Barranco do Velho walking festival - Day 3

Circular walk from Parizes

10.11.23

We were joined by Alan and Jan for the final day of the walking festival.  L to R: John, Ros, Marian, Susan, Gill, Alan, Sue, Geoff, Jan, Miriam and Ken with Ziggy and Bica in the front.

  Jim had sat on this chair in the bus shelter the day before .... and broken it!  But overnight the chair repair shop had been there and mended it with staples! Jim decided not to risk sitting on it again. Miriam spotted what she thought may have been some glasses on the floor; turned out Sue had lost hers so was happy to find them.  Maybe she'd taken a lesson from Ros, who searched high and low at breakfast for the glasses she left down on the dinner table the night before.  Rather sheepishly she admitted that she'd actually found them tucked in her jumper that she'd taken down to dinner and forgotten about !! (too much wine Ros?!!)

And so although we didn't have the wonderful blue skies and sun of the day before , we set off for to quote Jim " a wind down muscle relaxant of about 15 kms."  Who was he kidding!!

The first section was a quite tricky downhill overlarge rough stones and as it had rained overnight were quite slippery.  Once in the valley we climbed back  up the same sort of terrain until we came to the level path on the ridge.

Down we walked to the first of the water crossings.  No need for the plastic bags at this stage

It was at this stage that Gill and John, the walk leaders, started to have some doubts as to which way we should proceed.  They could see where we needed to go - the wind turbines at the top of the hill, but the issue was - which was the best way to get there? So although it looked a sunny day from the photo, it was in fact turning increasingly foggy and damp.  So a route was chosen and the only way was up!!  ( and up and up!! )

Somewhere in the distance we could hear a whistle blowing, and shouting.  It turned out to be Jim who had come to meet us and couldn't see us on the prearranged path. But our walk leaders had kindly found us a less steep path to climb up!  Well you wouldn't have thought so by the weary looks on all our faces, especially Geoff.

Once up at the top we walked along the road to the wind turbines, the tops of which couldn't be seen in the mist and fog.  We decided the day had become " a dreich day" although to be fair it wasn't as cold as Aberdeen might have been!! Rain gear was donned and after meeting Jim, and some discussion as to the way ahead, we set off again.

There was some discussion at this point about lunch.  We found a super place with chairs and a shelter at Cachopo, but it was agreed to carry on as we still had a way to go.  We came into a beautiful acorn forest.  Not from oak trees of course, but from the cork trees.  We came across a fallen tree and most of us went over it.  Sue however decided to go under, and got stuck.  With her bad knee it became a bit tricky, until Miriam came to the rescue and helped her out.

   

The forest continued to surprise us.  An old wall beautifully built that seemed to lead to nowhere, with fabulous mushrooms that we decided not to eat even though by then we were starving.

Finally we found a place to sit for lunch.  By then it had stopped raining. So we stopped for a short break.

Heading off after lunch we saw the  welcome sign for Parises and came across this: no one had any idea what is was - answers on a postcard please.

John and Gill promised us some water crossings, but none had been difficult and we hadn't needed any plastic bags .. until we came across a big crossing.  There were many different ways to cross, but John had to win first prize for his bin liner bags with handles.   The dogs ran in and out and everyone made their way across in their own fashion.

  

And so it was upwards towards Parises 

The bus shelter was a welcome sight.                        Last man standing!

  

Thanks to Gill Jim John and Susan for recceing all the walks and organising another successful "away walk" for the AWW.  Thanks also to Geoff for his unstinting work keeping us all in order and having things run so smoothly.

Stats:

Distance:  15.65 km

Time:         5 hours 23 minutes

Elevation:  642m

Average pace:  3.3km/hr