AWW Walk report – 11 SEPTEMBER 2024 – Pine Forests and Baragems

 8 walkers and 1 x dog. Martin, Russell, Linda, Tim, Gill, Sue, Jim and Geoff (photographer).  Plus, Toby the dog.

We met at the café, which was closed for holidays and then drove 3kms further up the road for the start of the walk. 

 We headed up the cool shady path and Martin kept his jumper on.  Out into the sunshine for the starter photo, not jumper now!

Then it was round the winding paths, stopping along the way to water ourselves and Toby dog.

At the 6-finger junction we took the path which lead down into the valley.

Then it was through a couple of very dried up rivers.

Toby was sniffing to see where the water was in one of them.

Further along the path we joined the road for a 50metre stretch of tarmac and came across the hand made sign for “Happy House”.

We left the tarmac stretch and back onto the dirt tracks, stopping to admire the quaint little church.

Across a bridge over another dry river bed.  Luckily, they had built a newer bridge to replace the original pedestrian one.

 The ducks had come out to say hello, but no Peking duck tonight as Toby was on the lead and behaved impeccably (for a change).

Someone had decided the Happy House was now a “Happy Love House”.  We wondered what this house would look like.

 What a disappointment – tent city in the beautiful countryside!

We admired the decorative cart before heading up out of the valley.

We stopped in the shade by a baragem for some light snacks whilst Toby enjoyed a cool off in the water.

 

Then back up another hill and past another baragem which looked similar to the other one, but no, we hadn’t gone round in circles.

The arrows the leader had laid down on the recci earlier in the week were still almost intact so that gave everyone confidence as it was starting to get quite warm.  I did part of this walk backwards way round so we had the shade of the pine trees later in the morning.  Hence the part recci and the arrows.

We finished the walk before 1pm (as promised) 13.18kms in 3 ½ hours so quite a good pace.

 We drove to the Ourique café for well needed cool drinks and Linda and Russell stayed for lunch there.

Hope you enjoyed the inaugural walk, we did, and it was great to catch up with everyone.  Thanks, Geoff & Martin  for the photos, they gave me something to write about.  

Linda, Russell and Toby dog.