Latest / WCBH / Day 13 - Camino Francés: Navarrete to Najera

Transcript

Day 13 - Camino Francés: Navarrete to Najera · WCBH

• 0:25
  Good morning, it's day 13, Thursday the 12th of March. We're walking from,
• 0:31
  what did we say last night? Navarette.
• 0:33
  Walking from Navarette with that beautiful gold church to Nehera today, 16 kilometres.
• 0:38
  Last night's day was in a beautiful, what I would call an executive apartment.
• 0:43
  However, it had some quirks, as many of them do.
• 0:47
  Quirk number one, the radiators were not working. Actually, they probably worked,
• 0:53
  they weren't switched on.
• 0:54
  Which meant that it was very, very cold. And it was a cold night as well.
• 0:59
  Quote number two is the shower. Now, because we're in a different accommodation
• 1:03
  every day, we're getting to see the full range of shower heads, shower roses,
• 1:11
  taps and dials to control the showers.
• 1:15
  Last night, three dials, a handheld shower, an overhead shower,
• 1:21
  six jets that blast into you depending on the control. Now, that all sounds great.
• 1:26
  It was space age, like there was a panel and everything.
• 1:29
  But try and get the three dials to actually work the temperature.
• 1:33
  The flow, whatever the third one did, was interesting.
• 1:38
  So you got it set right, and then it must have been shorting or it had a mind
• 1:43
  of its own because without touching anything,
• 1:46
  it would take the water right up to scalding,
• 1:49
  and then plummet it down to freezing, and you wouldn't dare touch a dial because
• 1:54
  if you touch the wrong dial, suddenly the six jets would turn on,
• 1:58
  and you'd either get a nasty surprise of cold water, which I don't like,
• 2:01
  not a fan of cold water, or was scalding water.
• 2:05
  So anyway, when did TAPS stop doing their job?
• 2:09
  When did the single shower hose stop doing its job? Well, as we work our way
• 2:14
  through rural Spain, we're getting a good view of all the different dials and
• 2:18
  devices in the shower to deliver some nice warm water please.
• 2:24
  Anyway, first world problems, 16 kilometers.
• 2:29
  We're just coming up on the 200 kilometer mark in about one kilometer.
• 2:36
  This is, what did I say? Day 13.
• 2:40
  That includes our rest day. So in 13 days, including the rest days, 200 kilometers.
• 2:47
  By the time we finish today, we'll probably will have done about 200 and just
• 2:51
  short of 200. Yeah, probably about 210 kilometers.
• 2:54
  So you can see sort of the speed and the progress we're making,
• 3:00
  790 kilometres from the start in St.
• 3:05
  John Pier de Porte through to Santiago de Compostela.
• 3:10
  So we're making reasonable progress.
• 3:14
  We're coming across people each day from a range of different countries,
• 3:18
  but I must say that, that, the amount of people is, I think, slowed.
• 3:25
  Someone said to me that a lot of people try and staff the Camino on the first of the month.
• 3:33
  And maybe that just in their own mind. And, you know, we started on the 28th
• 3:38
  of Feb, so we were close to the first of the month as well.
• 3:42
  And because we're going at a slower pace than the.
• 3:46
  What the guidebook says will set stages, and you can do it whatever pace you
• 3:49
  want. You can go fast or slow and anything in between.
• 3:53
  Possibly the bulk of people that started at the first of the month of March,
• 4:00
  they're in front of us now, you know, a couple of days in front of us.
• 4:04
  So then there's other people sort of walking at around our pace or people who
• 4:09
  are walking quicker who might be coming up and overtaking us.
• 4:12
  The other theory that i heard was and i
• 4:15
  haven't tried to calculate this is starting about
• 4:19
  when we did get you into santiago for
• 4:23
  for easter as well if you set a cracking pace so there might have been a few
• 4:29
  people on the go to try and make santiago for easter we've got the time we've
• 4:35
  got the space we're not going to make santiago for easter and that's okay we'll have easter where,
• 4:40
  wherever easter falls and if last night's church with with all of its gold and
• 4:46
  and beauty is there's anything to go by you don't need to be in santiago for
• 4:51
  easter to to be in a beautiful church,
• 4:54
  every town seems to have a beautiful church early on we we saw a number of road
• 5:01
  bikes right what i would call a racer bike.
• 5:05
  But the last couple of days, the bikes that we've seen on the path have been
• 5:07
  more mountain bike and people are going along the same paths that we're on.
• 5:14
  You know, the paths we've been on for the last few days are very much mountain bike friendly.
• 5:19
  The paths we were on for the first couple of days, probably not quite possible for the mountain bikes.
• 5:27
  So 200 kilometres, body is still holding up well for all three of us.
• 5:34
  Food's been good but you do miss
• 5:36
  the foods from home and being able
• 5:40
  to get the foods that you want when you want it so yeah
• 5:44
  we're traveling well we're walking through the wine region grape growing region
• 5:51
  of Spain at the moment just field upon field row upon row of grapes growing,
• 6:01
  It's early March We just walked past a team of guys Working in the field Looks to be cutting back.
• 6:10
  The vines promote that new growth.
• 6:13
  They've probably been working on it actually for for a month or so.
• 6:16
  I'm speculating here because they're at the top of the mountain as we sort of walk down the mountain.
• 6:23
  These ones are all done. So we're just trying to sort of map it out.
• 6:27
  If winter ended the end of Feb, spring started, the start of March,
• 6:33
  doing the pruning now to promote new growth as it starts to warm up,
• 6:40
  and then the grapes come on after the new growth.
• 6:44
  Have to look it up to see about what time the grapes are ready to be harvested.
• 6:49
  We're sort of, we're estimating mid-summer.
• 6:53
  Not too sure on how long it takes to go from no growth to growth to grapes.
• 7:00
  It certainly is a wine region of Spain.
• 7:06
  La Rioja, I think is, probably butchered how I've said it, but L-A-R-O-I-J-A.
• 7:17
  Have to keep a lookout for that.
• 7:20
  Off in the distance, there's snow-covered mountains. We're just working our way down a mountain.
• 7:27
  I'm pretty sure there's something about grapes growing at altitude as well.
• 7:31
  It's not solely grapes, but you'd have to say 95% plus of what's been grown here are grapes.
• 7:39
  There are some olive trees around the place as well.
• 7:44
  Interesting, we're not seeing it here, but we saw it a couple of days earlier
• 7:48
  where you'd have a row of grapes, a row of grapes, and a row of grapes,
• 7:53
  but the gap in between them,
• 7:55
  one left spare, one planted with a type of flower, one left spare,
• 8:01
  one planted with the same type of flower, one left spare, one planted with the same type of flower.
• 8:08
  It's intentional because it's every second one.
• 8:12
  Trying to work out what it is. Is it companion growing around preventing pests
• 8:17
  or doing something to the soil?
• 8:19
  Or is it the flowers that track the bees and the bees are needed for the growth of grapes?
• 8:26
  Really interesting. It's like a lesson just walking through these fields.
• 8:32
  We'll just be having a conversation about the history of the area,
• 8:36
  the history that spans thousands of years and the people,
• 8:41
  the historical figures that have come through this area along these roads and
• 8:46
  the various things that have taken place.
• 8:49
  Fascinating region. Well, it's late in the evening, just doing the final recording
• 8:55
  now. We made it into Nehera much earlier in the day.
• 8:59
  We got into our apartment, got the heating working, so that's great.
• 9:04
  Totally normal shower as well, so that's even better. I had an explore around town.
• 9:10
  Have you ever been to Cappadocia? There are caves that have been converted into
• 9:17
  hotels, and there are some caves that still remain as caves in the cliff face.
• 9:22
  It's almost kind of got a bit of that feel to it, our apartment,
• 9:27
  because right behind the apartment is a very red rock cliff face, which has caves in it.
• 9:36
  And when I say caves, I don't just mean like a...
• 9:41
  Like a hole in the side of the mountain. They're being carved out and almost
• 9:45
  look like that they were lived in at some stage.
• 9:49
  There's a door, there's a window, there's those sorts of things in the cliff face as well.
• 9:55
  So certainly not as extensive as Cappadocia and Turkey, but there is a little bit of that.
• 10:01
  Interesting town, walk into town. Yeah, it was okay. But as soon as you cross
• 10:06
  the bridge to the other side of town, which happens to be where our apartment
• 10:12
  is, it's almost like you're in a different town.
• 10:15
  Dare I say it, there's a rich side and a not so rich side to town.
• 10:22
  Big river running very fast that runs through town, but it's almost like not
• 10:27
  other side of the tracks, it's other side of the bridge.
• 10:30
  So yeah, Nehera, I really need to look it up or ask my wife or ask my son,
• 10:36
  what town are we in and where are we going to tomorrow?
• 10:38
  Because all the towns really roll into one.
• 10:42
  We've had a couple of shorter days. Today was a bit longer. Tomorrow is going
• 10:46
  to be even longer. So yeah, the kilometers will pick up for the next few days.