Catching the Bus So I stayed in Oslo again last night following my walk to Olavsgaard, intending to catch the bus back out to start walking from there again today. With my big pack ready, I headed into the bus terminal on the tram, which with a couple of false starts took about 40min, and I was soon on the bus. About five minutes later we stopped outside the hotel to pick up passengers. Researched that well, didn't I. Back on St Olav's Way I will claim that I wasn't lost, just taking a short cut! I found out that the one reason that land isn't farmed, forested or build on here is that one can't. It's not about keeping pleasant green space for innocent travellers to take short-cuts through, but about leaving the excessively steep ... read more

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

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

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

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