OMG, we had an absolute blast today.
We ended up overshooting the town we were initially aiming for (Zubiri), and ended up in Larrasoaña. GoogleMaps reckons it was about 31kms. I want to cut´n´paste a link to the route, but these computers have cut'n'paste disabled. WTF?
The fun part was that is was an absolute mud-fest!! We started off trying to avoid puddles and dirty bits, but by the end of the day, if it was shallower than about 4 inches of mud we´d just plough straight through the middle of it. It was sooooo much fun!!!
Once again we arrived absolutely shattered. It's a bloody long way carrying that sort of weight.
Hannah's speed & track-confidence has increased immensely since yesterday. Yesterday I could stop & take occasional (i.e. hundreds of) piccies, then fast walk to catch up. Theres´s no way I could do that today... she took off like a mad woman.
She ended up with a couple of blisters by the end of the day, and I think I undid a few months of physio, but other than that we´ve got no complaints. Within a few days we´ll barely notice the backpacks. Hehehe, actually I might revise that statement by the end of next week.
The only injury we´ve had was to my brand new wide angle lens. It survived most of the first day, but something must have happened right at the end of the day, because when I went to take a piccy of the abbey before bed last night, I took it out of it´s protective cover to the tinkle-tinkle of broken glass. Oops. Farewell 10-24mm lens! I loved thee well.
Most of today´s track was via dirt tracks off the main roads. It was longer and muddier than if we´d taken the direct route, but we´d have missed out on most of the scenery. There are quite a few people taking the main roads, and I don´t really see the point. Sure it´s faster, but...
Actually, we´ve noticed that people are taking shortcuts in quite a few different ways.
* Some people ride bikes, but they wizz through towns in 1 or 2 minutes that we´d spend much longer passing through. There´s so much variety here, they surely can´t be seeing it all.
* Some people take the main roads between towns. They miss out on so many river crossings (tiny stone-block ad-hoc bridges), flora & fauna... and they´re avoiding cars the whole time. People!! Get back on the ´real´tracks. :)
* Some people use baggage forwarding services, and instead of carrying their backpacks between towns, they just drop it off... and it appears clean & dry at the destination.
It´s a long weekend in Europe this weekend, so there´s a lot more pilgrims than normal, so it´s already becoming a bit of a race to the refuges each night. Each of the shortcuts above would help them get there sooner, so I can see the competitive advantage. But I do think it defeats the purpose of walking. Afterall, ´el camino´does mean ´the walk´.
At the same time, we´re both using high tech walking poles. I know some of the more traditional pilgrims see these as a shortcut too. We spent 6 months researching the lightest/best equipment we could afford, so I suppose everyone has to work out what they feel comfortable with. What some people consider shortcuts, others would consider optimisations. I think Hannah & I found a level that we were comfortable with: we´ll walk the entire distance on foot carrying everything we´ll need... but we´ll still make it as easy on ourselves as possible. We´re pilgrims, not martyrs. :)
Oops, started rambling...
5 mins before time cuts out.
We´re only about 12kms from Pamplona (where the Running Of The Bulls is held), so we´ll easily reach there by tomorrow morning. Maybe by about 10am. I´m tempted to look for a replacement wide angle lens there... my other lenses just can´t do the scenery justice. We´ll possibly stay there for the whole day and overnight. It seems like too important a place to just walk straight through.
So... that´s it for now. I´m still trying to get access to a computer where I can upload some photos.
Buen Camino!!
We ended up overshooting the town we were initially aiming for (Zubiri), and ended up in Larrasoaña. GoogleMaps reckons it was about 31kms. I want to cut´n´paste a link to the route, but these computers have cut'n'paste disabled. WTF?
The fun part was that is was an absolute mud-fest!! We started off trying to avoid puddles and dirty bits, but by the end of the day, if it was shallower than about 4 inches of mud we´d just plough straight through the middle of it. It was sooooo much fun!!!
Once again we arrived absolutely shattered. It's a bloody long way carrying that sort of weight.
Hannah's speed & track-confidence has increased immensely since yesterday. Yesterday I could stop & take occasional (i.e. hundreds of) piccies, then fast walk to catch up. Theres´s no way I could do that today... she took off like a mad woman.
She ended up with a couple of blisters by the end of the day, and I think I undid a few months of physio, but other than that we´ve got no complaints. Within a few days we´ll barely notice the backpacks. Hehehe, actually I might revise that statement by the end of next week.
The only injury we´ve had was to my brand new wide angle lens. It survived most of the first day, but something must have happened right at the end of the day, because when I went to take a piccy of the abbey before bed last night, I took it out of it´s protective cover to the tinkle-tinkle of broken glass. Oops. Farewell 10-24mm lens! I loved thee well.
Most of today´s track was via dirt tracks off the main roads. It was longer and muddier than if we´d taken the direct route, but we´d have missed out on most of the scenery. There are quite a few people taking the main roads, and I don´t really see the point. Sure it´s faster, but...
Actually, we´ve noticed that people are taking shortcuts in quite a few different ways.
* Some people ride bikes, but they wizz through towns in 1 or 2 minutes that we´d spend much longer passing through. There´s so much variety here, they surely can´t be seeing it all.
* Some people take the main roads between towns. They miss out on so many river crossings (tiny stone-block ad-hoc bridges), flora & fauna... and they´re avoiding cars the whole time. People!! Get back on the ´real´tracks. :)
* Some people use baggage forwarding services, and instead of carrying their backpacks between towns, they just drop it off... and it appears clean & dry at the destination.
It´s a long weekend in Europe this weekend, so there´s a lot more pilgrims than normal, so it´s already becoming a bit of a race to the refuges each night. Each of the shortcuts above would help them get there sooner, so I can see the competitive advantage. But I do think it defeats the purpose of walking. Afterall, ´el camino´does mean ´the walk´.
At the same time, we´re both using high tech walking poles. I know some of the more traditional pilgrims see these as a shortcut too. We spent 6 months researching the lightest/best equipment we could afford, so I suppose everyone has to work out what they feel comfortable with. What some people consider shortcuts, others would consider optimisations. I think Hannah & I found a level that we were comfortable with: we´ll walk the entire distance on foot carrying everything we´ll need... but we´ll still make it as easy on ourselves as possible. We´re pilgrims, not martyrs. :)
Oops, started rambling...
5 mins before time cuts out.
We´re only about 12kms from Pamplona (where the Running Of The Bulls is held), so we´ll easily reach there by tomorrow morning. Maybe by about 10am. I´m tempted to look for a replacement wide angle lens there... my other lenses just can´t do the scenery justice. We´ll possibly stay there for the whole day and overnight. It seems like too important a place to just walk straight through.
So... that´s it for now. I´m still trying to get access to a computer where I can upload some photos.
Buen Camino!!
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