INSPIRATION

So what inspires a young family to undertake a modern pilgrimage of hundreds of kilometres across a foreign country?

We found that on the Camino the desire to know what motivated us all as individuals from different nations, nationalities and walks of life to all be walking the road together at the same point in time, was probably the most common question. We found the answers as diverse as the individuals themselves.

Personally my interest in the Camino was sparked when we went into a Sydney trekking store to buy our packs – our wedding gift to each other at the time. We had planned a long overseas adventure following our marriage and the packs seemed to represent the adventures and excitement we hoped would fill our marriage. In the store we saw a poster giving an overview of the Camino and we were served by a man who had walked the Camino with his wife. His description made me instantly curious about this modern day pilgrimage and I became keen to find out more.

I also was motivated by the physical and mental challenge of walking the Camino. Having been in a car accident and struggled for many years to overcome the injury and live a pain free life I was curious to see how my body would survive the experience and to see whether I was as mentally tough as I felt I was.

For Nick, he read “The Pilgrimage” by Paulo Coelho – a recount of his walking of the path and became interested in following the same journey at some point. When he found the information at the store Trek and Travel and I too was keen to walk – we included it into our plans for overseas travel.

Here is an extract from "The Pilgrimage" p.58 that inspired us

“It is the pleasure of searching and the pleasure of the adventure. You are nourishing something that’s very important-your dreams. We must never stop dreaming. Dreams provide nourishment for the soul, just as a meal does for the body. Many times in our lives we see our dreams shattered and our desires frustrated, but we have to continue dreaming. If we don’t, our soul dies… …

The Good fight is the one we fight because our heart asks it of us…

…The Good fight is the one that’s fought in the name of our dreams. When we’re young our dreams first explode inside us with all of their force, we are very courageous, but we haven’t yet learned how to fight. With great effort, we learn how to fight, but by then we no longer have the courage to go into combat. So we turn against ourselves and do battle within. We become our own worst enemy. We say that our dreams were childish, or too difficult to realize, or the result or our not having known enough about life. We kill our dreams because we are afraid to fight the good fight.

As for our littlest pilgrim, well our original plans did not include her. However she was determined to be included on our adventures and we were ecstatic to fall pregnant earlier than we had planned. Our travel plans as a couple now grew to become travel plans as a small family.

So that is what led us to the Camino in the Spring of 2009.