Au revoir l'Australie

I quite like being Australian (too bad if I didn't), although at times I don't like elements of modern Australia, which is another story for another day. It's good to be here and it's also good to leave occasionally. [As an aside, three years ago when we were walking the Via de la Plata I made an intentional and overt comment on a particular matter of Australian politics about which I was most bitterly disappointed; and was then fully bemused to have one of my readers post a very haughty "how dare you make political comment on your blog and I'll unsubscribe and never follow you again", to which I would have said to him, had he not already snootily departed, "well it is my blog after all."] But I digress ...

Travelling really does give one a different perspective on so many things. I've travelled all my life. I don't remember all that much of my very first journey, when at the age of 4 the family moved from gentile Adelaide to a very untamed Darwin, it then not all that long recovered from the destructions of WWII. Buried somewhere deep in my memory I do have fragments of the train trip on the rattly old narrow-gauge Ghan from Adelaide to Alice Springs (the very old Ghan, not the modern tourist edifice of today), and the ensuing drive up the track from the Alice to Darwin. And I clearly remember snippets of life in Darwin as a child roaming the neighbourhood around Mitchell St in the inner-city district of Larrakeyah. This travelling and exploring was a pattern which I would go on to recreate many many times; the explorer bug never left me.

And so in just a few days it'll be au revoir l'Australie and bonjour la France for six weeks. I'm practicing je m'appelle Peter and je suis Australien, and a few other words to help me get by. Beyond that, a dopey look (that comes naturally) and a smile will hopefully suffice.

For those who don't know, and to expand a bit on my Never Say Never post of 6 weeks or so back, starting on 17 June Janet and I are walking the second half of the Via Podiensis in south-western France. That's not a very French sounding name, but given that the walk is absolutely steeped in history the name "podiensis" derives from the Latin term for "Puy," indicating its origin as a pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela from Le-Puy-en-Velay. Completely, the Via Podiensis starts in the town of Le Puy and makes its way to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port before crossing the Pyrenees and becoming the Camino Frances, or the French Way, commonly referred to as the Camino de Santiago, a total of some 1,600 kilometres. The Via Podiensis dates back to the 10th century when the then Bishop of Le Puy undertook a pilgrimage from Le-Puy-en-Velay to Santiago-de-Compostela. A bit of a summary of the whole Le Puy camino can be found here. We're not going to Santiago this time, but stopping at St Jean, about 400 klms from our start point.

In late 2024 we walked the first half, from Le Puy to Cahors in the French Occitanie Region. As I wrote in that earlier post I really didn't expect to be coming back, but life had other ideas. So this post today is just a quicky to show our intended route.

The first picture shows the walk in the context of France and northern Spain. Le Puy is marked in purple to the south-west of Lyon (bottom right hand segment). Cahors is the next purple marker and the start of the walk.

The next picture shows the walk in a bit more detail. Start point Cahors, end point St-Jean-Pied-de-Port. Each marker represents a day's walk, with the two green markers representing rest/explore days along the way. Longest day 28 klms; shortest day 7.5 klms; average 19 klms per day.

In a few days we'll leave home all rugged up against the winter cold (as I write this, sitting in my most comfortable home office, it's about 15-degrees outside and blowing a small gale with with a "feels like" temperature about 4-degrees) and after a quick two-day transit through Paris we'll hit Cahors, where the forecast for our departure day is 30-degrees, with a "feels like" of about 3 more. That little change could take a moment of adjustment!!

Beyond that, I'm packed, Janet's mostly packed, the house and dog will be safely looked after, so, back to the start, au revoir l'Australie. There'll be daily blogs, hopefully, so if you want to travel along with us, please feel free to subscribe in the panels above or below. I've also added a login button at the top of the page; check that out and see what happens.