“Do you think that if I wore my merino t-shirt, merino long sleeve, and merino cardigan and then my raincoat that I would be warm enough on the Pyrenees?”, I asked Emma.
Emma said, ‘I think you’d be a sheep!’
Ha ha. So funny Emma is and still I’m left pondering, do you need a puffy coat in addition to all that merino to walk the Camino in April? It’s an extra 412 grams!
We went for a training walk with Paul and Khia in Sydney a couple of weekends ago. We’ve named ourselves the toe sock pilgrims after all four of us concluded toe socks to be the sock of choice for pilgrimming. Paul even asked AI to write us a theme song.
Just a month from now, we, the toe sock pilgrims, will be in Paris on our way to Saint Jean Pied de Port (or SJPDP as we prefer to call it), the start of the Camino Frances. The most popular and well known of the various pilgrim routes to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. It’s an 800 km walk and we are so excited!
40 days where our existence will boil down to waking up, packing up, walking, eating, checking in to an albergue (pilgrim accomodation) eating again, sleeping and then doing it all over. No meetings, no briefings, no budgets to clear, no strategies to devise, no spreadsheets or data to trawl through.
On the long flight home from a work trip to Colombia in late 2024 I watched a movie about a fellow who walked the Camino de Santiago. I was exhausted after an overly stressful two weeks at an international conference and the idea of walking, just walking, was just what I needed. It kept us going. We love having an adventure to look forward to and now we are in the countdown to making it happen!
But first, we have had to plan, pack and train. Though we have undoubtedly spent many more hours planning and packing than training. Just last weekend we got the kitchen scales out and weighed every last item we planned to put in our packs. My reading glasses weigh 79 grams. Did you know that? 79 grams. My pack in total weighed 8.58 kg without water, which is too much! I have to lose half a kilo. I need Ozempic for my pack.
Anyway, back to the training walk. We walked from just near Middle Harbour all the way to Bondi. It was 67 km of the 80km Manly to Bondi walk, in and out the nooks and crannies of Sydney Harbour.
The harbour is spectacular, with long stretches of bushland wending their way round headlands and beaches all of which create the illusion of being a long way from anywhere. Then there are other stretches which make you feel like you’re in the suburbs, but the not the kind that most of us know. The kind of suburb where you can watch the start of the Sydney to Hobart from your balcony on Boxing Day. Fun.
Any ways, off we went with Paul and Khia. Parked the car, got out and started walking up the street. We made it 400m before someone thought it would be good to check if we were going the right way. We weren’t. So we turned around and went the other way.
Then we walked and talked, mostly about toe socks… and other gear. If you’re ever in a communication slump with your partner, you too should walk the Camino. It’s endless hours of discussion about the virtues of merino vs polyester, ponchos vs raincoats and whether or not you need an umbrella?
My proudest purchase is my merino underwear! I told Paul I was packing $180 dollars worth of underwear. Two pair of boxer shorts and a pair of briefs. Total weight 170 grams. That’s three pairs of underwear valued at average of $56 each. Paul’s underwear were polyester. Oh for shame.
Paul’s proudest purchase on the other hand was his umbrella. Light weight and packing good value. At 160 grams it came in at just $1 per gram! It was supposed to bucket this day in Sydney, but held off until the second day just as we made it past Potts Point. The skies opened! Not really, it was just a gentle shower but Paul stopped dramatically as the first drops fell, reached backwards over his packed and pulled forth his silver umbrella like King Arthur pulling Excalibur from the stone.
It was a dramatic moment. Then he popped it open and strapped it to his pack, striding on through the city with a hands free protection from the rain comically overhead. Emma had an umbrella too and I could have sworn I heard, ‘go go gadget umbrella’ just before turning around to see the two of them strolling with hands free rain protection.
We walked 27 km on day one, through beaches, coves, headlands, past defensive cannon sites from yesteryear, taking in harbouside mansions, yachts and ocean liners and finally under and then over the Sydney Harbour bridge. And we reflected, upon the merits of my merino underwear vs Paul’s polyester.
Point Piper was particular fun. Not for the views, you can scarcely see a thing walking around Point Piper. The streets are like being in a canyon with walls made from mansions. Every property a protectorate unto itself and built in such a way as to deny the casual passing Pilgrim in training even the merest glimpse of the million dollar harbour views. No, it was not fun for the view, but rather for the proliferation of profound, prophetic and poetically pointless alliteration of powerful ‘p’ words that we came up with to amuse ourselves while we pondered the professions of privileged practitioners plying their trades to purchase these plentiful homes.
Oh and then there was also the Point Piper resident out for a run whose concern for the natural world extended so far as to deviate from his side of the street to ours, to let us know in passing of a turtle that had escaped the bushland and was heading up a driveway. He noted that he had not time to rescue the poor lost creature and suggested that we may however like to do so. King Arthur can’t bear a damsel in distress so quickly sped to the lost turtles aid. Having picked up the poor creature, taken it back across the road and setting it free, we pondered whether in fact there may have been a pond at the top of the driveway it just returning home?
We spent our first night in a tower at Circular Quay. The pool deck had views of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House.
Our second night was at Watson’s Bay at the Watson’s Bay Boutique Hotel. Fun fact about Khia, if she requests chocolate and you come back with chocolate ice cream she will love you forever. Good to know before we spend weeks walking together.
Emma and I walked day three on our own. Around South Head and then along the sea cliffs to Bondi. A little foot sore perhaps, but all bodes well for the Camino. More photos below.
8 itchy feet 