Pilgrimage from Orbetello Scalo to Montalto Di Castro 06/08/07

I had the worst night sleep last night!!!

The ground was too hard to put my tent pegs in so I had just draped my fly over the top of my tent. Every now and again these big gusts of wind would come and blow it off. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t seem to tie it on properly and kept waking up to it blowing away…

Then at 06:30 I woke up with this itchy sensation in my ear. As I stuck my finger in, my head suddenly exploded in this violent fit of vibrations. It took me a second to realize what was going on, but it seemed I had a bug in my ear. It soon went back to crawling rather than flying, which was a great relief, but it is still a disturbing feeling to have something crawling around inside your head. After a lot of head shaking, bashing, and jumping up and down, it finally gave up its new home. Thank God for that!!! I was getting worried…

It appears that on my last attempt to secure my fly I had left my tent door open! I now had every imaginable creepy crawly having a party in my tent. It wasn’t pleasant :(

So after evicting all the bugs it was back to walking. I had considered going to Orbetello this morning but after last night it wasn’t going to happen. I was heading straight for Rome :)

I thought I would stop for breakfast about 6kms down the road in Ansedonia. Once again my map led me a bit astray and on the outskirts of town I soon reached a dead-end. According to my map the road should have continued round so I considered jumping the fence but the sign above stopped me. The only words that I could understand looked like “commando” and “vigilante”. I figured commando vigilantes probably shouldn’t be messed with so I headed back :)

The town started to have a strange feel when I spotted a bar called “El Cartello”. As I went in to see if they were open, I was met by a man in an army camouflage colored wetsuit…carrying a spear gun! I would have loved to have got him on video or got his picture but I wasn’t quite game…

They ended up being closed so it was off to look for somewhere else.

I have found that since I have arrived in Italy I have almost stopped drinking beer. It is just too hot. I have now started drinking Sprite and I think I’m getting addicted. I drink between 3-6L of water every day so I should not be dehydrated, but I find myself craving Sprite whenever I stop. It’s very strange, as I don’t normally drink that much fizzy drink. I don’t know whether there is actually something in it my body needs, or whether it just wants the sugar. I think I will have to stop though, it just doesn’t feel right.

I then had a nice walk past Lake Di Burano, which is a WWF sanctuary so you can’t go down to the shore, but is still beautiful. And then back to the highway.

I got to Mantalto Di Castro right on dark and was considering walking the extra 10kms I would need to hit the “100kms to Rome” marker. But after I had eaten something I figured it could wait till tomorrow. I found a paddock and went to sleep.

Pilgrimage from Casa Di Forno to Orbetello Scalo 05/08/07

I set my alarm early, but having drunk too much wine last night, I turned it off and went back to sleep.

When I woke again at 08:30 everyone was still sleeping, but I figured I better get going. Thanks again guys and I promise I will stay for breakfast next time ;)

After yesterday’s effort I decided not to risk the national park tracks. I walked back to the main road along the driveway. It was another great hike with awesome views, but I wasn’t feeling so good.

I stopped for breakfast at an “Agritourismo”, which is basically a farm that allows tourists to eat or stay. It was great! I had a big plate of proscutto, cheese, tomato and bread with homemade olive oil and balsamic vinegar. This made me feel a bit better.

But it didn’t last long. Another 3kms down the road and I had to stop for a sleep.

Luckily, when I arrived in Fonteblanda I found out I was 10kms closer to Rome than I had thought. This made up for my rest :) But it still meant that I was going to be pushing it if I wanted to make Orbetello before dark...

As it turned out, I made pretty good time for the last 20kms and reached the lake next to Orbetello Scalo just in time for sunset. It was beautiful…

I figured it wasn’t worth walking the extra 3kms to Orbetello proper if it was going to be dark when I got there, so I thought I would keep walking…if I could find my torch, or just stay here if I couldn’t. I searched my whole bag but with no success. My torch was lost, so having a quick look around in the twilight I found a spot to camp behind the church.

As I hopped into my sleeping bag, guess what I found…my torch! The inside of my sleeping bag must have been the only place I hadn’t checked. I had even checked inside the tent. Always the way!

Pilgrimage from Castiglione Della Pescaia to Casa Di Forno 04/08/07

I knew I was in for a bit of adventure today as everyone I talked to had a different story about what I should expect…

I had a choice a couple of days ago whether to stay on the main road through Grosseto, or stick to the coast. The coast road looked much more pleasant, but there was a river which according to my map, you could only cross 15kms inland, and then a national park for 15kms after that.

I decided to take the coastal route and was constantly asking people about bridges and tracks. Not a single story matched!!! It was amazing :)

All together I was told that…

“There is a bridge 5kms inland from the ocean”

“There is a bridge right next to the ocean, but only for pedestrians”

“There was a bridge, but it got washed away in a flood 10 years ago and they haven’t rebuilt it again”

“There isn’t a bridge at all”

“There isn’t a bridge, but if you give this guy a call he can canoe you across”

“You can’t walk through the national park”

“You can walk through the national park”

“You can only walk through the national park with a guide, and they leave every day at 11am, 4pm and 9pm”

So, not knowing what to expect I got an early start. I arrived in Marina De Grosseto around 9am, and because I was only 7kms from the river I figured the locals would be able to give me some good advice. I found a woman who worked at a caravan park, she said she had done the walk many times, and that yes, there was a bridge down near the beach. She wasn’t sure about the walking tracks through the park though, but she did know that you couldn’t walk all the way around by the beach as it ended half way by cliffs.

So I then set off down the beach to find my bridge. It is always a struggle walking on sand, but doing it in boots and with a pack is torture. It was a long 7kms but I finally made it.

I spotted the bridge about 500m inland and in high spirits, went cross-country through this desert like landscape to reach it.

But then my life took a turn for the worst…the bridge didn’t cross the main river, it only crossed a small tributary next to it!!! I was at a bit of a loss. I walked a bit further up the river but to no avail, it was back to the river mouth to see if I could wade across.

I couldn’t…and I wasn’t happy. I then remembered that I had a number for the guy with a canoe, so I gave him a call. He was busy and couldn’t help, but if anyone is ever down here trying this same adventure the number is +39 3461 479 362.

It was now a choice of either walking 15kms upstream or swimming across. There was heaps of driftwood about, so I decided to build myself a raft :)

I didn’t have anything to tie the logs together with so my idea was just to wrap my raincoat around three big logs and balance my pack on top. Then I could swim across while towing it. It wasn’t the best plan I had ever heard of, but I was confident it I could make it, so I went to work.

After repacking my bag, so in the worst case scenario and my pack fell off, it would hopefully still float, I was ready to go.

Luckily, I was saved from a potential disaster by this young couple, who pulled up in a boat about 100m off the coast to fish.

After about five minutes of waving at them, they finally decided to come and see what I was about. I could see by the looks on their faces that they thought I was completely mad, but they gave me a lift across anyway, thanks guys :)

So that was one obstacle out of the way, now I was just faced with the park.

My map is only a 1:200000 so it is not the best for finding walking tracks. It did however have the one I wanted marked out and it was not long before I located it. I had to jump a fence to get on to it, so it appears that you are not meant to walk through here after all.

It was all good for the first few kilometers, I saw a deer and was amazed at how close it let me get before running away. I must smell really bad ;)

I then arrived at a point where a few tracks met, but I couldn’t find the one that would take me over the ridge I wanted. I searched for about an hour before finally stopping for a rest and passing out.

Two hours later when I woke, I resumed my search without any luck. Looking at my map I figured I could walk around the ridge along the beach and then find my track on the other side.

This appeared to be a good plan as I soon found a track that looked promising. But alas, it started to take me back over the ridge from where I had come from. Thinking then that this might be the track I should have taken from the other side I started following it the other way.

It wasn’t long before the markings stopped and I was left to follow what looked like animal tracks. I could see a house further down the beach so I decided to head for that instead.

It was another 2km walk along the sand before I finally reached these cliffs with the house about 200m away on the other side. Not to be defeated I thought I could see a track up and over, so off I went.

This was one of the more stupid things I have done since starting this pilgrimage. It would have been bad enough without a backpack, but with 25kg on my back it was completely mad.

I didn’t make it far before I realized that it just wasn’t going to happen. I did however attract the attention of this older couple that was walking down the beach, so they came to help. The man seemed to know the park quite well and explained that I was on the right track the first time and to go back there.

So, in not so good spirits, I trudged the 2kms back down the beach.

It ended up being all worthwhile. The view from this track was awesome!!! It was probably as nice a walk as Cinque Terre but without any people. And with wildlife! I saw another deer as well as two wild boars.

Even though I started the day with 3L of water I finally ran out. Since I knew there was a house up ahead I wasn’t too concerned but it was really hot and I started to get very thirsty.

This little voice in my head kept piping up saying “drink the wine, drink the wine” but luckily I hadn’t quite lost all sense of reason and ignored it :)

And then I stumbled upon Italy’s best kept secret….an Italian version of Shangri-La. It was amazing!

As I got down to the beach next to the house I had seen earlier, I was exhausted. I ran into this Belgium guy, also called Ben, who invited me up for a beer. I couldn’t resist…

It ended up that the house was actually a group of private apartments. They get rented out as holiday accommodation and are surrounded by national park. There are deer running around the yard, that are so friendly that they will eat out of your hand, and there is only a private road for access. Apart from mad Australians walking through the bush, the only other way “outsiders” can drop in is by boat.

I was very impressed…an absolutely magical place!!!

And to top it off my hosts were great. A beer soon turned into an invite for dinner and a place to stay but as I hadn’t made it very far today, I only accepted the invite for dinner.

But best of all they let me use there shower :) I think it was my first proper wash in a week!

Three families joined together for our little dinner party and it was heaps of fun. You guys are all wonderful!!! Thanks heaps :)

When I went to leave I couldn’t find my torch. I figured I must have lost it during the repacking earlier in the day, but I was soooooo glad that I had this problem here rather than up in the national park! Luckily, my hosts renewed their offer for a place to stay so this time I accepted.

What a great day :)

Pilgrimage from Lumiere to Castiglione Della Pescaia 03/08/07

I got going about 07:30 this morning and had a reasonably pleasant walk to Follonica…as pleasant as it can be walking along the main road anyway :)

I don’t know whether they do this every day, or whether it was just a one off, but as I arrived in town a huge market was being set up. It was like being in Thailand with heaps of really cheap clothes, shoes and general junk.

It seems I was just in time because as this market was setting up the food market next door was closing down, so I went and got a feed of chicken and chips. I then stuffed around town for a few hours and decided that I would walk some of the night.

From about 100kms ago, whenever I walk on the main roads, signs tell me how far I’ve got to go to get to Rome…every 100m! Its been driving me mad because I am constantly working out what day I think I'll arrive. To make it worse, whenever I check flights to London the prices keep on increasing!

Now, I’m sure there are a few of you out there thinking “What’s he doing flying to London? Isn’t he meant to be walking to Jerusalem?”. And the answer is “yes…good question” :)

I have decided to have a few weeks off in August where I will be actively drumming up support for a documentary, Hopefully I will be walking again by the start of September.

So, now I’ve decided to arrive in Rome on the morning of the 10th. This means hat I have to walk just over 30kms a day until then. So a night walk was sounding good to give myself a head-start.

It was a great walk into the hills but I was a bit worried I was going to hungry as the town that I planned to have dinner in, Pian D’Alma, turned out to be not much of a town.

The first restaurant I tried was just closing, but they also sold some local products so I figured if I was going to go hungry I might as well get a bottle of wine…

All was not lost though, I soon found this posh little restaurant which looked great. I thought I better treat myself :) I had an awesome meal of beef stew, a big plate of beans and a nice bottle of wine. It was a perfect pilgrims meal.

I only ended up having a couple of glasses of my wine, so that bottle went in the bag as well and then it was then back to the road. As you can imagine it was a bit of a struggle after such a good meal…

The walk was great! I got a lot of people honking for encouragement…or more likely honking to say “get off the fucking road you dickhead!”, but I took them for honks of encouragement ;)

When I finally made it to Castiglione Della Pescaia it was almost 1am and I was buggered. This town has a long stretch of hotels and caravan parks so I thought I was going to have to walk the 2kms through it before finding a suitable campground. Luckily I was wrong. There was a farmers paddock right in the middle of everything, and it had a ditch down the side, that when I set up within, gave me perfect cover :)

Pilgrimage from Cecina to Lumiere 02/08/07

I had the best sleep last night that I’ve had in a long time :)

My phone ran out of batteries yesterday so I didn’t have an alarm, and as I was sleeping in a park where camping wasn’t allowed, I was a bit worried I would sleep-in and get woken by the cops. Luckily, that wasn’t to be. At the first sound of people walking around the forest, around 06:30, I was up and about.

The morning walk was great but I was amazed at the amount of people running, walking and going to the beach. I had never seen so many Italians up this early…but it was probably just the German and Dutch tourists ;)

About 4-5kms down the road I came into another area of campgrounds. Camping must be a national sport here, there are acres upon acres of campgrounds down this coast. And they are all packed to the brim…it’s great!

I soon found one that had wireless, Camping Village “Free Time” in Marina Di Bibbina, but I was a bit disappointed to find that they only sold day passes. You can imagine my surprise when I was informed that they only wanted to charge €5 for the whole day…finally a reasonable price!!! But it did mean that I had to drag myself away at noon as it was looking like I wasn’t going anywhere for the day.

The road then turned inland, and I finally found some Tuscan wineries! I figured that my attitude had improved enough over the last couple of days to warrant indulging myself slightly with some tasting ;)

It was a bit of a struggle finding one that was open though. All the ones I found were closed for lunch and the ones that had signs saying they were “open” were all a kilometer or two off the main road…

So, by the time I had made it to St Vincenzo I was still thirsty but also getting very hungry. It seems the four hours on the interet this morning really put me out of whack with the Italian time schedule. I couldn’t find a restaurant open anywhere!!! It was also a sign that I was out of “touristville” because this was the first time I haven’t been able to get some food in Italy.

Luckily I had learnt my lessons from the past and had some rations in my bag :)

So after lunch, I didn’t have to get far before I found a winery that was open. The woman serving, called Katrina, was great. She had traveled a lot and had studied with Osho’s followers in India so we had heaps to talk about. I tried their three wines they had available for tasting and they were awesome. The last one was amazing, but when I went to buy a bottle at the end it was €49! No wonder it was so good, but I settled on the €16 bottle :) And because I read Osho, Katrina gave me the tasting for free…Thanks, but shhh, we can’t let the boss know ;)

I then made it down to Venturina for dinner and had a great cheese ravioli. It was wonderful. That is the good thing about camping every night, I have lots of money for food.

I am in farming country once again, so there are not so many good places to camp. As it was getting dark I still hadn’t found anything so rather than risk getting woken-up by an angry farmer I decided to go and knock on a door and ask….

They didn’t seem to have a problem and pointed me in the direction of a good paddock…probably the neighbors ;)

Pilgrimage from Ardenza to Cecina 01/08/07

Just above my camp spot was a walkway that the night before was quite busy, so not wanting to be harassed in the morning, I set my alarm for 6am. It seems I was 15 minutes too optimistic because at 05:45 I was awoken by this vicious dog barking wildly at my tent. Luckily when I pocked my head out it was still up on the path, so I figured as long as it had an owner I would probably be saved from it coming down and demolishing my tent. I was right, someone soon came by and dragged the dog off but it seemed like I better get a move on if I wanted to avoid a similar problem.

It was another nice walk down the coastline with beautiful views at every turn. Since I had started so early I just took it easy, stopping a lot.

It was a pretty eventless day after that. I followed the beach towns all the way to Cecina before looking for a campground. The first place was full, the next one wanted to charge me €26 so I bailed and then the one after that I would have taken at €19 except they didn’t have the internet. It still amazes me that they can charge €20 a night for a patch of dirt!!! And to make it worse they are packed! The world has gone completely mad!!!

The only reason I even consider paying €20 for a campsite is to have a shower, but after checking with the hotels and finding the cheapest at €50 I decided I could wash in the ocean ;) And that I did…

I walked past Cecina through this beautiful pine forest and found myself a nice patch of beach to have a wash and watch the sunset. It was great.

And then, as it was getting dark, it was back into the forest to find a campsite.

Pilgrimage from Pisa to Ardenza 31/07/07

Well, what goes up must come down and my attitude has plummeted like a rock :) I have lost all motivation to do anything. I don’t feel like being sociable, I don’t feel like drinking or eating, and I definitely don’t feel like walking!

Once again when my alarm went off this morning I just turned it off and went back to sleep. I didn’t feel like moving anywhere.

My attitude over the last few days has been pretty crap and now my bodies decided to join in the fun. When I stopped last night my heels were a bit sore but they seemed to get worse through the night. Every time I rolled over they would wake me up in pain. They weren’t any better when I finally got up to leave so it was a painful first few kilometers.

It didn’t help that the transvestites were out in force as well. Normally I find their over the top exuberance amusing but today it was all a bit much. Every time they tried to talk to me I got a headache :(

Over the last few weeks I have been finding it easy to walk for 10kms without taking a rest but lately I have been lucky to make 4-5kms. It seems that as soon as I start walking all I think about is stopping again.

I managed to stagger the 20kms to Livorno and spotting a laundry on the way in I decided to do some washing. It was token operated and there was no one around to help so after inserting €20 it asked if I wanted 6 tokens (4 too many). I pushed the “no” button but to no avail. I then rang the number on the machine but the woman didn’t speak any English. I figured if I wait the machine would give up and spit my money back out….it didn’t :( I gave up first and got the 6 tokens…

I was feeling pretty pissed off by this stage and put my clothes on and went for a feed. This cheered me up a bit and I realized that rather than being pissed off, I now had the chance to repay a bit of the generosity that I had been receiving over the last few weeks. So I went back to the laundry and gave away my extra four tokens. I think having a good meal helped as well, but this left me feeling much better :)

After going to the internet I thought I could make another 10kms before dark. I didn’t count on taking a wrong turn, so I only made five, but oh well…

I have also noticed that Tuscany has a lot of rubbish! It is really surprising but along all the roads and in a lot of parks there is rubbish everywhere.

I found a really nice spot by the river and set up to watch the sunset. I also had one last job to do before bed, which was to pop the big blister that had appeared on my little toe. It wasn’t pretty :)