Explore articles:
Publisher: Michael Thornton Books: Available on all ebook platforms michaelthorntonbooks@gmail.com
Despite quadruple heart bypass surgery, fear of failure, and concern over being labelled a copycat for repeating the theme of the movie The Way—walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in memory of a lost son—64 year-old Melbourne writer Michael Thornton takes on the often gruelling 800km Spanish pilgrimage.
Michael’s epic pilgrimage is an honest, humorous, and breathtaking account of one man’s physical, mental, and spiritual journey in memory of his son, Jamie. “At least we’re not burying a dead son,” says Jillian, from Sydney, during a morning coffee stop, in a reference to the movie, ‘The Way’. “I am,” says Michael. The table goes quiet; Jillian is distraught. “There I go,” she says, “putting my foot in it again.”
Michael’s trek from St Jean-Pied-de-Port in southern France to Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain is plagued by self-doubt at having to walk 25kms a day for a month. Strange events occur. Michael tells of becoming lost in the dark yet being followed on a secluded stretch of disused highway by a figure resembling Saint James, the apostle to whom the Camino is dedicated and whose remains lie in Santiago Cathedral. Michael meets many friends and does indeed complete his Camino successfully, arriving in Santiago in just 27 days.