Buen Camino !

To get to St Jean de Pied Port one must put aside all ones public transport expectations and resolve oneself to getting here eventually. Let's just say 3 trains and 1 bus later, we arrived in St Jean at 7pm.

Upon checking into our hotel we discover that our travel agent had stuffed up and we had no booking, in fact we had had a booking in May and not June. However our hosts were nice enough to make it easy and gave us a lovely room overlooking this street (above). So cute and cosy, the wide open window let us feel expected anyway. 

St Jean is perpetually a town ready to go on a big adventure. As pilgrims start to arrive, little groups of people form and everyone slyly compares packs and walking sticks. The atmosphere is just excitement, although some of the people who visit are just travelling through and appreciating the beautiful old Basque town. There are shops full of tourist wares and crafts, and shops for Camino walkers to get their shells and other Camino related tourist stuff.

We spent today walking around looking for the office to get our Camino passports, which get stamped in each village hotel or attraction, as well as getting our shells and supplies for tomorrow's first massive day.

Coming here on the bus from Bayonne was a massive experience in itself. Everyone on our rail bus is doing the Camino and it felt like an organised tour. The terrain became more and more hilly and foresty and then eventually started to cross mountain rivers and wind through cute basque villages. Both Michael and I were blown away by the landscape. If there was anything to get us in the Camino mood, it was that bus trip.

Everything so far about being here has just emphasised how amazing this undertaking is, seeing the huge mountain we have to cross tomorrow, re - packing our packs, arranging our pilgrim passport, has all hit home that we are finally doing this. My only regret is that we can't do the whole thing this trip, only the first quarter. I might eat my words tomorrow after our first 25km day (mostly uphill), but I hope it was all worth it.

More Camino news

Paris greeted us with a bus trip that took over an hour, into a part we'd never been. Consequently when we got off the bus, we walked in the wrong direction, then gave up and got a taxi instead. Got abused in French when we pulled out a $50 euro note so had a low point there. Our room was as cosy as expected and we felt very at home straight away in its smallness. 

We went out for lunch and a glass of wine, the Salade Gourmande being an excellent choice with pate on croute, cured duck, fois gras and green beans. We felt very welcomed back to Paris, particularly when the people outside started to smoke a pipe and the waiter gave us short blacks.

We returned to the hotel and slept for 16 hours. At one point I woke thinking it was dinner time, say 7pm or so, given the light, and found it was 10:40pm. Such is the light at this time of year. 

Michael snoozed on and on, and at 6:00am we both woke, ravenous for a good Continental breaky of croissants, Nutella, fromage, sausage and baguette.

At loss for what to do on our one day in Paris, we decided to catch up with a few old friends - the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triumph and the Sacre Coure at Montmatre. For once we felt at home in Paris, instead of foreigners, I think understanding the Metro is the key. Another salad with green beans, for Michael - mussels in a tasty broth with fries ( that's just what they came with).

And then, back to the hotel for more sleep, and again no dinner as we snoozed away the afternoon and then the evening.

Our camino so far

We're not in Paris anymore, but the 36 hrs we spent in Paris were the most familiar and reassuring that we've had in the trip so far. 

We travelled for 14 hours on our first flight, between Sydney and Dubai, and they were 14 very long uncomfortable hours. Partly because the plane was so hot and the water service was very in attentive, however in all other facets, Emirates airlines excelled. When we deplaned in Dubai, we stepped into 40 degree heat, a long way from the 5 degrees it had been on leaving Hobart the day before. It was part of the reason it felt very foreign, the other part was the sheer decadence of everything in the Emirates terminal and all of the burkahs. 

On the plane we were shown a movie of smiling men with beards and wearing white dresses guiding us seemlessly through passport control, and they were right, they were all smiling, cool in their whites while we were still in thermals.

We had a few moments of hesitation about whether to bother checking into the hotel for 8 hrs before heading back to the airport, but in the end we made the decision and it was a good one. A lukewarm pool, halal room service and an air conditioned hotel room across the road from the mall were all in our favour.

Upon returning to the airport at 1am to check in, instead of a sleepy dark departures lounge, our taxi pulled up to a lights show outside the Emirates terminal. Hundreds of people were in departures, and again the terminal was full of smiling white dressed men. Passport control was spooky as we watched a girl in a burkah have to wait for a female attendant so that she could show her face to verify her id, but we were then whisked away to the departures terminal proper, via a train ride, huge lift with water feature and then the night club atmosphere that was departures. 

With planes leaving every few minutes, the lounge was wall to wall duty free, including a $250k car, more cigarettes than you can smoke in a lifetime, and my favourites - the shiny shop, which sold shiny camels and hookahs and tea sets.

We walked around through the dozen restaurants and bars, trying to pick a place to settle for a drink at 2:30am. It felt like a normal night out instead of in an airport in the wee hours.

Even thought Dubai treated us well, it was abit full on and we were glad to get to Paris and it's familiar ways.

The story so far

So, one night I found a job ad on Seek. Literally, it was the middle of the night. By the next morning I had convinced myself that we should move to Tasmania, and then by 9am, I had convinced Michael as well.

So we flew down to Tasmania for 24 hours to check it out, liked what we saw, even though it was a massive move and enormous undertaking and took the job.

Five weeks later we had packed up the house, packed up the cats and spent a week on the road, stopping in all major places where we had friends. 31 hours of driving from Brisbane to Tarraleah, including one ferry ride (Our GPS was very upset when we got off the boat at Devonport. As we had last used it in Melbourne it insisted that we needed to 'take one or more ferries on this route' and when we hit 'no' it just packed up and abandoned us).

We drove into town on a very cold day. The day our moving truck had packed up our house in QLD it was 33 degrees in late April. The day we arrived in Tasmania there was a low of 1 degree overnight and the moving guys were talking about getting back to the city before it snowed.

So, where did we move to? We moved to the smallest town on earth. Or rather, a town that is not a town. A town that has no permanent population except for the people who work here. There are about 8 of us that live here, although some do have another home on weekends. Its a town that reminds me of The Truman Show movie, with the gay coloured houses, the neat gardens, the tidy sidewalks and the quaint street names. One day will find the side of the bubble. It must be why it snowed, 'cue snow', on the third day we were here on 3rd May.

What have we done so far? To tell you the truth, a lot of work and not much else. But we have time to explore, and there is a big list of things to see and do that gets bigger by the day. Not least, try tasty Tasmanian produce and treats, like scallop pies. Stay tuned.