Tim is a NHS Consultant doctor in Anaesthetics, I am retiring in May 2008 to walk to Santiago de Compostelo, which has a cathedral with the legendary remains of St James the Apostle who converted the Spanish to Christianity. Tony is an IT specialist we both graduated from Sheffield University in the 70s. Estimated time to walk there 5 months. The route is from home in Stourbridge West Midlands via Holcombe Somerset to meet with Tony and then via Weymouth to the Normandy Penininsula on a hired yacht sailed by friends (Arthur, Cheryl and Penny) and then down the west of France on the edge of the Massif Central. This is not the typical pilgrimage route, but is we hope, of more interest to those whose prime concern is interesting walking rather than visiting places of religious significance along the way. We aim to cross the Pyrenees not at St Jean Pied de Porte the traditional western route but over Col de Somport further east and the route traditionally taken by medieval pilgrims from Southern France or those returning from Santiago to visit the other believed apostles sites in Rome and Jerulsalem. The aim is to reach Compostelo without recourse to any mechanical powered device (train car ferry etc).

In the past we have walked the GR 10 across the Pyrennees, 15 years each summer when our families were young, the GR20 (Spine of Corsica) and climbed all of the Munroes on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. Tony completed the Penine Way and Coast to Coast in his youth and Tim The Lyke Wake Walk across the North York Moors.

Hopefully we have maintained enough fitness and are young enough that we can complete and return from an epic that in medieval times resulted in the non return of significant numbers of pilgrims attempting it. In fairness this was probably that a fair proportion were of our age or older and at a time of their lives when natural illness particularly in adverse circumstances resulted in death rather than survival as is the case in the developed world today.