Querenca - The sequel

On a beautiful morning Wednesday November 11th the Eastern Algarve Wednesday Walkers subgroup famous five reconvened in Querenca and having hiked to the North and West of the village we completed the circle and hiked to the East and South. Interestingly, we had two hike leaders: Martin for the first 9km and Sue for the second half. Worryingly neither of us had reccied the overall route together before Wednesday.

 The Famous Five: Jan, Julie, Sue, Tony and Rafa. (Martin taking the photo!).

We setoff down the now familiar hill to the valley below before climbing the now familiar hill to the north and then turning left to explore a scenic river valley. The morning was heating up at this stage and we followed a long meandering route to arrive at Fonte Benemola and a quick stop to admire the local artwork:

Jan and Tony get ready for a quick photo

Not bad as graffiti goes 

With the shot in the bag Jan and Tony looked happy to continue:

While Sue and Julie looked on :

We then started a long show climb back towards Querenca with a short intermission while Rafa went awol chasing a cat. Sue's part of the hike then took us down a previously unexplored lovely donkey type trail down towards Fonte Filip with amazing colours for a November morning:

Look at all the happy faces

 As we neared our lunch stop we crossed the first of several streams. this first one was taken in their stride by the ladies in our group:

Our carefully chosen and comfortable lunch stop was very welcome after almost 12km.

In the window of this abandoned cottage we discovered a bird's nest. Sadly, unless one of our experienced birders can correct us this looked to contain an abandoned egg:

After lunch the hike continued as encountered some more challenging water crossings. This time Julie and Sue decided it was time for a foot bath :

As we continued to wind our way through the countryside Tony spotted yet another work of art, this time on Jan's back:

Art by Jan 

Along the way we also passed some items of agricultural and artistic interest:

An olive press ?

Finally, we wound our way back to Querenca for a well earned drink. Sadly the writer at this stage was far too interested in the cider to preserve this enjoyable moment for AWW posterity.

Route Stats:

Length 18.5km

Total ascent 531m

Thanks to Julie, Tony and Sue for photos from the day.

Martin

November 2020