Hi Veronica -
Lucky you living in the Hunter Valley - what a spectacularly beautiful place it is - gorgeous vineyards too! You must have some fantastic training walks!
If you could get down to Sydney for one of the meetings before you leave, that would be terrific. You'd be very, very welcome. Co-Ordinator Julie (we have two - Julie and Sandra) gives a presentation to new pilgrims which is chock-full of useful information which runs for about an hour, then the rest of us arrive and we all spread out together, eat, drink, chat, laugh and share stories of life on and off the Camino - it's a wonderful and fun group.
At the last Saturday meeting at the beginning of this month we had a couple of our Forum members from country NSW join us - CaminoCruiser and AlanPearce. They both caught the train into Sydney for the day - it worked really well for them. There are many Forum members who are part of our group so we often chat about what's happening on the Forum.
The link to our group is
www.pilgrimsinsydney.org/.
Definitely take a tube of vegemite with you - you'll be really popular with the Aussies, the Kiwis and the Brits! Below is a photo of vegemite featured at the breakfast table at Gaucelmo last July.
Regarding the credencial, The Australian Friends of the Camino,
www.afotc.org/ issue a credencial to members. I'm not sure if there is a charge. They can be contacted through their website. Pilgrims in Sydney also have a link to the AFOTC. Ivar sells credencials too and they can be ordered online through the Camino Store on the homepage here on the Forum, if you'd like to have your credencial organised in advance.
If you'd like to PC me on anything I'd be more than happy to answer questions and to help and if I don't know the answer, I will know someone who does.
Happy planning and happy training!
Cheers - Jenny