El Camino del Norte : Bilbao to Escalante

Kilometres this section : 99

Kilometres completed : 250

At the Guggenheim.

Sightseeing in Bilbao then, and I do in fact get decent weather for it.  Interesting place, surrounded by mountains, I can see why the place has a stubbornly independent attitude.  There sure is a lot to see here, churches and monuments of course, and while the Guggenheim is shut because it is Monday, it's still impressive, and the giant spider outside is cool.  There is a giant floral puppy nearby too, and an open art museum which has both bizarre modern art and masterpieces from centuries ago.  And wow, I have spent all day wandering, barring an hour or so checking into a hostel slightly further along the route.  This one has pods - almost a room!  Well, time to head back there, via the Athletico Bilbao stadium, then some proper food, well pizza at least.

Pedestrian bridge at Pobeña.

Walking out of Bilbao, unsurprisingly, involves a hill, not a huge problem to be honest, there is a nice view of the city for one.  I pass an opportunity to walk south to join the Camino Francés, eschewing that means descending, seems like there is extended urban, commercial or industrial terrain running north from Bilbao, and of course a river, railway and various motorways.  Before long I am out of the Basque country and into Cantabria, doesn't seem much different but at least I can read the signs now.  For whatever reason my plan takes an alternative Camino route, an impressively engineered cycle trail including lengthy viaducts, but much of it is alongside those motorways so not exactly scenic.  No matter, I finish the day with a pleasant valley leading back to the sea, then walk a bit of beach to Pobeña and my first pilgrim menu of the trip!  Lentils with chorizo and pescado a la plancha, worth the wait.  Pleasant company too, I find a fellow hiker who was on the PCT only a year after me, small world...

Castro Urdiales.

I make an early start from Pobeña, lovely walking on a cliff path, but a small problem after a few km, a locked gate blocking the trail.  Obviously, I and the two Polish guys who are striding ahead of me don't climb over and walk a hundred metres of closed, but entirely safe trail, oh no.  Well, the walking continues to be pretty flat, including some former railway, taking me to Santullán for 11am, way too early to stop.  Then back to the sea, Castro Urdiales is a substantial town, and yes there's an impressive castle.  I need to keep on though, the albergue here won't open for another couple of hours, and surely there'll be another within the next 15km or so...  I keep going, the Albergue in El Pontarrón is shut, on to Rio Seco, nothing here, then it is getting on for 5pm and I have a choice, up into the hills or a km south to El Puente where there are bars at least.  Not really a difficult decision, and indeed I am able to get beer plus a burger, but there's no albergue.  Nothing for it but to find a quiet entry to a building where I sleep undisturbed, it is warm enough and I manage without a bedroll, not something I want to do often though.

Rather nice walking along the coast.

I don't waste any time leaving El Puente, not like it is tempting to lie in on a cold, hard floor.  I climb, cross the motorway a couple of times, and stop for a much needed coffee, and also to brush my teeth!  The way returns to the sea at Laredo, very pretty it is too, also the route splits here, I am taking the inland route, for one thing this avoids taking a boat.  I think most pilgrims must stick to the coast as I don't see many, perhaps understandable as this route involves a long stretch alongside a busy road.  Well, the last few kilometres are nice at least, a minor road alongside scenic wetland, a good place to watch birds it seems.  Destination today is Escalante, my cheap hotel turns out to be rather nice, so good to lie on a proper bed.  Yet another burger for dinner, this one has Serrano ham on it, and even comes with chips.  But hopefully something different tomorrow...

Photos to go with this post can be found here and here.

El Camino del Norte : San Sebastián to Bilbao

Kilometres this section : 123

Kilometres completed : 151

Early morning in San Sebastián.

I walk a km or so out of San Sebastián, then make a detour of some three hours(!) or so to visit Decathlon and buy a sleeping bag, having forgotten that even though this thing doesn't involve sleeping in a tent, I still need a bag.  Hmm, it really is very Basque here, the staff at Decathlon try speaking to me the language, and plenty of people on the trail say, I think, 'Egun on' rather than 'Hola'.  There are many signs in Basque, not sure this is ideal for a sign whose meaning is, for instance, 'not drinking water'.  Well anyway, back to the route, of course the only way out of San Sebastián is up a big hill, well at least the weather has improved, and this is lovely walking with a view down to the sea on my right.  I pass through Orio, where I spent my first night in Spain on the long cycle eight years ago, no time to stop though.  More up and down, another substantial settlement, Zarautz, then a little further along the coast to my destination, Getaria, a nice little place squeezed between a hilly near island and more hills on the mainland.  Seems a bit touristy, I get a beer or two, but then go for the cheap option of pasta and a bottle of wine at my hostel.

Rather pretty around here.

Day three, and wow, a long one, some 42km.  If this was the Camino Francés it wouldn't be too hard, but it's becoming clear that this is not the Camino Francés.  I repeatedly climb steep slopes, only to descend again, it is tough work.  Well, I still seem to have some muscles, and my small pack helps - as last year, people ask if I have sent another bag on...  And again, I overtake many people, mostly European I think, though again there are some Koreans.  Halfway through the day, the route turns inland, a mix of logging tracks, minor roads, and pleasant footpaths through the woods.  For a few hours I see no other hikers - I suspect I am doing two days in one, well, I want to get to Santiago within a month, and 20km days won't do.  In the event I get to Markina-Xemein before 6pm, not late, but I am relying on an albergue with no advance booking, and of course they are full.  'Let's see' says the guy behind the desk, and in fact by 6:30 I have a mattress in a corridor, I have slept on worse.  And there's still plenty of time to shower, wash clothes, and find a bar, although food options are limited, I get tortilla and some sort of chicken sandwich.  A proper pilgrim menu will turn up at some point I'm sure.

Simon Bolivar monument.

I make an early start out of Markina, there is a light drizzle but still nice walking through pleasant green country.  Seems like easier going today and I make decent time, through various little villages including Bolibar, birthplace of South American revolutionary Simon Bolivar.  I reach the highlight of the day, Gernika, in time for a late lunch.  This place is of course famous for the devastating German bombing in 1937, and the Picasso painting that inspired.  It's bigger than I expected, a substantial town, and I take time to wander around and photograph various monuments.  Then more walking, a little slowly due to the massive sandwich I had for lunch, but not far to tonight's albergue.  This one's in the middle of nowhere, but provides beer and indeed wine, plus home cooked food - there are even vegetables!

I eat a fairly standard coffee and toast breakfast at the albergue, and stepping outside I notice it is one of the massive, square plan buildings that seem standard in these parts - combining farmhouse, cowshed and barn in a single structure I guess.  From here, some nice walking through woods, then a long, easy flat section beside a road.  Not much to do after that, Zamudio is mostly industrial estates, then a climb through more woods before descending into Bilbao, I've been looking forward to this.  Sightseeing can wait though, it is raining and I could use a lie down anyway.  Although obviously I do emerge from the albergue in the evening to find a bar, and once again it's tortilla and a sandwich rather than proper food...

Gernika.  Or Guernica, in Castilian Spanish.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

El Camino del Norte : Irún to San Sebastián

Kilometres this section : 28

Kilometres completed : 28

Starting from the French border.

Is it time for another walk?  Yes, I think so.  Well, I really enjoyed the Camino de Santiago last year, and of course there are many different routes, so why not do another one?  This time the plan is to do the Camino del Norte, starting from the French border, near San Sebastián.  No attempt to ride French trains this year, San Sebastián has an airport, although no direct flights from the UK so I spend a few hours in Barcelona - not exactly a bad thing.  Indeed I have enough time to walk out of the airport and buy a cheap lunch from Lidl...

San Sebastián airport is to the east of the city, so close to the border and my start point, most convenient.  A good view from the plane as I approach too, we fly along the French coast, which I recall cycling along, wow, eight years ago.  Easy to leave the airport after a domestic flight, and a short walk to my hotel in Irún, a nice place I must say.  It does prove a bit tricky to find some dinner, plenty of bars but most just have dubious tapas, and while one is also a restaurant the service is so bad that I walk out.  Fortunately there is perfectly adequate bocadillo not far away.

Glorious mud!

Time to walk then, although first I want to get a pilgrim passport, apparently a local church does them, so I go there, but they are not going to open until 10:30, OK, might as well walk some of the route then.  I wanted to start from the French border anyway, reaching it I am not surprised to find the bridge I crossed back on that long cycle.  There are familiar blue and yellow signs, the route leads me back to the church which is still shut, OK, I will go and buy some food for lunch, this takes a while as it is labour day, so most places are shut.  But finally the church opens, I get my credencial, and walk out of Irún, retracing my route from the airport for a while before heading out of town.

Not long out of Irún, I hit a footpath, and wow, this is not the flat, well built type of path I spent so much time on last time.  No, this is a steep slope of mud and rocks, with a stream running down it, because it is raining.  I could be in the UK!  Well, this is fun for me, I climb up and walk a high ridge, there are views down to the sea, all good.  It rains much of the day, but I can cope, and it is pretty cool to descend to an inlet where I need to take a short ferry journey to continue.  My hostel today is a fair way from the route, so plenty of walking through the cheaper bits of San Sebastián, seems nice enough, as is the hostel, for all that it is located on the ground floor of an apartment building.

Ferry crossing at Pasaia.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Ayutthaya by Kayak : 4

I made it!  Also, the barge I overtook has caught up.

The last day, woo, this has been hard.  And, a hard last day of course, 34km, and oh my god, the current actually seems to be against me?  Is it tidal maybe?  Certainly not implausible, I am only a few meters above sea level...  Well I just have to keep going.  The river is kind of industrial today, I see many warehouses or granaries, and there are massive barges and tugs to pull them.  I paddle alongside one tug, pulling four barges filled with sand.  I am actually slightly faster than it.  I'm still going at sunset once again, but I make it to my resort - I can rest tomorrow!  The resort is on the river of course, and a charming little place it is - a traditional Thai wooden house largely built up on poles, yes this means my room is pretty pokey, but there is lots of communal space so not a problem.  They also have a large wooden boat that you'll be able to sleep on once they've fixed it up!

My rather nice resort in Ayutthaya.

Do I do sightseeing in Ayutthaya?  Well obviously.  It is punishingly hot, sweat drips from me as I wander about, but I want to try to see most of the notable sights, of which there are many.  This really is a big place, built within the naturally defensible confluence of the Chao Phraya and Lopburi rivers, with a canal dug to the north to complete the defensive ring around the city.  It is a good hour to walk from one side to the other, and probably less than half the space is filled by the modern city, much of the rest is essentially an archaeological park.  I can believe this was one of the world's great cities back in its heyday.  Nowadays, of course, what mainly survive are the ruins of temples, and in terms of sheer physical mass it rivals Angkor Wat.  However, the lack of good building stone in these parts means the structures here were largely built of brick, with decoration added in the form of stucco that has largely gone.  What is left are the bare bones of chedis and massive brick walls, it is certainly impressive but not really as picturesque as the enigmatic stone faces, apsaras etc. at Angkor.

One of many temples - the praang can be seen to the right.

There sure are a lot of old temples though, and many of the chedis are impressively large, and interestingly rather different in style to what I have seen elsewhere.  In particular, I'm used to chedis being basically bell shaped, but here they tend to towering cylinders with domed tops, so let us say, shaped like, er, a cucumber.  I wonder if perhaps this type of chedi, known as a 'praang', was making some subtle statement about the 'power' of the great kings of Ayutthaya?  Speaking of whom, there is of course a massive palace complex, although pretty much none of it is intact.  I pass tourists taking in the sights on elephant-back, well why not, but of course what I need to do is see at least one temple from my boat, fortunately the very impressive Wat Chaiwattanaram is only a short paddle from my resort.  This is the way visitors would have first seen Ayutthaya back in the day, roads not being much of a thing in Thailand in those days.  I don't spend long on the river, and paddling back against the current is a little annoying, but it was worth it.  Wow I am tired though...

Well, this was a good trip, Ayutthaya is amazing, and I did in fact largely enjoy the kayaking, sunburn, blisters and all.  I guess for any future trip I probably should accept that trying to do much more than 20km in a day is not smart.  Also I need to get waterproof SPF50 sunblock in advance!  Or, maybe even some stylish lycra leggings, dear god.

The same temple, as I travel past it in the traditional manner.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Ayutthaya by Kayak : 3

Embankment construction.

The service station hotel has pad Thai for breakfast, this is good.  I'm not loving the walk back to the river, but only 20km to paddle today, yay.  There is even some current!  Still lots of embankment construction, and in typical Thai style, an army of people are installing reinforcing bars for concrete, though there are plenty of big machines moving earth and rocks too.  I make good time to Singburi ('Lion Town'), and reach my rather nice hotel for 4pm.  Two vouchers for welcome cocktails you say?  It has a bar too, and there is yummy crab curry.

Another day, I am still broken, I buy some SPF 50 sunblock, better late than never I guess.  Well, I have to keep going, 27km today, not so bad.  The river still has a bit of current, and still new embankments are going up.  My legs are a mess of blisters and wounds, every time I leave the water there can be sharp sticks, and my skin tears like wet paper.  It won't kill me, I'm sure.  I make good pace at least, I think I am building muscle, and today I reach my resort before 5, and can actually get some rest.  Google thinks there are a couple of bars, 1 and 2 miles away respectively, well it's nice to walk after sitting in the boat all day.  The route is along the embankment, interesting, I can see that if the water ever got this high, it would be well above the surrounding land.  There are also many barking dogs, I remember one of the good points of kayaking, namely that the wretched creatures can't get to me on the water.  Of course the bars turn out not to exist, back to the resort with beer and food from a shop it is then.

Floating cabins.

Day number 7, only 18km, not really easy, but at least reasonable, but there is not much current and once more my pace is slow.  I see many houseboats at the riverside - well, not houses, I think most are the rooms at various resorts - good if a fishing holiday is your thing.  I keep going, to Aang Torng ('golden basin'), then have a km or so of walking to my hotel, then oops, one end of the road is blocked by a six foot gate.  I pull myself over it with no trouble whatsoever, I think I have indeed built muscles.  I am maybe trespassing on the property of the Thai tax office, but security guard seems relaxed about it.  The hotel room has subdued, multicoloured lighting, a very bouncy bed, and can be booked for a three hour stay, hmm.

Looking quite tanned here.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Ayutthaya by Kayak : 2

Large clumps of water hyacinth.

Ugh, last night I was thinking about when I needed to start, and misread my plan, it's not 28km today but 33km - 28 was the date.   There's no current at all, such hard work to keep moving, and I'm still not going fast enough.  There's really a lot of water hyacinth floating on the river, I worry the way will be blocked.  Well, I keep going, but this is so hard, it's breaking my brain, I forget my hat twice when I stop to rest and have to go back for it.  I paddle as the sun sets, into dusk and then darkness.  At least, I'm into Chai Nat now, a proper city so there's plenty of light, enough to avoid the water hyacinths, and also thumping music from an evening Zumba session - popular in Thailand - spurs me on.  I reach my hotel at 7:30, a nice riverside place, where the staff marvel at my insanity.  I then find a bar, on the river of course, although I'm too tired to drink much.

Now this is getting ridiculous.

The hotel staff watch me put up the kayak, and off I go, 35km today, oh dear, and there are other problems too.  Such as, five km into the day, water hyacinth does indeed completely block the river.  Well, I had to get out at this point anyway, more or less, there is a dam coming up soon, the only one of the trip at least.  But, now I have a km or so to walk, boat in the bag it is then.  Turns out the blockage is less than 100m, the plants are pushed up against a floating bamboo barrier, I guess this stops them reaching the dam.  Well, I reach it, then on the other side is some kind of secure area?  OK, it looks like I can reach the river on the other side, so I cross  the dam, and then walk through a temple / golf course, a path leads down, but... there's a tributary before the place I thought I could get to the water.  I can't even get to tributary, between me and the water there is head high grass, argh.  OK, back over the dam, I walk through the security checkpoint, it seems unmanned, a bit further and there are stairs down to the water, yay.  But, it's 3 hours since I set off, and only six km done, well, no choice but to keep slogging on.  The river is different now, much narrower, but sadly still has no current, though at least there is no water hyacinth!  A lot of the banks seem strangely high, embankments tower many meters above the river, separated from it by sandbanks, and indeed I pass beach play areas.  New embankments are under construction, maybe they are planning a new dam?  Ah, but this day is so long, I am broken.  I paddle into the dark again, and leave the water at 7:30.  It's a mile walk to my hotel, delightfully situated in a motorway service station, I buy beer on the way as I'm not confident anywhere will sell me alcohol there.  Well, it does have a shop at least, where I buy a 'tasty' microwaved burger...

That damn dam.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Ayutthaya by Kayak : 1

Setting out from Nakhon Sawan.

Another Thailand adventure!  I wanted a change from cycling, so it is time to break out the inflatable kayak.  The plan is to paddle from Nakhon Sawan to Ayutthaya, which was the dominant city state in the region until the Burmese razed it to the ground in 1767, by all accounts a very interesting place.  So, a long train ride from Chiang Mai, a familiar hotel, then the next morning I'm pumping up the boat alongside the Chao Phraya river, which is considered to have its source here, at the confluence of four tributaries.  From here it flows south to Bangkok, I am not going quite that far though...

I have a long day ahead, some 35km, and this is hard work.  The river is mostly very broad, but it sometimes narrows and there's quite a current, this is good.  Sadly the kayak is not healthy, it's slowly deflating, I have to stop to pump it up every two hours or so.  Well, I make it to my planned stop just before sunset, leave the kayak and check into the nearby homestay, but then I get confused when owner shows me a better way to the river, now I can't find the boat, oops.  I end up putting it in its bag in the dark...  As is often the way with kayaking, the homestay is near the river but not anything else, I have to walk a mile to find food...

I took quite a few photos like this.

The owner of the homestay comes to watch me inflate the kayak, he says he might buy one, and why not.  Apparently I am not the first guest with one here.  He also gives me some water, which is nice, though I still don't want the noodles he went to buy for me last night, in a bit of a misunderstanding - I was in fact capable of walking to a restaurant.  Anyway, a shorter day today, only 27km, but still hard work.  My suntan lotion is not working, my ankles are badly burnt, and I have blisters on my hands from the relentless paddling, but still I keep going.  It's pretty at least, there are hills to either side, and many birds, a small one hovers over the water and then dives to catch a fish, most cool.  There are many guys fishing with nets too.  My destination today is another resort in the middle of nowhere, and when I arrive they tell me to go away, won't listen to my Thai, and can't even read the name of the resort, in Thai, on my phone.  Well, I work it out... There's nothing here of course, so I walk five km to Uthaithani, it's worth it for beer and tasty fish curry.

Selfies in the kayak are not easily done.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.