Made it to Singapore airport

Just a quick note to say we made it this far.  Looking forward to being home tomorrow...

Old blighty

Well made it to England.  Had three days in London, did lots of stuff-Highgate cemetry (Karl Marx, Douglas Adams etc.), Greenwich park, meridian, observatory and Navel college, Tower of London and Westminister to name a few things.  In Poole now visiting friends, Tat and Brendon.  Looking forward to getting home soon.

 

Love to all

 

T

 

P.S.  Was sad to leave Santiago but all good things come to an end.  I hope to return one day in the future. 

update Tues 13th Oct

Off today to Poole on the south coast after spending 3 full days exploring London: Highgate Cemetery, Tower of London, Walking Tour of Westminster, Greenich Park, Naval Museum, and Grennich Observatory.  Planning to get around (quickly) the Victoria & Albert, Natural History and If I'm lucky maybe the RAF museum with over 100 planes (can you tell I'm keen?) before we jump on the train this afternoon to Poole and Tat & Brendan.  Wayne & Carol have been great friends allowing us to bunk on the floor, very handy to the DLR line.  Talk later.
M &T

We arrived Sat the 3rd!

The rain in Spain falls mainly on Santiago de Compostela...
Predicting thunderstorm tomorrow, yay.  At least we haven't had floods like the south and east of Spain.

Missed the botafumeira (large swinging piece of silver used to bash naughty pilgrims ;-) today after slogging through 2 masses on pervious days.  Tracy disappointed that she missed it.  Praying for another Japanese tour group to cough up €250+ to make the bugger swing.  Might stick our head in again tomorrow to see if they have installed it.  The pilgrim grapevine works pretty quickly for such things. 

Enjoying the pastries and sweet things, Tracy is aiming to regain the weight she lost on the camino ;-)

We were told that this year 132000 people have done the Camino so far this year and they are expecting 250000 next year for Holy year.  Explains why it feels so busy!

Have really enjoyed catching up with fellow pilgrims, those we have chatted with, walked with or simply just said hola in passing.  We were in the cathedral on Sunday and this elderly Irish guy Tracy gave her immodium tablets to for a bad bought of diarrohea came up to us said thank you for the help.  Was really nice that we could assist him out, he was in a bad way.

Have picked up bits and pieces for the family to haul back to NZ.  Enjoying a good horror story by HP Lovecraft from the albergue library (one of 2 books in English) while waiting for some of the heavy rain to pass.

Take care for now
Tracy and Mark (penned by Mark - can't you tell?)

Update for 1st of October

Tracy asked me to put in a post while she's having a lie down.  We managed 30 km today from Palas de Rei to Arzua with a bit of help from a chocolatier named Orlando.  Kay may know of him, he was walking with Don (a chap from Hamilton that Kay introduced us to before we left NZ to do the Camino) until Don had to race ahead.  We chatted away, well Tracy and Orlando did mostly and before you knew it we had walked 8 hours and 30 km with a few coffee breaks.  Must say that Tracy put me to shame on the Hills now that her feet are in good shape.  However, we all agreed that it was not something we'd care to repeat tomorrow!

Aiming for Santa Irene or Pedrouzo tomorrow depending on whether we want an extra day in Santiago.  The albergues are quite cheap but we are getting sick of them and having to share every facility with the other pilgrims, even if most of the pilgrims are very nice.

Later
Mark filling in for Tracy