2 June 2021 : cafe Madeiras Pao Quente, Santa Catarina da Fonte do Bispo

                    Cafe Madeiras Pao Quente, Santa Catarina da Fonte do Bispo

                                                         

                                                                 Mountaineering Jim at top

                 (Lto R) : Sergio, Frank, Sue M, Gill, Jan, Karen, David, Brenda ( I presume, in mask)

9 walkers, no dogs set off from Madeiras Pao Quente cafe in Santa Catarina da Fonte do Bispo, a new area for most. The walk I had initially recced I decided I didn’t like, it was mainly industrial and agricultural, the views were not  great so at the last minute I decided to do something else....no idea how long it was and in fact I worried it may not reach the 15km I had advertised. I was wrong, if we had completed the whole route we would have done about 23km.

Breasting a hill.....

It was a warm day, not much shade.

        First Brenda marched them to the top of the hill, and then she marched them down again...

The route was undulating with plenty of ascent  I could hear behind me, people saying “I can see another hill, I bet we are going up there”!!.....”oh nooo another hill”.

                              

                                 David wondered if that was a stage to give an impromptu concert...

The walk reminded me of my children when they were young....”how far have we done” “how far to go now” “have we nearly finished” this did make me giggle to myself.

                                                                   Ah, lunch in the shade......

From the cafe we made our way up hill on tracks through Corte do Peso, where we crossed the road and went off piste up to Eiras Altas passing a trig point, nobody fancied the challenge of claiming the hill to stand on the trick point. We continued on an undulating track, (we passed my gardeners house, he told me later he had heard us before he saw us)! until we reached a steep downhill section which took us to the bottom of the valley.

 A bit of road walking took us to Umbria and a picnic site in the shade for lunch, I had particularly chosen this spot because it was beside a river just in case we had any dogs. Retracing our steps back for little while before another stretch of uphill once more into Eiras  Altas where I knocked on a friends door for water as some people were running low, followed  by a descent  and a short cut back to the cafe for a chatter and a well deserved drink.

                                                                    Where's the cold Sagres?

Everyone was well behaved,  it was a hilly walk and a very warm day so everyone did amazing.
Thanks

Brenda.