A RETIRED Swindon dentist has completed an 500 mile walk along a historic pilgrimage route in France and Spain.

John Le Coyte, who celebrates his 73rd birthday tomorrow, walked from Somport in France to Santiago De Compostela, where the apostle St James is believed to be buried.

The walk took 38 days, including two rest days.

The route, known as El Camino De Santiago, St James' Way, has been used by pilgrims since the ninth century.

Father-of five John, of Bishopstone, had a dental practice in Groundwell Road in Swindon for 40 years, before retiring five years ago.

Most people slow down when they retire but John still goes gliding and has now walked the Camino twice in three years, walking an average of 28km a day.

The route has particular significance for Catholics, who believed that the rigorous journey would halve their stay in purgatory. But John says that religion was not the motive for himself or most of the people he met along the way.

He said: "Funnily enough, I walked for a while with three people who were religious, two Roman Catholic priests and one Anglican, and even for them it was not a religious act, but a way of communing with their own spirits.

"At the end I had the obvious feeling of elation but also disappointment because it was finished.

"In fact I walked particularly slowly at the end to prolong the feeling of solitude and detachment from day-to-day life."