Peter and Cathie's 2022 Camino

 It's Friday afternoon in Singapore. Tomorrow we fly to Auckland. The taxi is booked for 5am. River sculpture. After a flight of more than 12 hours from Amsterdam, we arrived at dawn on Wednesday, making it to our hotel by 8am. For the next 25 hours we had three sleep sessions, totalling 18 hours. We must have had plenty of catching up to do. Our hotel room is very budget, but it's quiet, has comfortable beds and good air conditioning. We managed a short walk and an overpriced lunch along the river, but it was definitely a rest day. Chance meeting. On Thursday we set off with a plan to find the information centre and make a plan. According to Google maps, it was a 30-minute walk. We were dressed for the heat and I had on a well-ventilated cap from some sports event in 2016. We hadn't gone far when a chirpy voice behind us said: "I've got one of those caps." Unlikely but true. Tanya Lee-Parker from Rotorua was the first New Zealander we'd spoken to in 10 we...

  It's Saturday afternoon in Delft. We arrived here on Thursday afternoon after a long day of travelling from Santiago. Looking down the corridor to our room. We have five nights in the lovely Hotel Arsenaal. It's recently opened as a hotel after a life as an Arsenal, 400 years ago, and then a warehouse, brewery and no doubt many incarnations. You can read about it here:  https://hotelarsenaal.com/about-hotel-arsenaal/ We've spent a lot of time resting, but also a lot of time wearily plodding around the town. There's a lot to see just by wandering, even if it's just observing the daily matters of life that are so different from what we're used to. Canals everywhere. Bridges everywhere Bicycles everywhere. People riding them in what seems to be very erect and old-fashioned positions (with no helmets anywhere). Precarious parking (how did this driver get out on the left of his car?). Yesterday we saw a beautiful pottery exhibition with pots from all over the world...

  Goodbye faithful stick. It's late afternoon here. More than 24 hours since we arrived in Santiago. I haven't adjusted my stick since we left St Jean Pied de Port (where I bought it in 2019) and I found it was jammed in position, fully extended. I can't take it home like that, so I left it with a label attached, leaning against a drainpipe by the cathedral. Two hours later, it was gone. It's travelled the Camino twice and done many other walks with me in the last three years, so time it found a new home. We started the day with a leisurely breakfast, extending over an hour. Breakfasts here at the Parador are absolutely wonderful. I won't go into detail, but we stayed until we could hardly move from our chairs. Walk anywhere and there are wonderful sights to see. We went for a walk. I've been plagued with a swimming-induced partially blocked ear since before we left New Zealand. I thought that since we weren't swimming it wouldn't get any worse, but it h...

  We made it. Walked into the square to kilometre zero at about 12.15pm after a very pretty walk. We were both a little surprised, bemused and disbelieving. It was the perfect day for a walk. A cool eight degrees when we started out, but with clear skies. We were  expecting more pilgrims on the trail, but apart from the odd episode of noisy school groups, we were able to have quite a peaceful walk. This morning's view from Pension Arca. Just an extra note about last night's Pension Arca. As well as the great living space they served a delicious breakfast. I was so pleased to see cereal, fruit and yoghurt that I skipped the toast, pastries, meat and cheese. But winding back to our arrival there yesterday, as I took things out of my suitcase I dropped the little shot glass I bought in Bayonne. Of course it shattered on the tiled floor. Speaking of glassware, one of my favourite beer glasses at home is the Estrella Galicia glass I took home with me in 2019. It's great to have ...

 This is the Way.  A very delightful day today. Last night we slept the sleep of the just - at least we tell ourselves that. Maybe it was the sleep of the righteous, but I think we've sinned (more about that later). Whatever the reason, we got more than 10 hours. Breakfast was late, 7.30am, and since today was short we allowed ourselves to sleep in until 7pm. Breakfast was very good - and quite exclusive. Our hotel was Casona de Nene, casona meaning mansion, so perhaps a step up from an albergue, a casa, a pension, a posada or a hostal, all of which we've been in (we've yet to experience a Parador, that comes tomorrow). The Casona didn't do breakfast, we had to go around the corner to Casa Nene, which only admitted guests of the Casona Nene (other starving pilgrims were turned away). We found Tammy and Patrick and also their friend Thomas, who has been joined by his wife in recent days. All in all, it was noisy enough with the six of us and the breakfast was excellent. ...

The bridge leading into Melide. Today seemed like our final hurdle. We had close to 30km to cover and by now we have a good feeling for what a drag those last few kilometres can be. It didn't work out too badly. On the positive side, we got to bed really early. Breakfast was available from 6am, so we had the alarm set for an early getaway. On the negative side, two French women in the room next to us talked their heads off until midnight. I'd just dozed off when they woke me at 9.15pm. I cursed them and dozed off again, but they must have had a drink or two, as the volume increased and woke me again at 11.15pm. I lay there, self-righteously building myself up to a fit of wild indignation, when I would drape a towel around my young and tender body and bang on their door. The more time went by, the more morally outraged I became. Midnight, I decided, was when I'd confront them. Miraculously, at 11.58pm, they stopped. They don't know how lucky they were. By 5.58am we were ...

Shot of the day - Cathie's image of early-morning shadows through the trees.  If any day can be called routine, today was it. Like well-oiled machines, we woke up, packed, ate breakfast and went on our way about 7.30am, walking steadily for two hours or so at a good speed and covering close to 10km in that time. After that our average pace slowed, as we took a couple of breaks, the first ostensibly for coffee, but really for the toilet, and the second for coffee, food and toilet combined. This man was advertising cheese, apparently a major food group in this region. We're still getting the hang of Spanish food, which seems to consist mainly of carbohydrate in the form of bread or chips, and meat. Cake is included at breakfast, but very little serious fibre or greenery - hence the frequent mention of toilet stops. It's an effort to get some action - coffee helps. Last night we had some very fortifying vegetable soup, which may have helped - we were joined by a couple from Ed...