I find all these recommendations and assertions interesting but comfort myself with the thought that, subject to a sudden and significant tectonic event, the distances between two given points on this poor benighted planet remain the same. The assessed, mapped or GPS'd distances will vary, inevitably, depending on projection, scale, datum and the sobriety or otherwise of the track generator. There is a particularly lovely, published, track on GoogleEarth ( other mega-global corporations are available) where you can appreciate the poor sods "digestive disturbances" as they lurch significantly off-trail on a frequent basis. Satellite view makes it clear that they were heading for the bushes every time. In consequence their 'distance' between two given points and their elapsed time is significantly greater than that that might have been undertaken by anyone without that extra challenge.
Brierleys elevations aren't inaccurate. The scale he has chosen to represent them causes some interesting illusions. Nor are his distances. The Camino varies, it moves like a python, it twists and curves and sometimes even goes around on itself. It changes every day as the Amigos, the Juntas & xuntas, the local bar owners and the Concielos move a Mojone, bulldoze a new bit of auto-pista peregrinos, or just spray a bit of yellow paint on a tree. If you really, and I do mean really, want to know how far it is take a surveyors chain with you. Though, of course, the distance you have measured will only be the distance you have measured: it will not be the distance your fellow pilgrims who shook their heads in wonder as they passed you walked. For the more technically minded - bear in mind that subscriber GPS, never mind free-to-view, is about as accurate as St John's obvious guesswork. You don't get access to military precision.
The comfort for us all is that Santiago d' C isn't going anywhere and it will be there, where it has always been, when we get there.
