"Sticks and Bags"

Had a lovely dinner out with the SweedAmericans. Hooray for female company. Our last day with the Frenchies was just fantastic, had a big brekky, light lunch before hitting the beach, where Antoine found us all clam shells. Ben and I cooked a huge feast for the "Sticks and Bags" crew (Frenchies and us), then we headed out to a bar to play pool and drink cider from a fountain thingy. Said a sad farwell to the Frenchies this morn as they are heading on, we hope to see them again one day. So now it is back down to two and we head off to begin wwoofing in Lugo for the next 2 weeks. It will be nice to be in one place for a little while.

Celebration

We made the climb to the light house (the end of the earth) in time to see the sun set on our last day of pilgrimage. We drunk champagne, smoked cigars and burnt our wretched smelling shirts! Very emotional but mostly happy that we made this amazing journey. Then we went out for dinner in a fancy restaurant. We hired and apartment for the five of us which overlooks the ocean and is very close to the sea and the centre of town. The apartment has a kitchen so we made pancakes! Hooray. Spent the last two days lying and playing frisbee on the beach and eating as much food as we could. All the boys got amongst the seafood.

Get your motor runnin

The end of the earth!!! This was a great moment! It was a dark and gloomy day, raining off and on, then we rounded a corner and there was the sea. When we reached the first town on the coast, the sun came out and we felt very happy. Had a massive long lunch with lots of ice-cream then kept on trekin to Fisterra.

Head out on the highway

After a much needed day of rest we hit the road again to reach the "end of the earth" in Fisterra. We set off with the Frenchies and camped once again in a gymnasium. However this time there was only one other group, a Sweedish/American family. We all played frisbee :)

Lookin for adventure

Santiago!!! WE MADE IT!!! This was a very momentous occassion. You walk through the town and then all of a sudden you are next to the church, it is absolutely incredible, so much detail. We hugged a golden statue of Saint James and went to mass where they read out the people who had completed the jouney; "two Australians from Le Puy" Wooooo hoooooo thats us! We were very lucky during the mass because someone had paid for the incense burner to be swung. This is the largest one in all of Europe. Unfortunatley the real one was getting cleaned which meant we got a smaller silver one. It didnt matter thought because it was great, we thought it would whack someone in the head. For us Santiago was all about the food and drink. It consisted of one meal after another with various combinations of pilgrims. It was very touristy but we kept inside our food bubble and had a wonderful time.

And whatever comes our way

Have met up with the mad Frenchmen; Noel, Felix and Antoine. They are great company and have decided to walk with them till Fisterra. Now we take the days very slowly and have very long lunches. These Frenchies sure appreciate their food, yesssssss! There are now masses of people making the trek for the last 100km which means its hard to find a bed in the evening, especially now we dont have our tent. We slept in a Gymnasium on the last night which was fun. We got to see some local soccer matches from our beds on the side lines. Have really enjoyed this last stretch with the Frenchies. The countryside is beautiful and we spend the days eating, walking, talking and singing, Noel and Antoine are very good when they sing together.

Galicia

We spent the night at the highest altidude of this region, Galicia, which was incredible. It was quite windy but the views were fantastic. We had a very silly dinner at the hotel because we were both exhausted and wine was included in the meal. We walked a massive 39km this day and a lot of it was straight up!!! Strewth we´re gun beasts!

Its business time

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Misty mountain hop

The evening before we stayed at the top of a mountain in a town that had been deserted and people had only just begun to return to it. The town was in ruins but we had a fun time in a Viking bar where the staff wore animal skin clothes and the walls were covered in cow hides.

This was a fantastic walk. Hardly saw any people and walked along little dirt/rock paths between these crazy mountains. The downhill was pretty tough and had a few near falls, but its so much better with less weight. We arrived in Ponferrada at around lunchtime, and came accross people dressed in funny medieval clothes. Europeans sure love to dress up, Beths kind of people : )

Burgos - Ponferrada

Beer O´Clock