Come Walk With Us on the Trans Canada Trail (TCT)

  Given our experiences on 7 Camino routes in Europe, on 5 Canadian Caminos, leading a Birding the Way tour in Spain in 2022 , and our Camino presentations we were found last year by Dave Whitson the talented individual behind the popular Camino Podcast.   A couple of weeks ago we were honoured to be interviewed by Mr. Whitson for an episode of the Camino Podcast about our time hiking and birding along the Via Podiensis / GR65 , one of the main Camino routes across France. We hope you enjoy:  Podcast Episode 66 - The Via Podiensis - Rocamadour See you on the trail! Remember to follow our entire adventure here : www.comewalkwithus.online                                

Today we were honoured to receive a letter from the City of London recognizing and congratulating us on hiking more than 13, 700 km across 10 provinces on the Trans Canada Trail.    The expedition photographer and Royal Canadian Geographical Society photographer of Come Walk With Us is Sean Morton who grew up in London attending Northdale PS, John Paul II high school and the University of Western Ontario .   We also spent a great deal of time living here and raising a younger family member.   Over the past three years off the trail we have again spent a great deal of time back in London Ontario house sitting.   To have our efforts acknowledged and to be recognized as “achieving a number of firsts as Ontarian and Canadian Naturalists, Conservationists, and Explorers as well as hikers on the Trans Canada Trail” is amazing.   Sean is amazed and humbled by having his efforts to photograph and document the entire Great Trail from St. John’s Newfoundland to Victoria BC to the Arctic

Our goal for today was downtown Victoria, which was only 13 km from the hotel we stayed in last night, and only 18 km from Point Zero, at Clover Point.   When we walked our first Camino in Spain along the Camino Frances route , trekking 800 km from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, we noticed two types of reactions in our fellow pilgrims as we reached the end of The Way.   Some hikers dramatically picked up their pace, clearly driven by the excitement of reaching a destination that had previously seemed unattainable on foot. Alternatively, others slowed way down, wanting the journey to last as long as possible.   We definitely fell into the latter category, stopping every 5 km or less for a café con leche, tortilla, or slice of Santiago cake and a chat with our fellow hikers.   Today we find ourselves in a similar mood – now less than 20 km from the Point Zero marker at Clover Point, we are suddenly in no hurry to reach it, despite a long, hard, exhausti