Report on Day 01 and 02

 Well straight off the blocks we got into some difficulties

 Being lazy, here is Alice's report from her instagram (in blue)  interspersed with my comments (in red).

Day 1 - St Jean Pied-de-port - Roncesvalles (Napoleon route) 

Today was a hard one. 

Yep! There are two possible ways to walk the first stage. As Alice said we walked the Napoleon route, previously I had walked the Val Carlos route with Andrew (2013) and Penny (2015).

The Napoleon route is closed from November or April as it's too dangerous.

We started off early around 7am when it was still dark out, 

Alice repeated a photo that Penny did seven years previously, as you can see the conditions were somewhat different.

We were soon rewarded with an absolute spectacular sunrise! 

The first stint was a very steep incline that went on for about 3kms. 

So within the first couple of hours, I had gone from swearing off the difficulties to almost crying and booking a flight back home! 

Alice was very determined to finish and I am so proud of her efforts on the mountain. 

I made it and enjoyed some tomato soup and fresh bread which gave me a bit more energy to accomplish the next less steep (still a strong incline), but longer chunk of hill. 

Unfortunately no photo of the soup or the bread (fresh bread here is amazing), but here is a quote from my 2013 blog on the camino with Andrew:

We're still not convinced about the two mini thermoi we brought but we've got some cup of soups and we may be grateful for them later. 

As usual, mother knows best! Sally's suggestion has been a great success on the two previous caminos and it looks like this one will be the same! Here are the famous thermoi (is there such a word?)

Along the way, we saw some pretty incredible views and a Virgin Mary statue. 

We then walked through amazing autumn leaves about 6 inches deep which was very fun crunching along! 

Our American friends even said they went down and made ‘snow’ angels. 

The final peak (which we got to with a total elevation gain of 1.4km!!) was very tiring but I kept trekking along. 

We then had about a 3km descent down to Roncesvalles. 

Unfortunately, we missed a turn and had to add some time to our journey to get there. At this point, the wind was very dangerous (about 40-50km/hour which pushed us back and to the side making it a very slow and stressful descent. 

This was seriously scary, if you've ever seen The Way, this was probably how Emilio Estevez' character was killed. You walk along very steep drops with no guard rail in gale force winds. 

Finally, we made it to the Collegiata Albergue in Roncesvalles and met up with Ilarlia, a nice Italian woman we walked with, for dinner, wine and even more fresh bread. 

Day 2 - Roncesvalles - Espinal (taxi to Pamplona after)

Today, we only managed a short walk from Roncesvalles. 

As I mentioned on the video, my back was killing me and Alice had about 57 blisters (possibly exaggerated).

We began in the wet (note - our snazzy ponchos) and took the famous photos of the Santiago de Compostela sign - only 790kms to go!! 😣 

I think Dad’s face says it all. 

It was very misty over the mountains (cue LOTR fans):

this morning and a nice walk through beautiful autumn forests. 

Although yesterday was very hot, today was a bit cooler which was nice and I’m very happy we went in Autumn as the colours are gorgeous. 

We ended up walking only 6.5km into Espinal as my blistered feet and Dad’s back under the full weight of the pack were struggling. 

Today was seriously not fun!  Once again I was impressed with Alice's determination.

We had a lovely bocadillo (sandwich) in a cafe at Espinal and the owner was very friendly which lifted our spirits a bit. 

Notice the authentic hiking shorts.

He called us a taxi and took us into Pamplona where we are staying for a rest day tomorrow to heal up a bit before venturing on. 

Thankfully there were no bulls in evidence today

As soon as we got to our accomodation for the night, we promptly washed all the smelly clothing and hanged them in true pilgrim style 😂

Note the hiking poles being used as a clothesline.

Tomorrow we will visit a couple of stores and look for some new shoes and or boots for Alice as I think we chose poorly in Melbourne and the ones she has are too small.