Hey, you gits! I resent all this shorty business. Good thing about Spain is I appeared taller than average until the Scandinavians went zooming past!

For info, John, I calibrated a pedometer when I started training, averaging the stride-count over 10 separate measured kilometres on the flat, giving me a known average stride of ##.# cm. I didn't use the pedometer on the Camino, and I haven't factored in allowances for ascents and descents, so my figure is based on 778,000 / 0.### if you follow my drift. Hardly scientific, but it gives a rough idea!

This, by the way, is my iconic Camino photo, taken by a Canadian lady three days east of Burgos, when the wheatfields were still green.



By July the landscape looked very different!



My Avatar is one of several shadow pictures I took...this one (Villamayor de Monjardín, 9th April) reminded me of the Sandeman's port advert!

It appears there is something missing..........

footycrazy wrote:It appears there is something missing..........

Hello. My name is Iñigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.


In case you never saw it!

Post no. 1000!!

I first read in Tim Moore's book "Spanish Steps" that a pilgrim on the Camino can expect to walk around a million paces, so there was some very good thinking going on there - well done!

My stride length, averaged over 10k on the flat, came out as 71.5 cm. According to my trusty MS Excel, that comes out, over 778 km, as...

...1,088,112

The closest guess, remarkably, was only out by just over 3000, at 1,085,000...

Well done, Jape!

Now Jape, like several other people, has kindly suggested that I sell the watch-case and give the proceeds to Childreach, which I am very happy to do...thank you!

However, I know nothing whatsoever about eBay so I am proposing to put it up for sale on the forum first.

Thank you all for your excellent company, advice, help and encouragement over the last seven months...I've learned a lot and discovered that there is a whole world of beautiful watches I never knew existed!

Dammit, I had you down as a 0.76m striding kind of guy. You must have unnaturally short legs.

Seriously, congrats Jape. Nice one.

And, thanks again Steve. Great gesture.

I'm sorry I seriously underestimated the lenght of your steps. My guess was off by some 700 000! You must be in way better shape than I thought.

Wis wrote:I'm sorry I seriously underestimated the lenght of your steps. My guess was off by some 700 000! You must be in way better shape than I thought.

Cheeky sod! According to atnits I'm about 11 feet tall!!

I didn't realise you meant the number of steps with both legs.

Mortis wrote:I suspect atnits may be a bit optimistic unless you secretly used a pogo stick!

Actually, that's a serious point! The Roman military passus was around 5 feet, being one pace with each foot, hence the Roman "mile" (mille passuum) of about 5000 feet.

Kip wrote:Congratulations to both AVO and Jape. Well done and for a good cause.

Great achievement abd a great gesture...

Amor Vincit Omnia wrote:

footycrazy wrote:It appears there is something missing..........

Hello. My name is Iñigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.


In case you never saw it!

One of the best films and THE best book I have read

Well done Jape

Cheers, guys!

I never win anything so this is nice.

And thank you to AVO for arranging this guessing competition!

Hope somebody buys and charity benefits!

Now maybe I have to think up something similar if and when I reach 1000. Shame I don't have anything nice watch-related since I only recently caught this watch bug.