Marreiros Marinade. 5th January 2022

Marreiros Marinade. 5th January 2022.

First walk of a new year, but some things remained the same. This turned out to be a typical DL walk, full of interest but strewn with errors once again. Keeps the conversation going, anyway.

It started well enough, with a gaggle of Easterners gathering in Alte to be guided to Marreiros by the leader. Meanwhile Ros was waiting at the start with coffee, joined by those intrepid enough to find their own way to this rather difficult location. 

The convoy to the start (4 cars) was an Odyssey in itself, with the Leader turning up wrong  lanes twice before remembering the correct road to take along the Conqueiros valley.  (car is fine, by the way) Finally arriving at the start-point, coffee was served, along with Dinah´s Remarkably Good Mince Pies. 

Those participating were:

Ros, Frank, Sergio, Jim (friend of Sergio) Richard Tony, Julie, Sue M, Karen, Martin, Kevin, and David. Rafa the hound also attended, and certainly covered three times the distance running back and forth. Very good to see Richard back with us for a while, and welcome to Kevin, who was not put off by his previous walks with AWW.

Start photo didn´t register in the phone, so a later one will have to suffice. (and no, I didn´t have the cover over the lens!) The first objective was the peak of Coentral, necessitating a valley walk of some 5k, extended on this occasion by a missed turning and a backtrack. The weather was sunny and increasingly warm, though clouds were starting to appear. The peak was attained without further incident, and the excellent 360 views admired.

The View.

The Crew

On the descent, a second navigation error led to another turn around, and we came down into the valley a little off course. This was easily corrected, and lunch was taken once we were back on track.

Sergio fell off his stones earlier, but wouldn´t oblige for the camera!

A further, shorter valley walk led to the second, less taxing ascent, and the retreat from the hills took place in an orderly fashion. At a strategic point on the run-in, the decision was taken to complete the planned walk rather than accept the offered short cut, so the twelve carried on south to cross the Marreiros road a k or so short of target, and worked round the back of a wooded hillside to climb the third and last hilly obstacle of the day. 

Before we could reach the last climb, a huge obstacle had to be lifted out of the way.

Reaching the stump of an old windmill after a final very steep heave, the descent began, followed by a discussion, followed by a split decision as to how to get back to the start-point. Everyone made it back safely, from one direction or another, and it was decided to return to Alte, where end of walk refreshments were consumed at Restaurant A Ponte - half indoors on this occasion, as there was a cold wind and threat of rain (which didn´t materialise, though we had had a very short shower earlier, plus a few drops later on.)

The Long and Thin of it.

We walked just short of 18k, nearly 2k over estimate because of above named errors, and it took us almost 5 hours. The walk involved around 600m of ascent. 

The route shown below is the one planned rather than the one walked. A small modification will be made to the end of the walk for future reference -  see onfootinthealgarve.com  Thanks to Ros and Dinah for the very welcome pre-walk comestibles.