So Lucy and I went to Amsterdam to buy the stuff for our walk. For those of you who have been living under a mushroom and haven’t heard me say or mention (ad nauseum) the “walk” is the Camino de Santiago, aka The Walk of St James aka the Santiago Compostela. Here’s a link for some info on it: http://www.caminodesantiago.me/board/el-camino-frances/

We leave April 21, 2010 from Abu Dhabi and hope to finish it by May 27th. We will walk approx. 25 km per day, that’s 15.53 miles per day.

Lucy and I flew to Amsterdam on Wednesday, March 3rd and returned on Sunday, March 7th… not long enough! Here’s some pics from the trip:

The top pic is me at the airport in Abu Dhabi as we get ready to leave… good practice, only took my hiking back pack, weight: 4.5 kg, that’s just under 10 pounds.

The 2nd pic is Lucy and me having lunch at a lovely restaurant across the canal from the Anne Frank house, which we didn’t get to visit because the cue was more than 45 minutes and it was raining and it was 2 degrees C!

The 3rd pic is Sacha and me. I met Sacha at this store last August when Nick and I were in Amsterdam before our Italy holiday. Sacha remembered that I said I’d be back! We bought everything we need for “the walk” at this store, the Bever Women’s Swerfsport store and their parent store down the street.

We had a great time in Amsterdam and also had dinner with my friends Peter & Sylvia who were in Vanuatu with me in 2005.

I can’t imagine needing anything else for my trip… here’s a pic of my pack with all the stuff I bought:

From the top and clockwise: My vest, clear document keep dry pouch, little black pouch is my clothesline and the yellow thing is a solar light source, my purple cap, light blue thing is my wind/rain breaker, the red thing in the black net looking bag is my silk sleep sack, below that one of 3 pair of hiking, zip pants and the belt to keep them up with, next to that, one of 3 pair of wool socks, the red thing next to that is the rain pancho that goes over me AND the pack, above that is the tan zip pants, my toothbrush/paste in one thingy and next to that another pair of wool socks, next to the pancho are my sexy black long johns (LOL), my teal short sleeved hiking shirt, above that my black long sleeved hiking shirt, above that my light weight water bottle, to the right of that my map from village to village and it tells you where the refugios are, and to the left of the water bottle my light weight carry all bag, for carrying personal effects, passport and money to the shower, and last but not least, my green short sleeved hiking shirt.

The long johns and shirts and purple skull cap and my buff (in the pack so not in pic) are made by Icebreaker, a company that make clothing from pure NZ merino wool.

Here’s their web site: http://www.icebreaker.com/site/index.html

I will blog about packing and preparing up to the trip. Then, hopefully, I’ll be able to blog about the trip at least once per week… keeping my fingers crossed! 🙂 If not, you’ll hear all about it when I get back!

Hope everyone is having a fabulous week… I AM 🙂

Peace!