Let’s start with the easy ones … I, Jacqui White, being of sound mind and body (it’s all relative, right?) am walking 800kms across Spain on the Camino de Santiago, one of the oldest Christian pilgrimage routes in the world.  I am starting in a matter of days (eek) from St Jean Pied de Port in France and hoping to finish in Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain something like five weeks later. That’s the plan anyway.

Though sprawled across an airport chair in Kuala Lumpur at 5am (on whose body clock I don’t know) those headlines don’t seem real.  I know when I get home that everything from insect spray to walking socks is laid out ready for final inspection before I pack. My first night’s hotel is booked.  My boots are worn in (though not the new orthotics that arrived at the 11th hour!) and for the last six months I have been hoovering up anything written by those inspired by their own camino experiences.

So in theory, I am ready. Yep, ready.  All set. Locked and loaded.  Firing on all cylinders. All systems go.  Ready to cue the Thunderbirds. Not at all fighting back a bubbling case of mild hysteria. Just to be clear on that.

So, onto the big question … Why?

By all accounts, this is one of the most common questions asked along the way and I am feeling a slight pressure to have a quick and pithy answer at the ready.  I know whatever I say at this point is going to have my wiser, more centred (infinitely fitter) self chuckling knowingly at my naivety a few weeks down the track … but surely that is half the fun?

So … I think I have three little ‘whys’ up my sleeve:

1. I need a time out.  A very wise woman I know recently described this as an excellent opportunity to ‘declutter my mind’.  I think that pretty much nails it.  I tend to take an all or nothing approach to most things which, coupled with a tendency for having a few too many balls up in the air, means I create a *little* more stress for myself than absolutely necessary. Which is fine, and fun, and at times extremely satisfying, but does mean I need a good time out every now and again.

2. I don’t recognise myself in the mirror anymore.  On the inside, I am an active, sporty, competitive(!) health nut eagerly awaiting a last minute call up from the Australian netball team. On the outside, I am an overweight, middle aged woman that sits at a computer all day and is doing her best to keep Starbucks (and the world’s most impoverished chai latte farmers) afloat.  Does not compute.  Need to figure that out.

3. I am not sure I can do this.  There isn’t much that daunts me, and yet – even though you wouldn’t call this a high adrenalin sport – I am a little bit scared I won’t be able to pull this off.  But hey, a little bit of fear is good for you, right?

Cue Camino.  And end the navel-gazing … am thinking my posts going forward are more likely to centre on blisters and map-reading blunders than existential angst, so thought I would get the heavy stuff out of the way first.

In any case, the sun is now up on KLIA airport and it is time to take my shiny red toenails on a final spin round the airport before I board my final flight back to Blighty.