Thoughts on the Blue Mountains Camino 2023
The Blue Mountains 5 day walk is a wonderful opportunity to experience the Camino Spirit and enjoy time with likeminded walkers who have either already walked a Camino overseas or are preparing to walk one
in the future.
The Blue Mountains Camino (BMC) occupies a special place in our walking lives. This is our third, and we are enjoying the BMC more and more each year. It is the closest experience we have had to a Spanish/Portuguese Camino in Australia so far. Particularly the early morning activities; the bustle in the kitchen, packing the pack, checking everything is there, putting on boots, pack on back and stepping out of the front door. This year the déjà vu feeling really came on Day 3, when walking out of Glenella up to Blackheath railway station gave a similar feeling to our memories of walking out
of an albergue in a Spanish town. We have not been to Spain since 2019 so it was rather exciting.
Déjà vu aside, the week at Glenella is a great experience for us ‘interstaters’. We have always felt welcome and this year was no exception. The friendship and hospitality is so real, it is great to catch up with old friends and meet new walkers. A WhatsApp group ensures that we can keep in contact with each other during each day, and make sure that everyone is accounted for during the walks.
The organisation and attention to detail, present from our first BMC in 2021, continues to be refined and improved. This includes both the walking program and life at our ‘home base’ at Glenella. The walking
program refinements of shortening day 1 slightly and making it easier to decide whether to do the standard or scenic routes or combinations to suit individual tastes and daily circumstances are good examples. Little touches such as the individual toiletries buckets provided in the bathrooms for each bedroom, which proved much more convenient than carrying items to and from bedrooms, were another example. Small things but nice touches. And the evening programs were well organised. An extra highlight this year was the Spanish language session which was both helpful and fun.
Our hosts and hospitaleros continue to shine, going way beyond what we might have expected in their hospitality and also their friendship, so that we received both. A wonderful blessing.
Thank you to all who participated. All of you in different ways contributed to a wonderful week of ‘Camino-ing’.
Brad and Bronwyn Jennings, Canberra
Eileen and Richard’s Spanish Language Sessions
I have been learning Spanish through the Duolingo App now for over 2 years. I know how to read a lot of words; I can understand some of the conversation but until I attended Eileen and Richard’s Spanish Language Sessions, I never knew how to use the language in conversations. I found Eileen and Richard’s Spanish sessions invaluable. I now feel very comfortable about meeting people in the street, asking where they are from, asking for a bed and identifying different types of coffees and other drinks. I had previously done a session with Eileen and Richard in November and with the session they did on the Saturday of the 5DW, I now feel more confident in using some of these things on the Camino and in Spain. Their session on Saturday helped reinforce some of the language we learnt in November. On Saturday, we also got to try out our Spanish on a real Spaniard to see whether he understood what we had to say. We had a lot of laughs during the session because Eileen and Richard made it fun and interactive.
Terry has only attended these two sessions and because of the sessions, it has now sparked his interest in wanting to learn Spanish. I hope we get more Spanish Lessons from Eileen and Richard in the future. I am grateful to them both.
Ann P
