Camino 2024

Our first full day of walking on the Camino. I wore my Oxfam 2024 t-shirt as a nod to my fellow Oxfam team members (Amanda, Helen & Mike) who have been so supportive and cheered me on over the last few years. I have learned so much about walking gear, nutrition to fuel my body and tricks to take care of my feet while walking, from them. And above all, to have fun and enjoy the moment while walking. It has all led to this!

We left our hotel in complete darkness. Our head torches came in very handy. We knew from the guidebooks that the walk out of Ferrol is very uninspiring as most of it is through industrial areas. At our age, our eyesight is precious, and we didn't want to waste it on ugly scenery.

It was lovely to walk while dawn was breaking. I bought 2 of John Brierley's Camino guides a few months ago and they are incredibly useful. He walked most of the Camino trails and wrote guidebooks for most of them. Pilgrims love his guides as they are very light and concise: route maps showing elevation and distances and very short listings of accommodation, sightseeing and dining options along the way.

The Camino Ingles has been rerouted substantially over the last decade or so, and now has a lot more road walking, including through many suburban areas. Brierley goes back to the original routes, with delightful forest walks and meandering lanes through quiet rural areas. We are so happy for this guidebook. Of course, straying off the beaten track means getting lost as well, as it isn't clearly marked anymore. My trusted Google maps just showed us the general direction to keep on walking.

Spanish people are an industrious lot. They don't believe in gardening that much but all of them have veggie patches and sizeable orchards. We saw many Kiwi fruit trees, apples, grapes, lemon and fig trees. And the forests we walked in all had hedges upon hedges of berries. At the moment cranberries & blackberries seem to be the berries in season. We couldn't get close to pick any, as the bushes have very sharp thorns.

Spaniards also keep livestock in the larger suburban gardens; horses, sheep, chickens.

Back to the Camino- we decided to bypass Neda and took the pedestrian bridge towards the outer suburbs of Newcastle, on the way to Fene. The bridge was scary as it was very high above the water. From the bridge we could see a beautiful old stone building with lights on, and decided that could be a restaurant or cafe. We were wrong - it was a luxury hotel with only one guest staying for the weekend. They are in shut down mode; on Thursday this week (3.Oct) they will close for the winter, to have a rest and do maintenance on the hotel. The lady of the house seemed reluctant to engage with these 2 old chooks but eventually agreed to make us coffee. We got chatting and she offered to give us a stamp in our pilgrim passport and in the end refused to take payment for the coffee. Our very first Camino angel!

So, yesterday was Sunday and we learned another hard lesson. Vitually no shops or cafes are open! So we finally had breakfast, lunch and dinner at 5pm at a local bar after arriving at our destination. We were starving! Pizza was all they had on the menu. It was delicious. We then rewarded ourselves with a pistachio gelato. Good work, team!

Our digs are in the old town of Pontedeume (we try and book accommodation as close to the Camino trail as possible). The old town is quiet with cobbled stone lanes and beautiful old stone buildings, churches, forts and plazas.

I post my Relive video here, not sure if FindPenguins will create a clickable URL for it:
https://www.relive.cc/view/vMv8prZjRNv

Rain settled in early evening. A grand first day.Read more