WW 29.11.2006 - Braving the Bravura!

The weather was so nice, even Romeiras looked good!

We were promised 30 km - we received a free bonus of almost 10%. Rod's report, in his own words below.
The track of the walk can be viewed by clicking the thumbnail below.

From WW Blog Pix

It was very encouraging that of the 17 "volunteers" for the Round the Corner 2006 walk, 13 turned up and completed this 'qualifier' with barely a whimper! Of the others, three were still in Uk, and Terry A. we have confidence in! True that there were in the intervening days a few precautionary "Well maybe I will only do ONE day because ............' expressions, but despite the lack of long distance training because of weather, which has been extraordinary this season, it hardly seems that we are all one year more decrepit than last!


Walk: Bravura and beyond! 32.35 km; Total time 7 hrs 30 min: Moving time 6 hrs 28 minutes.

Leader: Rod
Present; Paul & Myriam, Mike , Andrew & Lindsey , David , Ian S., Chris & Antje , John , Jim , Ian W.

Oscar & Tiggy

So maybe it did say a 27-30km walk, but as the ‘round the Barragem’ walk was a warm-up for the annual RTC it obviously made sense to ensure we did walk just a little further than either day of next week’s walk….anyway if it had been advertised as the 32.35 km. that it turned out to be, might it have put anyone off? But of course not ! So we set off, at 09.30 on a fantastic sunny morning, from the Barragem de Bravura along the water-edge route at the spanking pace of 4.9kph…(all these incredibly accurate figures supplied, of course, by the chief blogger and his presumably trusty H.Samuel Everight wrist GPS ).

There were no distractions until we made the first river crossing, ( a few mutterings at this point about lack of warnings about such hazards……mainly from those who seemed to think you could walk round a barragem without coming across the odd stream ! ….anyway it has been raining for about 90 days and nights if it hadn’t been noticed), which was really just a practice crossing for the next one; the Vagarosa near Romeiras. This was definitely a knee high paddle causing a splendid array of plastic bags, mostly Lagos Camera lixo bags, to be produced in a fruitless attempt to keep boots dry. Our dear leader managed to keep his feet surprisingly dry by dint of an attractive pair of Modelo shopping bags and then realised he had left his stick on the other side…..serve the b*gger right… the bags had disintegrated by then so he was kindly loaned a fetching pair of beach shoes …still full of Offa’s Dyke mud…by Mike P.

No further excitements and lunch was taken at about the furthest point away from the start/finish….. the barragem itself at this point is absolutely nowhere to be seen….a few more mutterings! Here however we were on the original route of the Via Algarviana and to prove the point came across the current cistus insignia waymarker and indeed a faded blue blob!

Eventually the waters of the barragem hove into view and we set off along the waterside route on the west side of the barragem. The sting in the tail of this stretch is that the final finger of water around which one has to walk is a big one and goes for seemingly miles in entirely the wrong direction…most dispiriting, especially after about 29kms.! Eventually we staggered… well Ian S. actually ran (although this was entirely to ensure he got there before the bar closed)… the last stretch of road to arrive some 7 1/2 hrs after setting out. That night most were mildly aware they had been for a walk, so next week should seem a straightforward doddle….although there are one or two more hills maybe !