We’ve just had dinner at one of the finest seafood restaurants in all of Porto – a small place right opposite the docks, where they cook your meal over hot coals on a grill out on the street.

And walking back to the hotel, it hit me hard that tomorrow morning we start walking the Portuguese Camino de Santiago.

With all the good eating and the swish hotels and the cabs here and the Mercedes van there, it’s easy to forget that we’re about to start a pilgrimage tomorrow. We’ll be setting off on the way of St. James.

St. James has a particular connection to Portugal which I’ll talk about during the coming days…

I reiterate here though that I’m not a Catholic, and I’m not even religious in the conventional sense. But I do feel keenly the significance of what we, or rather I, am about to undertake. I say “I” because I can’t speak for the others on this. Each will walk for their own reasons. Which is how it should be.

For me, this has been a difficult period leading up to the walk. I’ve had work commitments which have interrupted my training, and so I don’t feel as physically prepared as I was this time last year.

As well, I’ll be walking with a knee brace this time. I’m unsure how my knee will hold up doing long miles day after day.

Mentally – or spiritually – I don’t feel as well prepared either. The tour has taken an inordinate amount of organising – more than would be apparent if you just looked at the itinerary – and so it’s inhabited the space in my brain that by rights should have been set aside for initialising into the Way.

Tomorrow I begin a pilgrimage – tour leader or no – and so when I wake in the morning, I will be a pilgrim, setting off on The Way.

A few things about today:

• Catarina joined us, and brought a wonderful sunny clean energy into the group with her arrival.
• We picked up the van – a brand new Mercedes Benz eight seater. To be driven by Catarina, it will shadow us along the way.
• We moved into the Porto Mar Hotel, in Matosinhos down by the docks of Porto – and close to the start of the coastal route.
• 
• I held the first photo tutorial, and talked about the importance of ISO selection. The first fundamental decision you need to make before you take any photo, is deciding what your ISO setting should be.
• We had dinner at one of Porto’s finest seafood restaurants and Steve showed us pictures of himself as a champion body builder.
• Then he showed us pictures of Jill, his ex wife…
• We walked back to the hotel in a thin fog, and passed a wall covered in scallop shells.
• 
• Greg used his newly acquired knowledge from the first Photo tutorial, and took photos using high ISO.
• I was very proud of him…

We’re complete now.

Coming down into the lobby this morning, I heard – Bill! –and was greeted by Peter and his wife Julie, and their two friends Ken and Angie.

This now makes our complete group.

Peter and Julie started their Camino four days ago, from a town just north of Lisbon. So they’ve already walked a long way to get here. They looked super fit – and with their backpacks and poles and Camino shine, they looked like serious pilgrims.

I’d last seen them in Zubiri, on day two of the Camino Frances last year. It was wonderful to see them again. And great to meet Ken and Angie. This will be their first Camino, yet they’ve been doing some very serious training in preparation.

Ken has a sly sense of humour that coldcocks you from behind. I’ll have to be on my guard when I’m around him…

I stepped outside the hotel to take a phone call, and I noticed this young man who was obviously smacked out of his brain trying to scam a pretty young lady. I’d seen this girl earlier – she was a pilgrim on the Camino, and she was having trouble getting rid of this bloke.

I wandered over and gave him €5. He was effusive in his thanks to me. He thought that this was an act of chivalry so that I could hook up with the pretty girl. He asked where I was from – I told him Australia – and he then proceeded to tell me that Australia made the best party drugs in the world.

I asked if I could take his photo –

Then as he walked away he yelled back at me and posed for a second photo –

 I walked back into the hotel, met up with Peter & Julie, Ken & Angie, and we went out and had coffee.

The waiter offered to take our photo. I instructed him carefully – even pre-focused and took a preview test shot of him sitting in for me, to show him the correct composition with proper head room, but of course he made a complete botch of it.

Here is his first attempt.

 See? Too much head room. And I’d specifically told him about head room.

But he was trying to frame for the buildings in the background. He saw himself as something of an artist, it turned out. Big mistake. I told him that no-one was interested in the buildings behind, they were interested in the people in front – and he’d given us too much headroom. Wasted space in the frame.

He tried again.

Here is his second shot.

 Again, totally unacceptable…  Too LITTLE head room this time. Again I took a shot of him sitting in for me, and told him why I’d framed it the way I had.

This is the correct amount of headroom. How hard is that? Jeeeeees. I mean, ok, the guy is just serving us coffee – but, if you’re going to take a photo, take it properly. Please.

Here is his final attempt.

 This is ok. Not great, but ok. The framing is still a bit how’s-your-father, but it’s acceptable.

Meanwhile, my new pilgrims who have just joined the tour, and have just met me, think I’m a complete and utter dick. A total control freak.

Thing is, Greg – of Greg and Donna fame – Greg who runs a pool business in Brisbane – Greg is smart. Greg has got my measure. You see, we left the hotel to head off to dinner, and I took a slightly circuitous route. I went up the hill, round the corner, along a street, and down the hill. I’d forgotten which way to go…

We’re standing at the lights, and Greg taps me on the shoulder and says: Bill, we’ve just come a full circle. Why didn’t we just go down the hill and turn left. Instead of going all that way up the hill, turning right, turning right again, going down the hill, and turning left.

If we were in the army this would be deemed insubordination.

I explained to him that it was my surreptitious way of getting us in training for the Camino, going up the hill and walking around the block, and that in fact instead of him pinning me with an implied criticism, he should be thanking me for making him a little bit fitter.

But I suspect he didn’t buy it.

Like I said, Greg is smart. I can see that I can’t fool Greg. Damn. I’m going to have to watch him. He has the potential to be traitorous. I think he sees me as a Captain Queeg.

The thing about leadership, you have to do everything with bold intent.

Even if you’re wrong.

Even if you’re lost.

Even if you can’t add up.

We ate out tonight at Pedros dos Frangos, the famous Portuguese chicken joint. The bill came, and it was €112. The tour hasn’t officially started yet – it starts tomorrow – so we’d decided to split the bill evenly. Twelve of us, that makes €10 a head, leaving a tip.

Everyone chucked in €10 and I counted out the pile of cash and it came to €110. We were €10 short.

Someone hadn’t coughed up their €10. Perhaps they hadn’t heard, so I asked in a very commanding voice who hadn’t paid. I got these glares back from everyone thinking that I was accusing them of trying to shimmy out of coughing up €10.

And then Peter, who is a very successful accountant – a numbers guy – (and is unfortunately also a Hawthorne supporter but despite that, still a very nice bloke) – informed me that no-one had piked out on their €10, there were only 11 of us – so everyone had actually paid.

Then I remembered – Catarina wasn’t joining us till tomorrow.

If I hadn’t looked like a dick before, then I certainly did now.

We retired to the hotel bar and I ordered Port. I got the numbers wrong again and we got an extra glass. I shared it with Angie. It was arguable who needed it more, her or me.

( this was meant to be published last night, but the wifi went down in this hotel. It’s now 4:30am Sunday here… )!

This internet world is very seriously weird.

Today I met Steve and Arlene for the very first time, and yet I felt as though I’d known them for years – we’ve corresponded so often and so regularly on this blog…

I also met Greg and Donna, whom I HAVE met before, back in Brisbane Australia. And I also met Marie-Dominic, from the Basque Country. (she refers to herself as Marie the Basque!) Jennifer and I spent some time with her in Santiago late last year.

It was wonderful to finally all meet up – although as a group we’re still not complete.

Tomorrow we meet the remaining two couples – Peter & Julie and Ken & Angela.

Peter & Julie I met on the slopes of the Pyrenees this time last year, and we very quickly became friends, bonding in the shock of a shared experience. Ken and Angela I’ve not met before – yet we’ve spoken on the phone and they sound like a delightful couple.

Already there seems to be a very strong sense of camaraderie between us all.

Steve and Arlene arrived first – and literally bumped into Jennifer of the lobby of the hotel. I came down and met them both – and my first impression was that they both looked so damn fit and healthy!

Steve is a champion bodybuilder, as most of you already know, and I went to give him a hug and it was like hugging a bag of cement. This guy is early 70s and has the physique of a 26 year old.

Arlene shone like a shiny thing – beautiful and radiant.

We all went to a coffee shop and the first thing I did was challenge Steve to an arm wrestle.

Note his bicep compared to mine.

I let him win.

(That just goes to show what a good pilgrim I am…)

Later we met up with Marie Basque – who was as equally beautiful and shiny radiant as Arlene – (what is it about these Camino women??) – and then we went out to dinner – later joined for coffee by Greg and Donna, who’d eaten very well at a restaurant near the start of the Camino down by the river.

Even though they were tired from a long flight from Australia (with a one day stopover in London) nonetheless their weeks of training have paid handsome dividends – they both looked way younger and fitter than when I last saw them in Brisbane, before they’d taken the big plunge and decided to do this pilgrimage walk.

Well into the evening now, after dinner, and seven of us sitting around a table in a small cafe, talking with an ease and conviviality that completely belied the time we’d actually all spent together – perhaps all of two hours.

Tomorrow we meet up with Peter & Julie, and Angela and Ken. Then we’ll have a quorum. A  Camino quorum. Won’t that be cool!

I’m too exhausted to write.

I won’t be able to think straight.

I won’t be able to write straight.

See? That’s bad grammer. It should be, “I won’t be able to write straightly….”

Or is it “grammar?” Not “grammer?”

Im exhausted and I haven’t walked a kilometre. Or is it kilometer? What will I be like next wee, when I have to walk 25kms + every day.

I’m putting in typos. I never typo. I’m always so particular about typos. And correcting auto-correct when it goes psycho on me.Like now. It didn’t space there. And I still don’t know whether is an “e” or an “a” in grammar….

If I wash;t so tired I would know there things. I would look them up. I’ve become lazy. How can I be lazy when I have to walk all this long way in a couple of days?

I’m scared.

Scared of my laziness.

Scared of auto-correct.

It has a mind of its own. Should it have put an apostrophe in there, back there just then? Is it messing with me, because I said it was psycho?

I’m so tired I can;t go back and fix all these mistakes.

you are seeing me raw.

Un auto-corrected.

I am naked to you all.

Ugly, isn’t it?

Or pathetic. I’m not sure which. If I wasn’t so tired I;d know if I was ugly or pathetic. Perhaps I’m both.

I have to sleep.

This is the best shot I took all day. It is total crap. I’m ashamed to put it up here, but this shows you that I am a) not a good photographer, and have no right to be teaching people how to take photos, and b? how vain I am, because this is a shot of jennifer cutting off all the tassels of a scarf I bought for the camino, because I don’t like girly tassels on my scarves.

or is it scarfs?

I called jennifer my camino daccy. I mean caddy.

she hit me.

I’m gong to sleep.

night.

How appropriate for this blog!!