Bingin along the Rhein

Our first real venture out was to check out Bingin which is tiny town along the Rhein. Wine grapes have been grown along the banks ( see picture above) for 2 thousand years.. just think about that for a few moments.. thats a very long time to be producing wine. Quite understandably, the Romans settled along the river banks as they conquered more of Europe. The Rhein is an incredibly powerful river and served as a tradeway for all the settlements, linking the Roman empire to its far flung outposts. 

It was a bit of a miserable day - but if you wait for a clear one, especially now its Autumn, you may be waiting till next spring. 

We went for a little walk along the river, discovered some camino signs (wow!! yes here is a camino linking up to the Spanish one that goes past here)

I took some photos of gardens for Michael - I love the flowers still out!

Putt Putt

We love putt putt. I know.. its such a daggy thing to like, but its been something the kids and I have enjoyed ever since they were tiny. I've promised that when we get back to Aus we will sort out a putt putt course somewhere on grandmas property - somewhere out of the way, but that everyone can come and enjoy it - esp at Christmas and Easter. 

Sadly the putt putt course we went to today was well in disrepair. It was an interesting idea to incorporate a playground with pine bark into the course - but one that clearly didn't work.

The sides were lose, so if a ball went a bit squew, it flew off down the slope. The fake grass was bald in alot of places and in others, plain missing. 

The angles required to hit the ball were extremely difficult and though interesting, the chunnels built to run the ball between greens were filled with rocks and bark ( thanks tiny kids)

The obstacles were kinda fun as it was all themes as a mining township. I liked the hole which required the kids to climb up a bit tower, hall the ball inside a bucket to their level and send it down a grooved ramp to the next hole.. Sadly.. you caught it - it was filled with rocks, so the ball got stuck.

Still, fun was had by all. We all won!

Revisiting the Camino - Statistics and my book

I'm in the process of writing a children's book - well one aimed at the tweens 8 - 11 yrs as well as a picture book for under 6's about our trek on the Camino.  I'll not say too much just yet, but I have a wonderful artist on board and have written the bare bones of chapters and pages. My plan is to have it presented to a publisher by Christmas this year.

In checking some of the stages and town names, I came across a blog which reports on the statistics of trekkers on the Camino. Check out the full analysis here

I was interested to see that there is an increase in numbers over the years, particularly for Australians.

Spanish pilgrims hold the highest number of people walking ( just under 50%), with Aussies nestled amongst the top ten at 1.5%; but taking it a bit further - if you looked at the numbers as a percentage of population, Australians are right up there.

Incredible to think that this year there were just under 3000 Aussies walking at some point between January and now; and we met soooo many while we were walking.

All the pilgrims numbers for the first 9 months of 2014,1 January - 30 September  

  

The total number of pilgrims who registered at the Pilgrims´ Office in the period 1 January – 30 September 2014 was 208,007.  Compared to the same period in 2013 this represents an increase of 9.6%.

How are the English speaking countries doing?

Country	2012	2013	2014	Growth %
Australia	1362	2253	2828	28%
Canada	2121	2372	2578	6%
Ireland	3542	4407	4358	-1.6%%
South Africa	593	615	509	-19%
United Kingdom	3170	3435	3687	8%
USA	5549	8165	9257	12%
New Zealand	274	390	485	40%