Palm Sunday

Today is our third day witin  the car.  We don't know where we will be each day so for lunch we have on hand cheese, tomato, lettuce, and each morning we walk a few blocks to purchase a fresh bagette from the patisserie and perhaps some ham from a local shop.  France has amazing delicatessen hams and meats.

This morning when we walked into the town centre to buy our bread, the church bells were ringing and many people, mostly elderly, were making their way to the cathederal with small leafy branches in their hands and we realised it was Palm Sunday.

We spent the day touring the countryside visiting some of the historic villages we came to see in France.  Lorrasingle, Montreal, Forces and Mouchen were the ones we visited today.  Forces was the standout village, absolutely lovely, made even lovelier by perfect spring weather and clumps of purple iris and red poppies growing on street verges and planter boxes of pansies on ancient window ledges. Lorrasingle was especially interesting because it was a small town inside the grounds of a fortified castle surrounded by a moat.  

We drove through beautiful countryside today, green farmland, wine regions, forested roadways, all daubed in the light of a French impressionist painting.

Today we came across our first pilgrims.  We saw 20 or so people in groups of 2 or 4 walking the le Puy route to St Jean Pied de Port.  It was quite a sobering moment to realize we will begin our Camino in just 7 days time.

View from room in Condom

Leaving Paris

In one way it was hard to leave to leave Paris, in another way it was nice to get out of the hustle and bustle of the city.  We didn't waste a minute in Paris so to sit on the train for the 5 hour trip to Bayonne through the French countryside was a welcome opportunity to relax and just stop.

Our thoughts were of home though as cyclone Ita, a catagory 5 storm, was bearing down on the Far North Qld coast.  Our children, grandchildren and most of Steve's family were to be impacted in some way, and Cooktown, where we lived for 18 years, was expected to bear the brunt of the cyclone.  Fortunately the storm weakened before crossing the coast and everyone was OK, some flooded in due to the torrential rain, but all OK.

Why doesn't Australia have a fast train service!?  Our journey to Bayonne by train was smooth, comfortable and very fast with hardly a vacant seat.  On arrival we walked straight to the Avis office to collect our rental car only to be dissapointed to be handed the keys to a silver Renault Twingo instead of a red Citroen C1 which we had asked for and which was pictured on the web page!  Steve drove while I navigated and somehow we bumbled our way out of Bayonne onto the open road to the town Orthez where we stayed the night in an overpriced Hotel.

It was a daunting task for Steve to get behind the wheel of a left hand drive, manual transmission vehicle and venture out into the busy traffic of a large city like Bayonne, but he did a mighty job and only scared the living daylights out of me a couple of times before settling into it.  Although we drive an automatic car at home, a right handed manual car would not have been diffuclt to master as we have both driven them at some stage. However a left hand drive manual car requires the exact opposite of what we are used to such as changing gears with your right hand instead of your left, and the wiper switch is where the blinker switch should be (the car will probably require new wiper blades by the time we return it) and one must also remember to give way to the left, not the right, and on a twin lane highway the slow lane is on the right, not the left.

It all became easier on the second day and Steve did a great job of driving us to the town of Condom, a UNESCO listed historic village on the Baise River, with a magnificient ancient Cathederal at it's centre.  Small cobblestoned streets and laneways lead to tiny butcher shops, patisseries, flower shops, restaurants and residences. Absolutely delightful.  Our home for the next two nights is the Logis de Cordeliers, a nice family hotel right in the historic section of Condom.  For 55 euros per night we have a clean room, comfy bed, private bathroom, and from our window a lovely view of a church steeple, with rolling hills of trees, cultivated farmland and farmhouses in the distance. Viva Fance.

Paris

Paris is everything I expected and wanted it to be.  Charming, bustling, steeped in history, art, and exquisite achitecture.  This is our fourth and last day in Paris before leaving by train tomorrow for Bayonne.  We've mastered the Metro, cruised the Seine, visited the Eiffle Tower, the Musee d'Orsay, Notre Dame, Basillique du Sacre Coeur, Montmartre and the Latin Quarter.  We've been to markets to buy French apples and strawberries, cheese, bread and croissants.  There are great little restaurents tucked down laneways where we haved dined on Beef Bourgogne, Confit Duck, whole grilled Sole, delicious pasta, Creme Brouillet, and of course jugs of lovely French red.  Our hotel is great and our room enchanting, very Parisian or at least what I imagine Parisian to be.  The hotel is very close to the metro, the river, restaurants and many attractions.  Although we catch the Metro to places of some distance away, we still manage to walk at least 10 km a day.  Paris is such a lovely city to walk through.

Sacre Coeur

Milestones

This will be the last blog entry from Australia until we return home at the end of June and today we did our last big walk before flying out in 3 days time.  We drove to the Tamborine Mountain Botanic Gardens, parked the car, and then spent two hours walking 8km up and down hills of varying degrees of steepness carrying our full packs, with a leisurely stroll through the gardens to recover. It was a good test of endurance and we passed with flying colours.  We can do this!  My next entry will be from gay Paris!

Milestones:

v  Since training began, we have walked well in excess of 550km

v  I can now walk up ‘Heartbreak Hill’ twice, with a full pack, without stopping

Wendy nearing top of 'Heartbreak Hill'

v  I just turned 60

v  Steve just received his second zero reading for cancer

v  We’ve packed our packs for the last time

 

Still Training



Wendy on walking trail

Three weeks to go!  Training is back on track after a lull while we enjoyed visits from my sister, and then from our son, daughter-in-law and two delightful grandchildren.  We now walk 12km without a break each morning with full packs and carry everything we are taking with us on the Camino.  My pack weighs in at just over 8kg and Steve’s weighs just over 9kg.  Steve has the extra weight of the phone, iPad mini, guidebook and a lightweight daypack.  We really wanted to carry less weight but after going through all our gear several times and culling some items, everything we now have in our packs seems essential.  Although heavier than we wanted or expected, our packs feel comfortable and we are walking without difficulty. 
 

Since we’ve been walking with full packs we’ve become somewhat of a curiosity with other walkers in the area.  Instead of the usual pleasant ‘good morning’, people have begun to stop and ask if we are training for some reason.  When we tell them yes, we are going on a walking holiday in Spain, most people say ’Oh, the Camino’ and they have either heard of the Camino, read about the Camino, know someone who has done it or wants to do it, or they have watched the movie ‘The Way’.  It never ceases to amaze me how venerated this pilgrimage has become.



walking home after 'touching the carabiner'

Our house lies at the end of a cul de sac.  The street this cul de sac branches off is a climb of about 400 meters from top to bottom, so we climb this hill to finish each walk, then turn around and walk back down to our street which branches off about two thirds of the way up.  When we reach the top of this street, which is in fact the highest point on Tamborine Mountain, we touch and walk around the roadside guide post, an act we jokingly refer to as 'touching the carabiner'.



A few years ago Steve did a rock climbing and ropes course then went on to climb regularly for a while at Kangaroo Point Cliffs in Brisbane.  The highlight of his climbing career, after gaining experience, was taking part in a guided climb known as ‘Ruby of India’ on Mount Maroon which is part of the McPherson Range in SE Qld.  Climbing can be exhausting, and the aim and challenge of each section is to reach the next carabiner until eventually reaching the summit, so after a 12km hike with the last stretch up this hill, we touch the 'carabiner' to signify our summit of Tamborine Mountain. 

    

Mount Maroon

Steve climbing Mount Maroon

Training Update

Wendy setting out with full pack

Yesterday we donned our full packs for a 10km walk around the streets of Tamborine Mountain. With only six weeks before flying out, it was time to start carrying the actual gear and weight we will need to walk with on the Camino. We've been walking with day packs weighing around 5kg but the extra weight of our travel packs, Steve's pack weighs 9kg and mine 8kg, certainly made a difference on the inclines. Our walking and gym training paid dividends, our packs felt comfortable and we were happy with our performance and recovery, although we can feel our leg muscles this morning. I puffed and sweated walking up some of the steeper sections (that's normal) but I didn't lag too far behind Steve on the hills. We need more of this training so woke early this morning for a backup walk, however it was raining. We know that shouldn't stop us because we will have to walk in all weathers on the Camino, but there we won't have a choice, here at home we do, and we chose to curl up under the covers and sleep a little longer.  Sometimes it's hard to get motivated.

Steve walking the streets

 

Post Script: the rain stopped around 7am so we threw our packs on and walked for a couple of kilometres over a couple of hills, just enough to stretch the leg muscles.

Posted with Blogsy

Committed - No Turning Back

We are now resolutely committed to walking the Camino!  There's no turning back as airline and train tickets have been purchased, Paris accommodation booked and travel insurance paid.  Committed, motivated, apprehensive and excited!
 

Our departure day is Saturday 5^th April 2014.  We fly from Brisbane to Paris with a stop over in Dubai.  After a four day romantic Paris sojourn staying in the Hotel de Fleurie in St Germain, a little luxury before becoming pilgrims, we catch the fast train to Bayonne where we’ll hire a small car and spend several days exploring some of the  beautiful historic villages in the South West of France.  Then it’s back to Bayonne to return the car before catching the train to St Jean Pied de Port.  We spend the night in St Jean awaiting the arrival of Anita, our Camino Companion, before setting off by bus/taxi to Roncesvalles where we will begin walking 'our' Camino.

Many pilgrims begin their journey to Santiago in St Jean Pied de Port however this requires a 25km hike through the Pyrenees to reach Roncesvalles, just over the border in Spain.  This section of the walk is one of the most demanding of the entire route and I just don’t feel confident enough to begin our trek from here.  Steve would really like to walk this section  however he agrees that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for me to attempt such an arduous stretch on the first day of the Camino carrying a full pack.