dougfitz
Doug Fitzgerald Joined: June 23rd 2005
Logged in: February 11th 2012
Logged in: February 11th 2012
Leaving for Dubai
Travel Blog Posts
On our way again This is the year of the big cruise. We are joining the Dawn Princess in Dubai, and cruising around the Mediterranean, then up to le Havre, ending the cruise in Dover. We are going to be a little on tenterhooks today with the Chilean ash cloud disrupting domestic flights to Melbourne. While currently all appears okay, we will need to decide whether to risk a flight to Melbourne, or find another way there. Aside from that, we are about as prepared as we are going to be, and just need pack the dinner suit and a few other odds and ends to be ready to go. ... read more
London
Final Days I have now spent nearly a fortnight in three different places. Not only have they been different places, but they have presented quite different learning and growing experiences. London My son, Daniel lives in the heart of London, and I wanted to visit him, but not really to have to stay in an already crowded inner city flat. So I opted to stay with an old friend at Gerrards Cross, where I was going to be able to catch up with her and would have my own room. I went into London itself, and Daniel and I walked its streets, riverside and parks for three days. Did the London Eye, Battersea Park, south bank of the Thames. Ate traditional meals. The Cotswolds Then it was down to Oxford then the Cotswolds to stay with ... read more
I ended up walking about 900km over the 33 days on the Camino. This was measured on a GPS, but that does not mean this figure is accurate. There are some common problems, such as narrow old city streets and not getting a good fix in heavily wooded areas. Also, I didn't always carry my GPS when I was walking around in the evening. Photos and maps for each days walk have now been added to the individual blog entries. You will need to revisit each entry to see that day's photos. You can open a window or tab with larger version of the photos by clicking on them. Somehow it defaults to opening in a new window, but you can open it in a new tab if your browser supports that. A map of the ... read more
Signpost near Santiago Airport
Fin Today started walking through eucalypts, feeling a bit homesick. They are grown as a plantation timber around Arca. The tall, straight trunks and the leaves and bark on the path made if feel very much like walking in bushland around Canberra. There are plantings of different species almost all the way into Santiago itself along the Camino. It was hard to decide whether to push, or just take it a bit more slowly. There were going to be at least two sessions to cover the 20km or so into the cathedral, and finding somewhere for coffee proved more difficult than it ought to have. At what I thought was the obvious town, only the panaderia (baker) was open - the bar, cafe and supermarket were all closed. A kilometre or so further on, in an ... read more
Ribadiso Albergue The evening at Ribadiso turned into a bit of a nightmare. The albergue seemed to have settled down around 10.30pm, and all was quiet until a few well lubricated individuals returned to the dormitory just before 1.00am. Unlike conventional buildings, where it would have been possible to close (and lock) the door at the designated closing time, this albergue is based on a collection of restored buildings, and the layout did not lend itself to stopping latecomers from wandering back at any time they chose. They made so much noise even the other Spaniards got fed up, and told them to stop their noise. Mixed Weather & Mixed Feelings After a string of mainly sunny days, today threatened rain, but only delivered a couple of brief and not very heavy showers. It was enough ... read more
Roman Bridge - Furelos
Leaving Lugo Today I left Lugo and entered the last of the provinces/regions through which the Camino Frances passes, A Coruna. There was another small change to the style of the signposts and markings, such as the province name emblazoned on the concrete half-kilometre markings and more of the same style concrete posts appearing to mark different administrative boundaries. The trail today was mostly just away from a couple of major roads, so while the views were delightfully rural, there was little of the birdsong in the morning that made it over the sounds of traffic. I was thinking that the time for reflection was over a couple of days ago, as a combination of the 100km pilgrims, trail conditions and the like made it important to focus on where one was walking. Despite all the ... read more
Galicia Signpost
The Trouble with Rolling Hills Today was spent in the rolling hills of Galacia. There are some problems for the pilgrim with this. While they look romantic on the postcards, each rolling hill has an up side and a down side. I suppose this should be obvious, and in a figurative sense, one might expect the down side of the hill to be its upside, and vice versa. This is not always the case, and some down sides are so difficult to negotiate that they can be both the literal and figurative downside. So if the up side of the hill hasn´t been great, then hills can have two downsides! 100 km Pilgrims - the Better Side Starting early had some advantages. There weren´t masses of people on the path, and those 100km pilgrims that were, ... read more
Near Bardello
100 km Pilgrims To be awarded the Compestella at Santiago, one must complete at least 100km on foot. To achieve that on the Camino Frances means starting out at Sarria. So today we long distance pilgrims were joined by a mass of people who wanted to make the pilgrimage, but chose to start here at Sarria. For much of the morning, this didn´t make a great deal of difference. If one is away early, one tends to be walking with non-Spanish pilgrims. There were some obvious new pilgrims at the start of the day, like one who passed me three times within a couple of kilometres of the start. I felt some sympathy remembering my own false starts and getting lost. What became obvious was that the camaraderie shared by the long distance pilgrims was not ... read more
Triacastella
Triacastela This was a nice, quiet village. The albergue I had chosen was new, and while the kitchen might not have been well equipped, allowed me to cook an omelette for myself. Chris and Jeremy had also cooked, and we shared dessert. It was a nice atmosphere. Englishmen I don´t know why the term Englishman brings with it so many connotations. Certainly I don´t think ´Australian´ or ´bloke´ has the same effect. Anyhow, there have been several English blokes around my age walking, and Jeremy and Chris are two of the nicer examples of the breed. I mentioned Chris in an earlier blog. He is walking to raise funds for a charity run by his church. As a free plug, because he is a nice bloke, the link to his fundraising site is http://www.justgiving.com/walkwithchris. I admire ... read more
La Faba
Making Up the Distance Last night I had stopped at La Faba, about 5km short of my original target, and if I wanted to stay on track, needed to get to Triacastela tonight. This didn´t seem too much of a problem, as the original stage to Triacastela was just over 20km, so 25km wasn´t going to be too hard, even if it was warm. Getting Away The albergue at La Faba provided breakfast, which the hospitalera had laid out sometime in the evening because it was there when I woke just before 6.00am. Beautiful home made bread and jams, as well as some other trimmings one doesn´t normally see in the municipal and private albergue. Got away around 7.30am, and enjoyed walking in the early morning birdsong in the background. The early morning views back down ... read more
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