Time to Come Home

After walking hundreds of kilometres on the Camino Frances and cycling hundreds of kilometres around the hills of Portugal, it's finally time. After staying in 26 different hotel rooms, after riding on numerous trains, buses and taxis, the time has come. We simply cannot delay it any longer, we must now face the biggest challenge of them all - the long journey home in economy class.

It is also worth mentioning that the rain has also finally caught up with us. Steady rain has been falling in Geneva all morning, making the place look even bleaker and greyer than it did yesterday. When I checked the forecast for Zermatt, it promised that the snow would be falling there later today. When winter arrives in Europe, it can happen almost overnight.

It is hard to believe that those hot days in Madrid were only six weeks ago. So much has happened since that time that it is easy to get just get information (and experience) overload. It has certainly been a pretty relentless schedule and the constant routine of moving from place to place does get exhausting after a while. We also gained an appreciation for just how hard the Camino is.

When I was planning this trip I had a notion that walking the Camino would be something like walking the well known Warburton Trail. I knew that it would be challenging to front up day after day to keep walking another 20 km or more, but I did not appreciate that the terrain itself would often be so challenging. Anyone who completes the entire 800 km walk deserves a knighthood.

At the start of every new adventure you also worry how all the complex arrangements will work out. With so many people involved, and with so many travel and hotel bookings, you always have the lingering worry that someone might have made an error. Now that the trip has all but finished I can honestly say that EVERYTHING went according to the plan. What a huge relief.

All we have to do now is somehow get to the bus depot without getting saturated, catch the right bus to Geneva Airport and then endure 24 hours of air travel. Why does Australia have to be so darn far away ?Read more