Jul 06

About 7 years ago I first heard of the Camino Frances trek in Spain and have wanted to do it ever since. Traditionally the hike commences in St.Jean Pied de Port in France and ends in Santiago de Compostela, Spain (807km). The path passes over the Pyrenees mountains and across the meseta, through villages and some major towns, then into the mountains of Galicia, following yellow painted arrows on the road on walls of buildings. Some of those villages are only there to support the 'pilgrim' doing this trek, with accommodation called alburgues, municipal and private hostels, b&bs and the occassional hotel. You obtain a pilgrim passport where you decide to commence, and collect stamps at every alburgue or bar/cafe along the way until you arrive in Santiago where the Pilgrim office then registers your details and issues you with the compostella to show you completed the trek. You are then entitled to 3 meals in Santiago and most attend the daily mass. The story behind 'the way' is St James the apostle, after the crucifixion of Christ sailed to Galicia to bring the word and walked this 'way' to Santiago, also it is said that the path follows the Milky Way and it also runs along one of the earths ley lines, so there's definately something quite interesting about the place. Some people walk the way for religious reasons, however ours is purely for the adventure.

So..as much as I'd love to experience the Pyrenees and walk the whole of the trek, we would also like to spend some of our 5 weeks rec leave seeing the rest of the country and preferably by transport! We decided to commence our hike in a city called Leon, which works out only to be 340km to Santiago, which should take us about 15 days (hopefully). We will still get our compostella and take in alot of the sights, and probably still get blisters!

Our itinerary after the Camino is very vague at the moment and we can't pre book anything as our finish date in Santiago is kind of up to circumstance! But..We do intend to fly back to Madrid, train it to Cordoba to see the amazing Mezquita, a Moorish mosque that was constructed in 784AD inside there are over 1000 columns of jasper, onyx, marble, and granite. Then, we train to Seville, where we understand could take days to take it all in. In Seville, we hope to see the Alcazares, the royal residence built 1364, the Seville cathedral which hosts the tomb of Colombus, and enjoy some flamenco, which shouldn't be a problem considering the Festival of Flamenco will be on when we are there. We hope to hire a small car and drive to Ronda via the Pueblos Blancos. We are very excited about seeing Ronda, it stands on a towering plateau, which is divided in two by a plunging river gorge known as El Tajo. El Tajo is spanned by a bridge called the Puente Nuevo which was built in the eighteenth century and provides access to both sides of Ronda. Also, the Annual Bull Fighting Festival is held in Ronda for the month of October, so I guess we'll have to see a bull or two brought to its demise? Kev wants to stay in the Parador there, here's a shot of it - he reckons we need a treat after all the hard going, he's probably right!

Parador in Ronda

Then onto Granada, where we're looking forward to spending the day exploring the Alhambra and its grounds. We then have to book flights to Barcelona, do a day trip to Figures to see the Salvador Dali museum, then fly home from there. This is all in the plan, but it could end up completely different. Sounds exhausting just writing it.

So..with my very basic Spanish, some maps, a phrase book, couple of credit cards and each other, we are looking forward to what life will serve us up, the people we meet, the challenges we will face, and the life experience and memories!

Map of the Camino Frances trek, if you look closely you can see where we will be commencing our path, its a town called Leon and the state is also called LEON(pink):-

So that's the intro..lets hope I can make many more additions along the way. We have 2 days in London initially so we can't wait to see the Tower of London, take a ride on the London Eye and see all the sights there. No doubt the arrival/departure in Heathrow will be a nightmare, so we are ready for the worst with that. I'm going to try and put photos up when I can. Stay tuned chicos! Vamamos!

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Kev had some work to do in Melbourne, so we decided to fly down the weekend prior, hire a car and spend the weekend in the vineyards of the Yarra Valley. It was raining and cold but that's Melbourne in Winter I guess. Our first visit was to the Domaine Chandon Vineyard, the Australian location of the Moet & Chandon business. We learnt all about sparkling wine and got to taste a couple of glasses of it afterwards. I never knew until then that it Dom Perignon, a Benedictine monk in 1693, was the first to invent Sparkling wine and that his quote was:

“Come quickly; I am tasting stars!”

The highlight was the tour of the factory, walking through their storage shed and exiting through double sets of heavy doors to the top floor of their restaurant where the back wall was all glass that looked out at their vineyard. Also the daffodils growing wild in the car park were pretty amazing too!

Domaine Chandon

After that we headed to Helens Hill vineyard and restaurant at a town called Coldstream, we didn't do the wine tasting here, but had lunch at there beautiful restaurant. The walls of the restaurant were floor to ceiling glass, perched on a hill again looking out over vineyards. We had a lovely meal and nice glass of Pinot Noir, before setting off for The Cloudstream Vineyard. Kev bought a bottle of Merlot here but only because we were wound up in the experience, the Merlot wasn't really that great. Rochford Vineyard was our next stop, by this time we were getting pretty soaked from hopping in and out of the car (and soaked from too much wine tasting). This winery was magnificent. They hold the 'Day on The Green' every year, same one as we have here in Brisbane at the Sirromet vineyard. Australia have Chris Isaak doing the Day on the Green's this year (mental note to book tickets). Anyway, the gentlemen serving us was the Manager and was very kind and lovely too us. Yarra Valley definatley do the best Pinot Noir, so we had to buy one to enjoy that night.

We were booked into the Tuck-Inn in Healesville http://www.tuckinn.com.au/home.html which was an old mosanic lodge converted into Bed and Breakfast. The rooms were newly renovated with beautiful art throughout. The huge comunale area had a log fire, big leather couches and plenty of reading material, so we freshened up and drank our bottle of Rochford in front of the fire listening to the rain outside. The Tuck-Inn did a fabulous breakfast in the morning. Three couples including us who were staying there sat at their 3 metre long timber table while we were served up eggs to our liking and top quality coffee. We had a great time meeting and talking to the other couples.

Our final day we visited Balgownie, Henkell (where we bought a 1.5L bottle of Merlot), and the De Bortoli vineyard. I finally now have seen the origin of the Noble One dessert wine that has had me intreged for years. The De Bortoli vineyard had a cheese tasting counter as well with huge choice of cheese to taste for a fee, the place all smelt a bit funny. I also managed to knock over a wine glass while I was there, I was having trouble moving from all the coats I had on. If there's a glass sitting somewhere, I'll knock it over for sure!

We made our way back to the city and spend a little bit of time in Richmond (Bridge Road), then a quick coffee at St Kilda then out to the airport to say farewell to each other. What a lovely weekend!

As Kev is a big fan of the V8 Super cars, what better way to celebrate turning 30, than to drive one himself! So off we went to the Queensland Raceyway http://www.queenslandraceway.com.au/.

The day started with the group being shown via a white board, the shape of the track and pointed out the parts of the track to brake, which side to keep to, when to change gear, where to turn the vehicle and of course when to accelerate! 5 laps with the a professional driver/teacher who sits in the passenger side and through a microphone inside the helmet instructs you around the racetrack, including all the hairpins turns! After getting fitted out in the overalls and warned where the fire extinguishers were and how to get out of the vehicle in case of fire (through the cage)..Kev's heart was racing and off he went. This photo was before the fire warning..

Although being a little disappointed on not doing as well as he'd like, it was a thrilling experience and reckons he'll be back for more!