AWW Fonte Ferrea Wednesday 12th May 2021

 

AWW Fonte Ferrea Wednesday 12th May 2021

Finally with most of the Covid-19 restrictions removed a good turnout of 12 hardy hikers arrived in Fonte Ferrea (just north of Alportel) on a cloudy but warm morning on May 12th.  

Our group from left included:

Sergio, Alan, Jan, Sue, Dave, David, Frank, Miriam, Ken, Brenda, Ros, myself and our three canine friends.

With an on time start we climbed up the first of s series of hills to begin a sequence of ridge routes and some great views:

It was shortly later that in what Sue would describe as deserved hubris I quite literally fell on my ass on a downhill stretch. Undeterred we carried on : 

As the morning began to heat up it was on the longest toughest hill that one of our crew decided to lighten his load and abandon his smartphone. Quickly spotting this only at the very top of the hill a pair of our extreme athletes volunteered to descend the hill and recover it. 

The rest of the group carried on to reach the miradouro at Alta da Ameixeira for a well deserved pit  stop and some detailed instructions from Jan:

 

to which Ken and Miriam paid close attention:

The views and colours up here were lovely:

 We then began a long slow descent with an opportunity to admire the local flora:

We had hardly arrived at our chosen lunch stop when our extreme athletes Dave and Sergio arrived with the recovered smartphone.

As usual Sue had some doggie treats much appreciated by Bica and Rafa:

Before we set off after lunch Dave treated us to his "The Rock" impression:

With a couple of water crossings and some local village scenes we soon reached our final stop in Cafe Avalanche:

                                                                             cork oak

Cafe Avalanche and a well deserved drink:

Thanks to everyone for some great chat. Special thanks to Dave and Sergio for recovering the phone. Thanks to Alan for his photos as usual and also thanks to Roger whose route I stole.

Total distance about 15.2km.

Route details: