Walk 13 October 2021 : Brenda's neighbourhood, somewhere east of Sao Bras

   Walk 13 October 2021 : Brenda's neighbourhood, somewhere east of Sao Bras

Starter photo...L to R...Tony, Julie, Sue M, John, Susan, Martin, Brenda, Alan.....and 2 dogs, ignoring each other...

Photos are from Alan, captions are mine, but words  are by Brenda who has been rather too busy to blog herself....

It was a tough walk lots of assent, hot day, 20km in length, a little hazy so views wasn’t as good as they could have been.

Lunch in the shade

Looks tempting...

Looks high up....

Julie couldn't find a trig point, so sent Tony up the ruined windmill instead to look for one...

Found it...but no one told Brenda about the AWW tradition of youngest female having to climb it....usually with no shortage of men to help push her up....

...so John climbed instead....

Come on in, waters lovely

I had a senior/ blonde moment with the water tap, I couldn’t get it to turn off....Martin had a look at it or was it Alan I can’t  remember and it just turned off as normal.....(no, it looks like Tony!)

It's a tap....

.....and this is how you turn it on... 

Nearly home....

Back to mine for drinks and cake. Sue made some lovely cheese scones.

Brenda's house even has a trig point view...lots of Brownie points

....and more dogs than you can shake a stick at...trust Rafa was accepted...

Back to mine for drinks and cake. Sue made some lovely cheese scones. I had a senior/ blonde moment with the water tap, I couldn’t get it to turn off....Martin had a look at it or was it Alan I can’t  remember and it just turned off as normal.....

FIGUERAS AND THE VALLEY OF POI – WEDNESDAY 27 OCTOBER 2021

 

FIGUERAS AND THE VALLEY OF POI – WEDNESDAY 27 OCTOBER 2021

 

Thirteen walkers and 1 x dog.  Alan, Martin, Julie, Russell, Jan, Sue, Beala, Barry Gill, Frank, Ros, Tony and Raffa the dog.  (Welcome to Barry and Beaula our new walkers).

 After a quick coffee for some in the village we headed into the woods, past the orange groves and out past the motorway.  We paused to enjoy the artwork on the wall of a farmhouse, Bora Bora which translates “let’s go”.

 We crossed empty streams and took a short cut around an empty farmhouse.  This resulted in a scramble back down to the track.

It looked as if we were in the wild west of the Mexican desert as we waited for the horses to pass by.

 

We eventually came to the gradual hill climb. 

As we climbed up through the valley, we enjoyed the beautiful view of the baragem.  Some thought it was a Scottish Loch.

At the top of the ridge Ros shared her stash of Dutch sweeties whilst we enjoyed the views up to Monchique.

Raffa decided he wasn’t waiting around whilst we enjoyed the sweeties so we had to move on and follow our new leader.

Not everyone spotted the arrows from the recci.

 

 

Then it was down through the petrified forest of pine trees.  The result of the fire in July this year.

 

 

Lunch stop at the deserted farm house where some of us enjoyed the shade and Raffa enjoyed a few tasters from the selection of different sandwiches.  Barry had kindly brought some home made South African meatballs for the walkers to sample.

We headed down to the bottom of the valley onto mostly flat tracks and were impressed with the fly screen on the donkey. Russell doesn’t rate its chances in the Derby wearing that.

We joined the levada on our way back to Figueira.

Raffa seemed to know where he was headed so we all followed.

 

Back to the Social Club in Figueira for the post walk drinks.  Sue says they have been relinquished to 2^nd cheapest in the Algarve as Tor is the new number one.  Gill shared some cuttings from her Lemon Grass plants for all the ladies to take home.

I managed to reduce the distance down to just over 17kms with all the shortcuts in place and we completed the walk, including lunch in 4 hours and 20 minutes.

 

Thank you to those who joined us and made this a very enjoyable walk.  Also to Alan and Tony for the lovely photos.  See you soon.  

Linda and Russell

 

 

 

 AWW 20 - 10 - 21      The Mystery Stone Walk

The photos say it all !!

                                            

A disorderly crowd of 11 walkers ( yes, 11 !! ) met at A Ponte in Alte and made their way up into the village.

That´s more like it. Tony, Martin, Jim, Frank, John, Alan, Sue, Susan, David, Gill and Ros ( camera )

  

Up and up  -    it isn´t called Alte for nothing.

We walked along the old caminho linking Alte and Santa Margarida under a watchful eye

 Up to the converted windmill and down the track towards Fonte Santa 

We passed the Mystery Stone - literally as no-one spotted it  - but they were sent back to see if anyone could make sense of it

 no-one could so we continued down and along the valley to join the Via Algarviana where we did a short recce for Geoff´s next adventure

 No water in the Fonte but some cute little dogs

Heading now towards the N124 past a field of drying maize - Algarve autumn colours

 we took a diversion down into a ravine - no water but some welcome shade and then up onto the road for 10mins of tarmac

Lunch was in the dry riverbed of the Ribeiro do Alte

and then a long wide zig zag up the hill towards Monte Brito

To avoid a long uphill slog on hot tarmac back up to Alte David offered an alternative which most of us welcomed - but of course it wouldn´t be a David route without a few prickles ! 

We made it and soon the track led us down beside the orange grove

and there was light at the end of the tunnel !

A clamber up onto the road and we were back in Alte in no time

 for a welcome beer, wine or whatever.

Apologies to Sue and Gill who didn´t enjoy the prickles - has one of you resigned and thrown your boots away ?

Thanks for joining me and thank you David for your diversion.

I´m told the walk was about 15k .

The route was in my head .