If you have followed along on my journeys over the last few months you might know that I am about to embark on the Camino de Santiago Frances route, a pilgrimage of 780klms from Saint Jean Pier De Port in France across the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia Spain. In 2023 I did a shorter Camino walking the last 120 klms from Sarria to Santiago on the Frances with a small group of women led by Camino Confidence guide Carol. It was an amazing experience and one that gave me the confidence to go solo and walk the last 140klms on the Portuguese Camino Coastal route from Oia to Santiago de Compostela at the end of which I knew I could manage anything life threw at me.

A little bit about the Camino de Santiago story.

The Camino de Santiago, also known as the Way of St. James, is a pilgrimage rooted in medieval times. It is believed to lead to the tomb of the Apostle Saint James the Greater, in the crypt of Santiago de Compostela Cathedral. There are more than 200 documented routes across Europe with approximately 50 of these transitioning across Sprain and ending in Santiago de Compostela. The most popular of these is the Frances, possibly as it is the most well established with well-developed infrastructure to support walkers.

Thousands of people walk the Camino de Santiago every year. These people come from all walks of life and walk for a variety of reasons. While it’s traditionally a Catholic pilgrimage, many still follow its routes as a form of spiritual path or retreat for their spiritual growth, today the Camino de Santiago is travelled by people of different religious beliefs and backgrounds, for both religious and recreational reasons. 

Why the Camino?

Why the Camino many people ask me. I get comments like ..’but you are not religious’, ‘what are you searching for’ and so on. Another common comment I hear is ‘there are many places you could walk in Australia’, and yes that is true, and I do that sometimes. But walking a Camino in Europe, in places so steeped in history with a rich and significant past, with so many historical buildings, churches, landmarks, and stories that our country does not have yet, because we are just a baby by comparison, is different. I love the thought that I might be walking on a path laid down centuries ago by perhaps the Celts or the Romans., sleeping in accommodation that has stood the test of time and housed a multitude of generations before me.

I first stumbled across an article on the Camino de Santiago in a magazine in the late 1990s while sitting in a waiting room. I was fascinated and thought that is something I would like to do ‘one day’, but I still had a family dependent on me and as often happens in life it was put aside for another time. From time to time, I would hear a whisper about the Camino, but I was busy living life so ignored the little voice in my head encouraging me to investigate it more. Fast forward to 2019 when an article came up on my social media feed, a video Camino Skies, the story of a group of Australian and New Zealanders over 50 walking the Camino.

This time I decided to do some more research, bought the video and watched it more than once, well a lot more than once if I am being honest.  I was hooked, I watched every YouTube Camino video I could find, I read everything I could get my hands on and searched social media for forums to learn more. I know I bored everyone around me to tears with my talking about the Camino. All the while the little voice in my head kept telling me I was too old, too unfit and so on.  At this time in my life I was questioning my future, was I ready to retire, what did I want to do with the rest of my life etc? You know, those questions most of us face at some time in our lives. I was unfit and had stopped daily walks a few years previously which bought with it some weight gain. I knew if I wanted to take up the challenge of the Camino, I needed to pull my socks up and make some changes.  

Fast forward again to late 2022, I has started following the Camino Confidence fb group and saw that Carol was offering to guide a small group of women on the Camino. On the spur of the moment I decided, registered my interest and the rest, as they say, is history.

So, to the question of WHY THE CAMINO?

I still don’t know. All I know is that it gets in your blood and the yearning to go back remains constant. I am the first to admit I like a challenge so perhaps it is as simple as that. There is something mesmerising about merely having to walk every day, putting one foot in front of the other, not having to think about anything else except where you might get your next café con leche or where you might lay your head that night, not having to be anywhere except exactly where you are at that given moment. The Camino can be as basic or as complex as you make it. Some days I would decide the evening before where I would sleep the next night and then I could have my backpack transported because I had a destination for it to go to, other times I just winged it and carried my backpack and trusted I would find a bed. When your life has been structured, raising a family, being a parent and a partner, working in a structured environment where you time is dictated by appointments and other people, it was incredibly freeing to not have any demands except for walking, eating, walking some more then sleeping and waking to do it all again the next day.

Was it hard? Of course it was, there were days when I shed a few tears, asking myself what the hell I thought I was doing at my age, though there were many more days when I felt in awe of my surroundings, at peace and when I experienced what I think of as pure bliss.  Did I have any deep spiritual awakenings? Not really, although I felt my Dad, who passed in 2002, walking alongside me every day for the first 5 days. I do know, that even though I can’t pinpoint exactly what is different, that the Camino has changed me in ways I cannot begin to describe.

What next?

And so, in 18 days I will board the plane to start again. This time I will have 2 of my granddaughters with me. Nyesha, 25 years and Chyla 21 years. I am so excited to be able to share this experience with them and hope that it sparks a lifelong spirit of adventure in them. They will either love it or they might never forgive me but either way I am sure they will remember it long after I am around.  I don’t think there is any in between with the Camino. I think the Camino gives you what you need even if you don’t know you need it.

So I invite you to journey along with us as we transverse the mountains between France and Spain and down across 220klms of the vast flat Meseta in central Spain, over some more mountains and through picturesque villages and into Galicia until we reach the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.