Three days down and only one more to complete this week. We knew that today’s walk would be the longest due to a new solar panel farm that has been developed over the last two years. Where the walk should have been around 20kms it ended up at 24km. As we gathered at the start in the village of Furnazinhas we saw local people arriving at the start ready for a walk too.
They all had white T shirts and all must have been well over 70 years old. ...(bit like some of us then, Ed).It turns out there was a local walking festival for the elderly and the local Camara (council) was busing them in and there must have been nearly 100 of them. Their own photographer was good enough to take our group picture but as we were amongst so many old people they asked us to wear masks.
We then set out around 10am on our own walk and after a climb out of the village we were met by some panoramic views across the Algarve countryside.
At the next village we came across a local man who showed us his haul if olives and outside the village we were met by Jan’s husband, Otter in their campervan, where we observed a 2 minute Silence as it was Armistice Day.
As we continued we noticed that some member of the Algarve Wednesday Walkers had marked the way markers with an AWW and we found more ( AWW = Frank Was Here!...Ed)
The next village brought us a goat herder who was very curious as we walked by and so was his dog and a few of the goats.....( Jim first of all thought they were walkers in the distance, then hunters....should have gone to Specsavers...Ed)
Lunch found us sitting on some very uncomfortable rocks amongst a few trees looking down over the solar panel farm.
After lunch we found a fire watch tower with great views looking across the solar panels.
We then made a long slow decent down to our destination village called Vaqueiros and a well earned cold beer only to meet their dog with fleas. The walk was 24kms and we managed it with a lunch break in just over 6 hours which is pretty good going.
After the walk I headed home but I heard a few stories about the events at the hotel later. It would appear that Miriam took a liking to some flashing dog collars and the owners were good enough to offer her one for Bica but to be sure Ken was kind enough to model the collar to make sure it was exactly what Miriam wanted (was it for the dog or Ken I wonder!).
Words and photos by Alan.
Many thanks to Alan, our official photographer, who volunteered to write the blog after the walker who drew the short-straw to do so, declined. I do hope the dog collar Ken wore wasn't from the flee-ridden dog....
ReplyDeleteA good read. And clearly a good walk.
ReplyDeleteA long slog, indeed. Bearing blisters and more blisters. Thank you, Alan for not publishing my prostrate postion during lunch. An interesting read.
ReplyDelete