VA Day 7 : Silves to Middle of Nowhere

 VA Day 7 : Silves to Middle of Nowhere

The beginning did not start well. Having organised ( or so I thought) a rather complex schedule for the cars to be at the correct start and finish points, suddenly realised that two of the walkers who were only coming for the day, were likely to be left stranded at the finish in The Middle of Nowhere ( otherwise known as MoN, and NOT to be confused with Monchique, which actually did happen). Anyway, a panic call to Linda made arrangements for Russell to pick Linda and Sarah up from MoN at the finish. 

Most of us then met at the Casa de Pasto a Parreirinha to go in convoy to MoN, when the next panic attack occurred. Having given Ros & David dispensation to meet us at Silves, realised they might be stranded at MoN too! My bacon was saved when Frank arrived, a little unexpectantly, and readily agreed to leave his car at MoN , so that all could get lifts back.

How can lift sharing get so complicated? Could anything else go wrong?

Well, yes!

We drove up to MoN to see:

Why the road graders had chosen that day to go to town in MoN remains a mystery, but we managed to park the cars and share lifts back to Silves, to find David, Sarah, Ros and Linda and Jan  waiting patiently. Otter took the starter photo:

Back row L to R : Ken, John, Jim, Sarah, Geoff, David, Gill, Frank, Miriam, Marian

Front row : Susan, Ros, Jan, Linda, Sue (and Alan!)

(woops....as pointed out below in comments, Alan took the photo, with his self-timer,  my apologies!)

And then we were off...farewell to Silves Castle:

and windmill:

and off into a long sequence of Ups and Downs...

The leader managed a brief rest en route:

The rest of the mere mortals had to wait till we got to the watch tower;

Before some more Ups and Downs:

...in some cases , very steeply down...

At least Bica found somewhere to cool off...

The rest of us had a few stepping stones to cross.....

....before lunch with beautiful views:

.....with Linda finding the comfiest spot....again...

Jim has never heard of the AWW rule " Thou shalt not climb a hill after lunch", and so....

These solar panels didn't seem to belong to anyone....

and traffic lights with no roads?....

.....apparently, to warn of flooded roads....

We crossed a bridge, with David commenting that, back in the day, the water stretched right across the valley floor...

With the end almost in sight, Jim gets his leg over....

And down through a Mimosa filled valley.....

where Bica found one last stretch of water,....

And so to MoN, with lifts for all, back to Silves for a well earned drink, with Miriam's white wine being a tad on the large size...(drinking with a mask is hazardous)...

A beautiful day, great walk, thanks to Gill & Jim for all their hard recce work.....and to Alan for most of the photos.

Could anything else go wrong though? Well yes...Marian had lost her phone...no sign in car nor at meeting point....but later safely discovered in our car!

Distance

17.7 km

Time spent moving

4:11 h

Ascent

414 m

Descent

390 m

Avg. speed (throughout time spent moving)

4.3 km/h

Geoff