Happy Pilgrims

#1FavouriteUncle as I refer to him, has been elevated to 'fan status' and like us, enjoys travel, photography, music and reading.  We hope he will enjoy the Happy Pilgrims blog as much as we enjoy our adventures and documenting them.

Credit for a second extraordinary blog 

My first attempt at blogging was The Happy Pilgrim (circa 2015). Credit to this latest creation must be shared with a kind soul who works at the Sora Templates Helpdesk (Manoj Tiwari). I am guessing he's from Sri Lanka but he didn't tell me much about himself.  Despite me being tired (and slightly annoying) he helped with the development via WhatsApp. 

This Sora-Article template is cute, but definitely not a simple click-and-load model. Some parts were easy to recall from 9 years ago, but some of the complex detail was beyond my brain capacity (especially late at night). Manoj was an absolute godsend, helping me pull the blog together at the last minute. In the daylight hours I did follow his advice, and extended myself by reading the task cards with my glasses on. I am happy to report that I finally achieved the baseline blogger skills required to take the blog on holiday. Despite a sense of urgency and panic, I'm pretty proud of the some of minor html coding I did and super impressed with the co-developer. Capability uplift? I will let the readers be the judge!!

For those interested in blogging, Sora Templates and html coding details are here.

E-bikes

Those who love cycling will get it straight away we can't wait cycle across Spain. 

We've done some local training after work and on the weekends when the weather and time permits. Training as brought us immense joy and activated our 'adventure' switch! Each day we head out we discover a multitude of bike paths that weren't so obvious when you're in the car or on a bus. I was familiar with some when I trained for walking the Camino in 2015 but having wheels and that bit of electricity to 'zhoosh' up those steeper inclines is awesome. Obviously you still need to use your legs but the electric power is there as back up, keeping your speed constant and taking you a little further. 

Having e-bikes has been life changing and has turned a 20-30km 'normal ride' into an easily achieved 50km+ ride and suddenly our world has expanded.  

We purchased our Merida e-bikes from Bec at 99Bikes Phillip (Woden). Store manager Bec was fabulous. Initially we purchased only one e-bike to share for the purposed of training for Spain. It was so much fun that sharing was never going to work.  A few weeks later we went back and got a second one. Same brand but the bikes are gendered bikes, so I can reach the ground!

Our new phrase is 'let's go this way' and training around the ACT Canberra cycleways has prepared us well for the 700-800km trek across north-west Spain. We have expanded our community and by chance ran into Bec's husband (who we had never met before). He helped us with directions, got chatting about our wheels and as it turns out was married to Bec who sold us the both bikes!  Small world as the saying goes. 

When we cycle we smile and the world smiles back -  Happy Pilgrims.  

We had seen a lot of bird life (but no kookaburras). Then we cycled up to these lovely installations!

Monday 9 September Day 1

Spain is exactly as I remembered, beautiful and bright and warm, but what was forgotten was just how long the trip from Australia is! 

There was a miscommunication in the rush towards the end and the European charges were left behind. This was quickly solved in Hamad Airpot where we stopped for a pot of tea, scones and cream at Harrods. We charged both our devices and ourselves. Very good use of time plus road tested the travel card. 

We were weary not just because of the long haul flight but because there was a long dragged argument in the row over. We had purchased tickets on the top floor of the A380 Airbus hoping for some extra leg room. It was lovely but not a fabulous sleep with ongoing confrontations between someone wanting to put their seat back and someone who was squashed in. The air staff were very diplomatic and eventually things calmed down

Nice to chat to people on the transport bus or while queuing about where they are off to. There are so many lovely places to visit around the world and with the exception on these two on Qatar Airways in the wee small hours while we were trying to sleep, most people are super happy. We got chatting to a father and son from Brisbane who were on their way to do a special  pilgrimage to Cyprus (small world!).

The Orchard (Hamad Airport) was stunning but a little tricky to navigate to. We will definitely make more time for it on the way home. There were plenty of travellers making the most of this magical relaxing zone. The flight was sedentry but the stoppover was put to excellent use!. Not sure why it’s called The Orchard when there we no fruit trees and that the climate is modelled on a rain forest. More to learn later down the track. 

Our apartment in Barcelona is in a good location and suits our needs. It’s not super flash and when one calls it ‘Vintage Rentals’ that’s quite accurate. Casa Valencia wasn’t super flash but it was certainly well located. We would grow quite attached to our home base in the coming days, but more of that later. We’ve unpacked, showered, rested and will go out later and explore. 

I’m keen to find a rooftop bar, not because I want wine or food I just want to watach the sun go down! Eyes are tired and it will be a day or so before we get aclimatised. 

More later on - signing off day one - Happy Pilgrims.