wasn’t too tricky, a mostly downhill walk, although some elevation gain of around 360m. Having said that, rain overnight had made a lot of the ground muddy and slippery, so watching our footing was essential. We started the…

Day two is over, the going was easier even though we walked over 22km (mostly downhill), and we’ve found a local butcher selling wild boar head chorizo and venison chorizo 🤤. Onto the interesting part: some stats. Day 1 Route: Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Roncesvalles (up and over the Pyrenees) Total distance: 25.24km (mostly uphill, some excessively…

Day one is over, 25.24km has been walked, blisters have been gained, muscles are aching, and we’re staying in a monastery in Roncesvalles. But never have I been happier to be in a religious establishment. They have showers, beds, seats, and vending machines selling Mikado chocolates 😋. I’ve no idea yet how far we’ll walk…

It was a 4am wake-up call to get the flight to Biarritz, but all three of us made it in one piece. Now we just need coffee and sleep ☕️ 😴

I know how to spend a bank holiday weekend enjoying myself… playing my current new Doom WAD (Back to Saturn episode 1) and sewing badges onto backpacks. Only three more badges to go… hopefully my fingers will recover! Despite having not sewn anything for at least 30 years (probably a scout badge), I managed fairly…

With six days to go before we arrive in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, one of the most hyphenated place names I know, life feels surprisingly relaxed here – even if our flat does look like we’ve turned it into a second-hand camping gear shop. From SJPDP, early(ish) on Sunday morning, Jeff, Simon, and I begin our awesome adventure.…