Preparations

With less than three weeks to go before my next Spanish trip, I need to get myself fit. The first serious bushwalk with the Nats Group was on Sunday. We did 10.7 kms, not a lot by Camino standards but it’s a start. Mercifully there was cloud cover all the way and it made all the difference.

We started off at Point Walter. Near there is a memorial to a tragedy from WW2 in which many Australian Army Nurses perished:

The Vyner Brooke tragedy.

The memorial is in this peaceful spot.

We thought about the horrors of this episode: nothing has changed in the world.

We went on our way from Point Walter towards Fremantle and the Zephyr Cafe, where we had lunch in a gazebo. It was quite a gentle walk, but I was pretty tired being totally out of condition after the long hot summer.

A well-trodden path; river on the right.

Autumn now seems to be on the way, with cooler mornings:

Fungi shoot up overnight.

One of our street trees full of olives.

Meanwhile, I've started making a few advance bookings for my trip.  Since it's the week after Easter, when a lot of Spaniards will be on holiday, I wanted to make sure I always had a bed for the night.  I plan to use a baggage transfer service to save pressure on my knee, and I'll try to keep the daily mileage as low as I can. I have enough time to get to Santiago, but I'll probably take a few buses on some of the tricky parts. This is as far as I've got:

2022 Itinerary

SAT 16 APR Dep Perth 22.20 EK421  ($2156)

17 APR  Dep DXB 8.15 Arr BCN 13.25  Hostal Oliva 

18 APR 9.30 am train from Barcelona Sants to Pamplona  Hotel Europa 

19 APR 12.00 ALSA bus to SJPP Arr 1.30  €23   Hotel Itzalpea

20 APR Valcarlos   (12km)  Apartamentos de Montana Mendiola; Casa Ferran  

21 APR Roncesvalles (12km)  Albergue  

22 APR Linzoain  (13.8km) Posada El Camino (Carmen Luis) 

SAT 23 APR Larrasoana  (13.4km)  Casa Tao  

24 APR Zabaldika?  (7.1km)  Albergue opens c.15 Apr

25 APR Pamplona?

26 APR Puente la Reina by bus?  Hotel Bidean 

Picnic

The first three days of March were beautifully cool, but now the weather has reverted to type and it’s just too hot. It should be Autumn but it’s not. My car has been off the road for over 2 weeks, waiting for spare parts to come from Melbourne. There is a backlog of freight,  since the floods caused both the road and the rail line to collapse between Adelaide and Western Australia. Supermarket shelves have big empty areas and many favourite items are unobtainable.

Because I couldn’t drive over to Como, I invited C and E over here for a picnic on Friday night. If we stayed outside, Rocky could join us. (Big dogs are not allowed in this apartment block; small ones have to be carried, so that they don’t go to the loo in the lift). We enjoyed our meal in the enclosed courtyard near the swimming pool: it was a perfect temperature at 6.00 pm, so we must do it again:

Rocky could be let off the lead since there was no escape from the courtyard, though he did patrol the perimeter to make sure!

There was a nice sunset:

My Swiss Cheese plant is taking over the house, sending out long aerial roots:

I might have to re-locate it soon.

More on our heatwave here