Another new year and still more CoVid but adventure is just around the corner. Hola Espagne!

I haven’t felt the urge to write because life has been quite routine for months. The year started with an air of optimism and I decided to go on a yoga retreat as something new. It was a great experience and very grounding and relaxing. Lots of nature, not too much talking and a lot of chanting. I have never been one for chanting but I finally saw the benefit. It is verbal meditation I suppose or prayer. The chanting did seem to lift our vibration and was very calming. Never knew what we were saying mind you but the sounds were good. While there we experienced a dramatic hail storm that was extremely loud and wet!

After that there was a wedding and then life resumed its usual pattern of child minding and social interactions. I had a significant birthday which I decided would be a Festival of Kath rather than a grand party. I had lots of lunches and dinners and quality time with family and friends.

I have completed a couple of virtual Caminos these last two years and thoroughly enjoyed revisiting my original Camino Frances experience as well as completing the extension to Finisterre and Muxia and back to Santiago.

I have found walking virtual places very motivating and reminiscing over familiar experiences through the photographs was uplifting in these trying times. Camino for Good was my preferred virtual hike because it was founded to raise money to support owners of the Albergues who were struggling through CoVid. The app and website felt very like a real Camino.https://caminoforgood.com/

Anne, my friend from the Portuguese Camino, and I finally got organised to take our trip to Queensland. We both had an ambition to travel to the very tip of Cape York Peninsula and through central Queensland to visit dinosaur country and various gorges. What a great time we had. I didn’t track our trip on this blog because I didn’t know what to expect as we were in a camper trailer which was shared with my brother and my nephew. I did track it on a travel app Polarsteps. http://polarsteps I liked the way it mapped our travel but it didn’t lend itself so much to writing. You can find the trip under my full name Kathryn Leong.

However during the year my English friends invited me to join them on another walking adventure. We had planned to walk the Ruta de La Lana from Alicante to Burgos back in 2019 but when the world was overtaken by CoVid all travel was halted. We all went into hibernation. This year they visited Italy and decided that it would be fine to reinstate our plans and go to Spain. Ever one to say yes and think about the details later, I agreed. So here I am one week out from a hike through the Spanish countryside which is quite literally aflame. The world seems to have devolved into constant chaos but we are hopeful that as autumn arrives so too will milder weather and a cease to forest fires across Europe.

Ever the optimists and with Andy’s dogged planning skills we will make it happen. I am booked to fly on the 30 th August to Madrid and then train to Valencia. The others will arrive on the 1st September. A few days exploring Valencia and then we start walking. We are prepared to be flexible, in fact already we are finding alternatives on our route. This is not a well travelled road like the traditional Camions and consequently accommodation is a bit limited. Being a group of four has made it difficult to just wander into towns as we have done previously.

Anyway let the next adventure begin.