AWW Walk REPORT – 28 JANUARY 2026 – PINE TREES AND BARAGEMS

AWW Walk REPORT – 28 JANUARY 2026 – PINE TREES AND BARAGEMS

 

As we had some very heavy rain, gale force winds and reports on the news of flooding and uprooted trees from the previous night’s extreme storm I knew my original planned walk would be impassable.  Geoff contacted me and asked if we could do a different walk.  Therefore, I repeated the walk we did in November as it is at the other side of the road to the rivers, and had no official rivers, plus we could still meet at the café in Rasmalho.

Just 5 brave/crazy souls turned up at the café in Rasmalho, the rest had decided to stay safely at home. (There were some original excuses....trees down...chairs in swimming pool...even glass topped table in the pool...Ed)  We enjoyed a nice warm coffee before we headed up towards the start of the new walk.  We had all seen the gushing river flowing down from Monchique whilst driving to the café.   Julie and Tony had a slower journey than normal due to branches in the roads above Loule.

The 5 walkers: Tony, Linda, Sue, Julie, Geoff (the photographer) and Toby the dog.  Or as Julie suggested: the Enid Blyton famous five and Timmy the dog.

All was looking good as we set off in dry, mild weather with just small streams running down the side of the path.  A bit further along we started to zig zag down the valley, through the pine trees whilst admiring how full the baragems were and how the water level was almost up to the path. 

There were so many new rivers everywhere and even a small waterfall.  Of course these were all filling the small baragems.

Further along we came across our first challenge of the day.  What was a large puddle in November was now a deep flowing river as water tried to escape from the overflowing baragem.

Three of the group just waded through but Linda and Sue decided to paddle barefoot.  Luckily no one fell.

 

Just beyond the orange trees we could see in the distance a fast-flowing river coming down from Alferce.  We didn’t know there was a river there before. 

The sun was starting to come out and we were all in good spirits as we were pleased to be out in the fresh air.  So Geoff decided to take a photo and send it to Ros to show her what she was missing.

Tony took some very nice photos of the flowers.  It looked like Spring was arriving.

We headed down the valley and crossed a bridge over what is usually a trickle of a stream.  It was now a wide raging river. 

We had lunch in the derelict “Happy House”.....

 .........and sat on the dirty seats inside.  Whilst having lunch the leader decided to change the walk as she realised there would now be a river to cross further up the valley and it would be dangerous. 

 

So, after lunch we crossed back over the bridge, past the dodgy campsite and back up the hill, past all the lovely daisies again.  

Then took an alternative route back which was on higher ground with no rivers.  This worked out really well as the paths were all good.

 

Just near the end of the walk Toby the dog decided to go off into the scrubland and we spent around 10 minutes calling him and hoping he hadn’t gone down to the river below.  Luckily, he came bounding back with a happy grin on his face.

The walk was around 14kms and we completed it, including lunch, in 4 hours.

Back to the café for refreshments.

Thank you for joining me today on what turned out to be a great day for a walk.  Also thank you to Geoff and Tony for taking the photos.

Linda

Funcho & Lynxes

 Funcho & Lynxes

In my last blog, I postulated  that we should get away from the  " we went up some hills, then down, had lunch and ended with a drink" format and wander further afield....see how you get on with this. 

To begin...there is a rumour that Ros has an interesting walk out at Malhao ( the place with the inordinately steep hill) but fortunately the rain gods have prevented us checking this out...4 times now. So, at short notice, I repeated  my November wak, but in reverse : what could go wrong?

8 of us met at the Silva , some admiring the strangely shaped squash on the bar :

Others were more interested in the picture on the wall ( those of a delicate disposition should look away now ) ;

( those wating the more conventional blog, have a look at last time's, albeit in reverse, at   AWW 2015-24: Lynx Farm and Arade

Anyway, the starter photo :

L to R : Peter, Tim, Fiona, Marian, Kieran, Sue, Ros...Geoff behind lens as Alan believed to be  Down Under still

We welcomed back Kieran & Fiona , the former recovered from plantar fasciitis  and set off, with Tim and Geoff  starting a knobbly knees competition....actually shaming those in long trousers:

Our first sight of the Funcho was amazing...it was FULL :

Contrast with 2024....

What did I say about nothing could go wrong by walking in reverse? We walked right past  the usual lunch stop, but found a better seat by the lynx farm turnoff :

With some shunning the bank :

Kieran was a late entrant to the knobbly knees comp:

Thence down to an equally full Arade :

Peter reckoned it was fordable here...at low tide, anyway.

Ros was intent  on giving away jelly babes, of which she seemed to have an inexhaustable supply:

And thence to the only water crossing of note :

Where Tim discoverd, he reckons, some Jasper :

To save you looking it up.... "Jasper......an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or cryptocrystalline chalcedony and other mineral phases, is an opaque, impure variety of silica, usually red, yellow, brown or green in color; and rarely blue. The common red color is due to iron(III) inclusions. Jasper breaks with a smooth surface and is used for ornamentation or as a gemstone. It can be highly polished and is used for items such as vases, seals, and snuff boxes" says Wikipedia. So now you know....can look very pretty when polished.

Back for a well earned drink.....I wasn't too sure about repeating the walk so soon, but the reverse direction seemed to work and many commented they don't recall walks anyway. So, I think I got away with it.

Thanks for coming, and reading....oh, in Alan's absence, here are some walking derrieres...

Oh, distance no doubt same as before, 14.4kms...and we never saw any lynx either.

Geoff

Christmas 2025 : Funcho walk and O Gralha Lunch

 Christmas 2025  : Funcho walk and O Gralha Lunch

Back in the days of yor , when  most of the current WAGS were regular AWW walkers, blogs were more esoteric : a lot of erudite discussion ( waffle?) and, almost as an aside, a few phrases along the lines of " we went up some hills, then down, had lunch and ended with a drink". These days , the latter gets expanded and the former ceases to exist. Perhaps this New Year we can revisit these old ideas, pehaps starting with an EXTREMELY belated blog of last December's Christmas frolic...otherwise known to Agatha C fans as "The Tale of the stolen Javali."

To begin....the usual coffee in the sun at O Gralha:

with Ros waxing about the Dutch coffee cups.

Nothing to do with the new owners origin ; a lovely lady from Moldova whose Portuguese ( says Ros) is worse than her English. But then she is a good cook and has changed the  closing day of the restaurant from a wednesday to a monday . Bad luck for my monday CVO rambler walks and lunches, Good News for AWW lunches.

18 came for the walk, usual crowd including Moura and Carol...plus Toby of course.

We set off by the snail farm, Peter wondering if we could ask for a tour...

Now that Alan our resident official photographer was back in harness, here is an example of his signature photo of walking derrieres...

The  Funcho was the fullest some of us had seen, so we stood to admire:

Jan had commented on my  previous walk that there weren't enough hills....though strangley  did not volunteer to go up here, which we had done in the distant past. Peter did volunteer, but he  would have been on his own .

This is beginning to sound a bit like " we went up some hills, then down, had lunch and ended with a drink", so had better say we got back to O Gralha to be joined by not only  Ken and Miriam , but Maria, a regular WAGS  walker but not seen on AWW for some time. Lovely to have her back with us. Some donned their Christmas Jumpers, with not an arrow in sight....

We had a rather exotic array of starters......we think this was some sort of baccalau...

And a rather copious supply of wine...

I think this was a toast to the AWW...

Not too sure about this one....

However, to get back to the alternative title.....where was my javali?7 were ordered, 7 delivered, but someone down the other end of the table must have mistaken javali for roast pork. The culprit remains unkown!

I managed to remember to thank the various Mrs's Kitty ( Jan, Ros, Julie, Miriam) and Ros for organising the lunch. ( I could digress on the plural  of Mrs Kitty.....not Mrs Kittys or Mrs Kitties, google thinks Mmes Kitty or perhaps Mses Kitty.....take your pick). Plus all the walkers and especially the leaders ( bit of a dying breed....3 current ones are injured, putting an extra load on those remaining)  Ros kindly presented me with a bottle :

Stephen kindly recalled the walk stats :

So, many thanks for reading this far ( if you have) and for another successful AWW year. Roll on 2026 and may our many injured colleagues soon get back to full health.

Thanks to alan for photos.

Geoff