Thinking about the Camino

 March 7, 2022

In 2019, at the age of 70, I walked the French route of the Camino de Santiago. I walked alone, staying in hotels and having my bag carried. Although I walked alone, I was seldom short of company, making many friends along the way.

I made plans to return in 2020 and walk the Northern Route, but had to postpone because of Covid. I booked again for 2021, with the same result.

In the meantime, I met and married my wife Cathie and we decided to walk together. On reflection, I decided that the northern route had too large a proportion of paved surfaces and wasn't as geared up for pilgrims. Although the French route has more people walking it, that was part of the attraction for me - lots more people to meet.

Cathie agreed, so we made some plans.

In 2019 I'd made my bookings through a New Zealand company. In 2020 I contacted them again seeking a quote for hotels and bag carriage, but I also contacted other companies in Australia, Ireland, England and Spain. There was an astonishing range in the quotes, with the highest one nearly double the one I accepted with the Spanish company Pilgrim.

When Covid struck, the company agreed to hold the deposit to 2021 and they did so again in anticipation of our trip this year. We don't have to pay the balance until a month before we start walking, which has been reassuring in the uncertainty leading up to this point. Now it looks like we're all good to go.

Although we swim a lot - up to 15km a week - we've been trying to increase the amount of walking we do. With the swim season drawing to a close, we'll increase this in anticipation of the Camino. We start walking on May 21.

Our first serious walk was nearly a year ago. Cathie had packed up her house in Auckland, the movers had arrived and we set off to drive south to Taupo, followed a day later by a shorter trip to National Park. We were booked for a shuttle to ferry us to and from the Tongariro Crossing.

The crossing is a walk of just over 19km, weaving its way between three active volcanoes. It starts by heading east with Mt Tongariro to the north and Mt Ngaurahoe to the south. Then it turns north, keeping Tongariro to the left (west), but with the lovely cone of Mt Ruapehu (pictured) to the east. 

Because the walk is one of the most popular in New Zealand, it's easy to dismiss it as easy. That's definitely not the case.

As you ascend, there are frequent warnings that it's going to get harder and that you should turn back if you are finding it difficult.

There are also warnings that the mountain could erupt at any time.

Once you stop climbing it doesn't get easier. The slippery scree descent to the beautiful azure lakes is fast and exciting and hard on the legs. 

From there, it becomes a bit of a slog - endless steps, a little too wide and too deep to take easily. They seem to go on without end.

After about eight hours we made it to the carpark at the bottom, where we had a short wait for the shuttle to take us back to our hotel and a welcome shower.

That was pretty well all the serious walking we did for a while. All through winter we stayed fit by swimming - mostly in the pool, but with regular cold-water dips in the sea. Our next big walk didn't happen until November 2021, a couple of weeks after our October 30 wedding. I suppose you could describe it as a honeymoon.

Cathie had done this walk before, but staying at fancy lodges and with her bag carried. Over the years I'd walked all the track, including a couple of one-day excursions walking from Marahau in the south to Awaroa, nearly 40km away, but only carrying a day pack.

Neither of could remember any great hills or difficulties. Talk about short-term memory.

This time we were booked into DOC (Department of Conservation) huts and we were carrying everything we needed, including sleeping bags and food.

The aqua-taxi dropped us off at Totaranui, near the northern end of the park, on a drizzly day. It wasn't a long walk to Awaroa, but it had to be timed to reach Awaroa Inlet near the low tide in order to wade across the estuary. 

It was a bit of a shock to the system to be carrying a pack. It was also a shock to find some serious climbs. We were happy to make it to the hut in Awaroa.

On day two we walked on to Bark Bay. We were wise to the small bunkrooms off to the side of the huts and we made sure we arrived early enough the grab the one at the hut. We had a welcome swim - it was fresh and clear.

Day three - on to Anchorage. The huts just got better every day. Another lovely swim.

Day four, we walked out to our car at Marahau. We enjoyed the four-day experience but we were surprised how hard we found it with packs on our backs. It makes a huge difference to the ease of walking and made us glad we weren't going the be carrying them across Spain. However, we still had a couple of walks to do before we could hang up our packs. 

Over December and January we walked as often as we could, but it was peak swim season and we were meeting friends and swimming in the sea several times a week - as well as trying to keep up a couple of days a week of squad training in the pool.

On January 1 we did a 3km swim on the outgoing tide in the estuary behind Rabbit Island, taking us to Mapua (that's us arriving in the photo). On January 2, our first 5km race of the season in Nelson Harbour. On January 3 a relatively short easy swim of a couple of kilometres with the group at Kaiteriteri. 

On January 4, the only swim we've organised for other people this summer - a 5km swim from Marahau to Kaiteriteri. About 55 people took part and everyone enjoyed the experience, although the tide flowing in to the estuary at Marahau was a bit of a handicap and the sea roughed up a bit in the final stretch from Breaker Bay to Kaiteriteri. It wasn't a race, just a fun swim, so many people were able to take part.

Towards the middle of January we decided to have a go at Mt Arthur, the highest peak in the ranges to the west of Nelson. This is another one of those walks that you think can't be too hard because so many people do it.

I should have remembered that already in my life I've tried to climb up Mt Arthur three times. Each time I've easily covered the 4km to Mt Arthur hut, but been unable to get past the ridge beyond the hut because of adverse weather.

That didn't happen this year. We had good weather all the way up. The climb got rougher and harder all the way and we were pleased to reach the summit, but by then the weather was closing in. The previous clear visibility had disappeared, and we were in cloud. Added to that, the wind was rising. The photo shows the view from close to the top, looking back over some the trail that we'd just walked.

We clambered down, glad we weren't with the people just on their way up. The 16km round trip took just on eight hours.

As we moved into February we planned a five-night campervan trip, thanks to our friends Nick and Corinne, who'd loaned us their van as a wedding present. We headed off to the West Coast, planning a couple of walks. It didn't really work out.

The first walk had been washed out, so we took a drive up the Deniston Plateau instead. It was a fascinating place - the site of coal mining operations which operated until the 1960s - but it didn't involve us in any walking.

On the next day we did a number of short walks - the seal colony at Cape Foulwind, the short walk at Charleston and the lovely Truman Track.

On day four we wandered around the Punakaiki blowholes and Pancake Rocks. An amazing geologic structure, but not a difficult walk.

Later that day, in Greymouth, we found that a severe rain event was due to engulf the coast that night, so instead of spending our final night in Reefton, as we'd planned, we hightailed it back to Nelson, arriving home after a five-hour drive at about 6pm.

We'd planned a circuit of Lake Rotoiti later in February. This was to be a two-day walk with packs. Day one was to be a walk of just over 10km from St Arnaud, heading south down the eastern shore of the lake to Lakehead hut. On day two there was the option of fording the Travers River and returning on the western side of the lake, but we'd decided to walk an extra 5km up the Travers to a swing bridge and then back another 5km to the Cold Water Hut before tackling the western shore.

Things didn't work out as planned.

The rain that drove us away from the West Coast continued across the region for two weeks. It included the Nelson Lakes National Park and was expected to continue through the Monday we'd planned to start our walk on. We decided to forget about the walk, but miraculously, a few days before that the forecast changed - the rain was finally going to stop.

Our Auckland friends Antje and Jakob were going to visit us and they were very keen to do the walk. To cut a long story short, we decided to do the walk together, starting on the Tuesday. I'd assured them that it was an easy walk - I'd done it a few weeks before my first Camino in 2019 and it was a nice walk, without any difficulties.

Everything went pretty well on day one. We met at St Arnaud, had a nice lunch and set off. The effects of the protracted rain were obvious from the start. 

Lake Rotoiti is in a basin surrounded by high mountains. Every stream flowing down into the lake was swollen way beyond normal. Against the odds, we managed to boulder hop across all of them without getting our feet wet. The picture shows Jakob helping Antje across one of the streams. At the hut we found a nice water hole close by, had a dip and prepared for day two. 

Day two was not so easy. The going wasn't too bad heading up the Travers River to the swing bridge. Towards the bridge there were some tricky bits as the track narrowed, but we crossed without problems.

The bridge was fun, as all swing bridges are, but we were about to embark on a more challenging section of track.

The 5km of track from the bridge down to the Cold Water Hut at the top of the lake was a disaster.

There were washouts, flooded streams, fallen trees and all sorts of obstacles. It took us much longer than it should have. Boulder hopping was out of the question. A couple of washouts were extreme, with knee-deep water extending 20-30m and no option but to wade through. So much for waterproof boots - it just meant the water couldn't get out. 

And so we squelched along, arriving eventually at the hut to take off our shoes, change socks and have a welcome bask in the sun after a very difficult 10km.

The remainder of the track has always stayed in my memory as being the most reasonable and well-behaved of trails. Unfortunately, that was not the case on this walk. Dry socks went down the drain early on as we faced yet more stream crossings. Fallen trees became a problem. If it was just the trunk it would be fine, but with dense branches and leaves it became a mission to slide under them with a pack - and difficult to climb over. The picture below shows Cathie emerging from beneath one of the fallen trees. 

Eventually we arrived back at St Arnaud after a long day of about 23km - into the lake for a welcome dip and then home to Nelson.

And so it goes. We try to do a decent walk every week and we're still swimming, with a few races yet to go.

We had a 5km swim in Akaroa a week ago and we travel to Auckland for a swim in the coming weekend. Another long swim race (3.8km) in Nelson the following weekend, then it's off to Fiordland to walk the Milford Track at the beginning of April. That'll be our final walk with packs - four days (three nights) with Auckland swim friends. 

We leave for Canada on April 30, then on to Spain.