Oh I do like to be beside the seaside: Down by the boardwalk!!

 AWW covid 19 offshoot group. Wednesday 14th April, 2021. Around the Rio Formosa.

Frank's group (minus Frank again because of CV19 rules) set off from our house in Vale do Garrao dressed for the impending rain!

David, Ros and Ken, plus Jasper and Bica who'd already gone off exploring. Miriam is the photographer.

 We set off across the Rio Formosa parque behind Ken and Miriam's house and had to resort to limbo walking under the new boardwalk to get to the beach.  Such a shame there was no sun that day to welcome us.

          

As the tide was out we were able to walk quite a way along the beach past some locals gathering clams. We then turned up onto the new boardwalk which stretches from Garrao beach most of the way to Faro airport.

We spotted some swanky houses, and locals collecting ? clams,  and thousands of fiddler crabs.

Difficult to see in detail but there was lots of discussion about, and watching of these crabs, who all had one very large claw which they were waving about and gong in and out of their nests(holes).  On returning home to look up on Google, I discovered that true to our conversations these fiddler crabs were in fact involved in  courtship behaviour.  Fascinating to watch but Ken was heard to wonder whether in fact it was "prawnography".

We passed the old Roman salting Baths which they used to collect the salt for preserving their meat and fish.

Then it was on to the lake and bird hide at Sao Laorenco. David was the only twitterer amongst us and pointed out some beautiful birds.

Miriam and Ken were thrilled to point out the stork nests complete with storks only to be told by Ros that there were dozens of them in Silves!  Ah well it was novel for us!

Then it was lunch time.  As it was now quite warm and the rain that had been threatening all day didn't appear any closer, we opted for the shade only to find that it was in fact quite cool! 

So off we started again to discover the salt piles were being taken somewhere to do whatever they do to the salt. 

                                                                            

More storks!

Jasper discovered a very muddy puddle!!

And so retracing our steps past the fiddler crabs, then up into the wooded area in Ancao, before heading back home for tea and cake.  

Stats:

Distance: 19.01 km

Time: 4 hours 51 mins (excluding lunchstop)

Elevation: 31 metres!

(Not quite the full route as we added on a bit at the end but near enough!)

And just as short while later we got the rain! So lucky during the walk though.