Preparation

Sharp-eyed readers will have gathered by now that I failed miserably to live up to my intention of blogging daily from the Camino during July and August 2016. (Spoiler alert!! - it was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done and I finished safe and sound.)

To be sure, I was quite diligent in writing up my experiences each day. But actually posting them here was a bridge too far in terms of my sub-optimal technical expertise and my desire for a reasonable level of editing, grammar and the like - which can tend to be compromised when you’re lying exhausted on a bed in an albergue somewhere. So I decided almost from the time I set off that I’d keep on writing each day and then post it all when I got home.

But before I do, I should say something about my pre-Camino training and preparation.

I had decided that, while I was heavily involved at the time in a training program to run a half marathon, I really needed to do some long distance walks as well. So I pencilled in four training walks in the two weeks immediately prior to leaving for Spain. The first was close to 26,000 steps around the inner west of Sydney carrying a small daypack and wearing running shoes (note that I routinely wear a pedometer to ensure I take at least 10,000 steps a day - hence the steps measurement here and throughout this blog). The second went up to 37,000 steps across the Sydney Harbour Bridge to the northern suburbs of Sydney. This time, I was wearing my walking boots and my new backpack filled with books. The third was a couple of days later from the Gold Coast airport in Queensland to Broadbeach (around 27,000 steps), again with a small daypack and running shoes.

The fourth and final training trek was the most challenging - 30 kilometres from my home village of Currabubula in north-western New South Wales, to Tamworth. For that one, I set out just after 4:00am and got in about 11:30am carrying a full pack and with my walking boots - 49,000 steps later.

I’d developed some blisters after a couple of the walks, including the last one, but I also noticed each walk becoming less arduous as I learned to program myself to just keep on walking for hour after hour. As I look back on the carnage I witnessed time and again out on the Camino itself over the ensuing weeks, and my comparatively injury-free journey, I really think that - apart from dumb luck - much of it was due to this preparation.

As for the stuff I eventually decided to take to Spain and carry with me for 800 kilometres, there wasn’t a lot of magic about it.

The clothes in mid-summer largely spoke for themselves. Two long-sleeved walking shirts; two short-sleeve running tee-shirts to wear underneath and elsewhere around the place; five pairs of underwear; three pairs of socks; two walking trousers/shorts with lots of pockets for water bottles and general stuff; a polo shirt as ‘after-5’ and plane wear; a silk sleeping bag liner that weighed nothing and folded into a tiny space; hat; collapsible walking poles; a pair of flip-flops (thongs); a pair of old running shoes; iPad; phone; chargers; a couple of books and a folder of papers; a mini towel; a few toiletries (reduced by the fact that I’d decided to shave my head before leaving and not shave my face for the duration); a rain jacket; beanie; thermal underwear; and some other bits and pieces - including about 20 gels that I use when running and which I thought would provide a good energy boost along the way, and several sachets of Hydralyte formula that I could mix in with my water bottles each day to do the same.

Most of it was used (the beanie only when I was feeling particularly self-conscious about my bald head), some of it was lost (the phone charger) or discarded (running shoes) early on, and some of it never saw the light of day (the rain jacket, the thermal underwear and the emergency roll of toilet paper).

Having reviewed numerous Camino packing lists on various blogs and forums over the several weeks prior to departure, it ended up being pretty simple really. When I weighed it all at Sydney airport as I was checking in, it came in at 8.3 kilograms, just under the supposedly magical 10 percent of my bodyweight.

Now, my Camino experience …