| Any Way, 2023 |
1840 miles on a bike from the North East of Scotland to the North West of Spain, 2023 ~Part performance, part pilgrimage, part summer holiday. |
| ----- I’d wanted to do a proper pilgrimage for a while. I joked that James and Ruth had made me a penitent on my trip north to Tromsø a few years prior, so it made sense to me to follow it up with this plenary indulgence. The Camino de Santiago is probably the most well known route, and I know other people who had walked or cycled bits of it. I planned to cycle it, so I could start from Scotland and complete it in the summer. I always like to start these kinds of trips from the house (that’s where they start anyway even if you start somewhere else). However as this was an official pilgrimage, my plan was to ride my bike to the start of the Camino Frances and then start from there. I would document the trip with writing, a credencial (pilgrim passport), and some film. I started from Crimond near Fraserburgh, where I lived at the time. An elder at the parish church signed my credencial before I left on what was to be a shortish day to get me going and transition to being outside for the next six weeks. Emma cycled with me into Fraserburgh to see the sea, and we stopped at the Cairnbulg cemetery to visit the grave of James Duthie. James wrote a beautiful book called "I cycled into the Arctic Circle" that I have read many times over the years. I've thought of him and his trip often when doing these things, so it was a bit surreal and fitting to include this stop and make him an explicit part of the journey. I rode west along the coast and collected some water from St Drostan's Well at New Aberdour Beach which I’d carry the entire way. From there I headed south and camped at Mintlaw. The proper stamps for the credencial didn’t start until the Netherlands, so in addition to the elder at Crimond, I had it marked by a multitude of people during the UK leg - the manager of the Aberdeenshire Farming Museum signed a postcard, the gift shop at Balmoral castle gave me a bag and so on. Two highlights of this assemblage of evidence were Berwick Rangers Football Club (the team I support) agreeing to press their seal into it and the staff at Tynemouth Priory giving me a pin badge. I’m grateful for this generosity. The first proper stamp was in Utrecht, where I’d studied and lived in the mid-2000s and this seemed fitting as well. They hosted me at the kerk which was opposite where I’d pitched my tent for an event in 2010. I like when things echo like this. I explored Utrecht deliberately via it’s churches, which was also a refreshing way to look at a city I knew well. The next weeks were punctuated by moments of genuine joy - riding my bike past Le Louvre on the rue de Rivoli, crossing the bridge in to Spain, arriving in to Santiago - as well as some challenges – the disappointment of getting ill three days in, hurting my foot / leg and being stuck on a campsite, time challenges. In the end I made it with a few days to relax and spend with family and friends in Santiago. I made some adjustments to the route as I went, and didn’t end up following one specific route in particular – flitting between the many routes that eventually lead to Santiago de Compostela. When I went to the office to get my certification, there was a bit of a “computer says no” moment about where I’d begun my trip. In the end the agent at the desk decided that I’d started at Harlaam in the Netherlands, which is what is now printed on my certificate of completion. I’d like to do it again in the future, on foot, from another starting point. Maybe I’ll have to bike to wherever that starting point is. I wrote a daily account of the trip and posted it on Instagram which can be read here
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| Copyright © 2023 Stuart McAdam |