Walking as a Spiritual Journey, Walking on the Camino, in Northern Spain A Life Changing Experience.

Walking from Staint- Jean- Pied- de -Port, we headed off, my friend and I up the winding hill, this was the view day one, after 5 hours of walking that winding part of road, step by step, up hill all the way!

I heard about the Camino de Campostella many years ago, living in Spain as a child people spoke of the Pilgrimage. When a friend said she was going to do the whole walk, 700 odd kilometres, I asked if I could join her for some of the way. we planned for months, and off we went with our Camino, Pelegrino passports, people who do the Camino are called Pelegrinos. if this day of uphill had not been breathtakingly beautiful, I'm not sure if i'd have made it!

the next morning was stunning! The clouds rolling in.

It's an amazing feeling knowing that all your doing is walking each day, day two was harder than day one! Uphill most of the day and then steep rocky down hill, we met two Irish men, friends, each walked with each of us, just what we needed someone who could tell stories to take our minds of the pain in our knees.

As a therapist often quite is needed but sometimes I find I need a story. I thought when I went on this journey I would think about clients and sort things, I actually thought of no one and certainly did not sort anything other than, how to keep going to get to our place to stay at that night.

You certainly meet your shadow on this walk, it asks you to look within, dig deep, physically in this first stretch its very physical, carrying a 17 kilo backpack and climbing 14000 feet was no easy achievement, but it was so worth it, we had the best weather too.