Paul May

We made it! On Monday afternoon we successfully completed the Camino De Santiago from St. Jean de Pied de Port in the South of France, to Santiago De Compostela in Spain. It was an epic journey; 850K in ten days of cycling through some amazing scenery and over some daunting climbs. I’m back in Belfast now, just settling back into work. Today/tomorrow I’ll post a more detailed description of the journey with photos.

We spent last night in Molinaseca, about 6K before Ponferrada. It was a lovely place, somewhere I´d like to visit again some day. Today was a tough 88K to Triacastela, about 21K from Saria. Some of the climbs today went on and on…then on some more. Thankfully we´ve found nice accomodation in Triacastela, and are settling down for a rest tonight, before taking on more hills tomorrow. We´re on track for two more 80K days to take us to Santiago De Compestela in time for the flight on Tuesday. I´ll be sorry to come to the end of this amazing journey. Two more days to go!

We´ve arrived in León for our rest day - 500K into the trip with another 400K to go. Yesterday was a tough 110K slog in very cold, then very warm weather. Needless to say we went out last night and took advantage of not having to cycle today :) For the last few days we´ve been cycling across Spain´s northern plains; a huge tract of dry, flat country. Some of it is farm land, other parts are just open plain. The cycling hasn´t been technically difficult since we left Burgos; more an endurance test..a slog. Everybody is feeling pretty good, and glad to be stopping in one place for a full day. John has been having some knee problems, but is getting stronger.  I left my phone in the last town, which is a bit of a pain, but no problems otherwise. Anyway, that´s all for now. Rest today, then 4 days, 400K :) (edit - actually only 350K, but more like 370K with our few wrong turns)

We’re off on our Camino De Santiago cycle tomorrow :) I’ve had a hectic few days in work, and I’m only back from London a couple of hours, but thankfully I have most of the packing done. All that needs to be done is to put my bike into the box, tape it up - and wait for the flight tomorrow. Worryingly, I can’t find my booking reference for the flight - but hopefully that just means I’ve deleted the mail; not that my booking hasn’t gone through, or I’ve gone senile and have forgotten to book the flight altogether. Anyway, that’s it for now. Off we go (hopefully…).

A week from today, we’ll be off. 12 days, 800K (and then some…depending on the exact route and how often we get lost), leaving from St. Jean de Pied de Port in the South of France, travelling the Camino De Santiago through Northern Spain all the way to Santiago De Compestela. I can’t wait!

I think cycling is transformative and very special (I’ve said this before…), so it’ll be amazing to get to see a different country from the saddle. My bike is being serviced (new front derailleur cable, fitting of a pannier frame, possibly replace the bottom bracket), so I’ll pick that up on Saturday when I’m back in Dublin. Other than that there’s not too much to do, I’ve packed my gear so that I can bring it home at the weekend and leave it there until I fly out (from Dublin) next Thursday. It’s going to be great; I’ll post up before we leave.

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