AWW 25.04,2007. An Unfortunate set of Circumstances!

As you all have no doubt realised, I am a 'glass half full' sort of a chap, and having only one week back here between our UK and China trips, I was really looking forward to an outing with the AWW to catch up on the scuttlebutt, and to ascertain the truth of some of the outlandish events that John had described during his locum.
Imagine my dismay when having mentally prepared for the usual 0930 start at Café Machado, I received an email indicating that Elaine, the proposed leader, had been bullied into bringing the start forward by a complete hour by a senior workaholic insomniac member of the group. " No names - no pack drill" whatever that means!
Still, I was determined to work off a few of the pies and pasties that are a health hazard littering the UK streetscape, and set off at 0700 to meet my pilot to the start, who is annoyingly always at his best and loudest in the wee small hours. Yes it had been raining since 0200 hrs, and OK I had to use the wipers on my way, but I was rather surprised to get the recall from Myriam, who was still wallowing in bed, claiming that her slumbers had been disturbed by a cancellation call.
Now for the Witch Hunt and the formal ascribing of Blame. Let's face it, Stan and Elaine have not had it easy this season! First there was the Morgado de Reguengos Walk which so reduced the soft tissue beneath Myriam's meniscus that she hasn't completed a WW since. Same walk caused such GBH to Jim B. that he wasn't seen for several months, except when he & Myriam met at Hospitâl Particular while having their ailments treated! Then there was a spate of contraventions of the rule passed by sub-committee in a bygone era that 'Thou shalt not arrange the arrival or departure of visitors (Family or otherwise) at Faro on a Wednesday, unless they are self-sufficient'. Then the unheard of last minute cancellation of a walk on 11th April, with no alternate leaders available, because of a case of the 'snuffles' (probably contracted from those self-same Wednesday arrivants!) And now the early morning rain! The gentle rain!! Lord have Mercy!!

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

It droppeth as the gentle rain of heaven

Upon the place beneath…

And as I sit here at my computer with the weather bar at the bottom of the screen showing 17ºC and sun for later, I too will be merciful!! I missed my walk, but this was out of Elaine's control. Given that extra hour in bed of which we were cruelly deprived, and leisure to study forecasts and look out in daylight rather than early morning gloom, the walk may have gone ahead. I have never been an advocate of leaping out of bed before the system has fully awoken itself, to rush off for an activity which is entirely recreational. You brought this upon yourself you 'morning person'!!!

And on the topic of rain, a motivational quote for those sensitive souls who may have been offended by my cautionary notes above:

"When subjected to the 'rain' of criticism, let's not curse the rain. Let's accept it as a part of life. Let's remember that the more criticism we can successfully handle, the more zest we will experience in our lives." (Shall Sinha)

Better close while my coffee cup is still half full!!

AWW 18.04.2007- What happened to the Blog??

Thought I had better reserve a space in case John was still thinking about this one! This is where we were while you were enjoying the sunny Algarve. The top of Latterbarrow Hill overlooking Lake Windermere from the south, having just found a geocache a bit further down. The cairn isn't really alarmingly tilted like that, but I couldn't find a flat piece of rock to rest the camera on!

John has now returned from his domestic duties and here is the blog for 18th April in it's rightful place!!

AWW 18.04.2007 Parra/Odelouca or Frew's Famous Five

Leader: Rod Frew
Present: Mike P, Antje W, Janet S, and John H
Dogs: Oscar, Tiggy, and Pookie
Tilley Count: Nil (despite Mike's claim that his straw titfer was an embryo Tilley)

The circumstances extenuating the unwonted delay in publishing this episode include the deputy editor having spent a 4 day weekend in UK and the leader having inadvertently submitted his copy by email to Dubai instead of to Silves, a mistake anyone of course could make and nothing whatsoever to do with the madronho (see later)

Here follows the happily retrieved Leader's report:

The starters; walking with 4 sticks was not a success.

Locationand terrain: Parra/Odelouca. Hilly, but only about 15K.

An extremely select band set off from Silves cemetery.... so select that they all arrived early, and we departed 10 minutes before the appointed hour! The walk was in part a reconnaissance for the Algarve Way Horse Ride that Rod wanted to check out. Drove up the S. Marcos road and started walking at 9.45am from the Parra turning, on a lovely warm, sunny morning. Although by no means a new walk, we had not actually done it for over a year and parts of it not for several years. We descended to the Casa Florestal and then up along a ridge with lovely views over the Odelouca valley and all amidst wonderful spring flowers.

(It was here that Antje for reasons unexplained....carried away by the rarefied mountain air or the heavy perfumes of the flowers, perhaps.....decided to audition for the part of Maria. As we go to press, Lord Lloyd Webber's reaction is not known.)
The hills are alive............

The steep descent to the river had become somewhat overgrown and rough but nobody came to grief. (The river was reached at 10.45am when the leader announced that that was the last steep bit...down! The steep bits UP were still to come.)

The river was actually pretty full and quite definitely "boots off"..no complaints were accepted as adequate warning had been given!. Mike's rather fetching blue nylon slippers were obviously the best solution as he nimbly skipped through the waters; bin liners do look a bit cumbersome in comparison but, as long as they don't puncture, do keep the feet dry. Antje and Janet delicately found their way across with bare feet...rather putting the men's tender feet to shame.


Blue nylons

No, Mike, that does not qualify as a Tilley.

The track away from the river, which we hadn't actually covered since Maurice was last with us, was fairly unrecognizable because of forestry work but ended with the same very steep (and how!) and very crumbly ascent towards the ridge dividing the Odelouca and Monchique river valleys. Puffing our way over the top of the ridge, we found the wonderful view over the Monchique river valley towards Picota has sadly become marred by a line of grotesque high tension pylons; such is progress!

We turned back at that point and, beating off some aggressive horse flies, (the leader's well-intentioned applications of his walking stick to Mike's posterior regions reminding the latter of his prep school days) descended to a ruin just below the ridge where we stopped for lunch. Repast complete, or so we thought, we then carried on down to Foz de Carvlho to be greeted with open arms by the farmer down there who remembered us from previous occasions. Poor chap is still patiently waiting for his compensation for the dam waters which will eventually cover his land. This, of course, resulted in an invitation into his farmhouse, well rather onto the terrace shared by assorted cats, dogs, a headless chicken and one or two live ones, where he opened a garrafão of tinto and obliged us to consume (or maybe surreptitiously tip over the wall!) mugfuls thereof.

One does not have to go on a cruise to sample our wines.


Summer time and the walking is easy.

After admiring photos of him and his late wife we staggered off again. We were quickly sobered up by another river crossing....quite welcome by that time....before the long ascent back up to the road.

Half way up.....back at the Casa Florestal......

Rest and Be Thankful.

Here another interlude was demanded by a social call on one of the forest rangers who happened to be around. He was keen on showing us his honey (although he had none ready for sale) which he produced to augment his rather limited ranger's stipend. (The leader also claims to have been invited to"smell" the ranger's madronho, although the speed with which he then tore up the final climb to the road led the more cynical observers floundering in his wake to conclude that he had done more than simply smell it.) And then back to the cars at 3.40 pm and, remembering to collect all the dogs, down the road to the nearest cafe for refreshment.

AWW 11.04.2007 We finally ran out of Leaders!

Some of the more observant may have noticed the blatant gap in the series of blogs, necessitating this annexed entry to preserve the timeline.

It was to have been Elaine and Stan's romantically named 'A Walk back in Thyme', but unfortunately both principals came down with nasty colds, and at short notice it proved impossible to find someone willing to lead the walk on this occasion. To my memory the first time this has ever happened, and it would have proved a good opportunity for a non-regular leader to download one of my Bamboo diagram walks and give it a field test. Alas I was not here to supervise, and the chance was missed.

I will let the stark reality of the emails sent to the AWW relate the story of the walk that was ahead of its thyme!:-

Dear WWers

I'm very sorry but Stan and I have to cancel our walk tomorrow. I have been suffering from a bad cold for a few days and thought I would be over it by now, but sadly not. Stan this morning sounds like he might be going down with it too.

I contacted Rod this morning to see if he could lead the walk instead but he is not able to walk tomorrow. I can't contact Lindsey at the moment so decided to email you all directly to let you know.

Hope we can offer the walk at a later date

with kind regards

Elaine

Dear All,

Sadly all other Leaders are busy tomorrow, so for the first time I think (apart from rain) we will have to cancel tomorrows walk.

I will send out next week's walk, to be led by Rod, at the weekend. Andrew and I are away on holiday from 18th April until 3rd May and Elaine will kindly send out the weekly e-mails.

Best wishes,

Lindsey Henley-Welch

AWW 04.04.2007 Montinho Marathon or Thyl Redivivus

Leader: Ian W

Present: Rod, Hedley George and Ann, David L, Lindsey, Janet, Andrew and Tina, Thyl, Ian S, Hilke, John H.
No dogs.

Stats:
Tilley Hat count: 1
FDS: nil
Walk Rating: Excellent (on the Summerfield Scale)

The Leader's commentary follows, and after that we are lucky to have two comments, one each from our two Roving Ambassadors, Paul and Chris:

Whipping-In




14 stalwarts gathered at the Foz de Banho for what we all expected to be a really tough walk. We were honoured to have Thyl present again after a long absence. Despite the Leader's anxious attempts to whip the pack in on the dot of 9.30, before the walk got underway Thyl was touchingly presented with the antique walking stick which he had mislaid on an Odelouca walk well over a year ago and which, despite his going back on repeated searches, was never to be found UNTIL, on 24.01.07 during another of his Odelouca walks, Ian Scott's eagle eye spotted it beside the path and it was retrieved. At last, on 04.04.07, the stick could be ceremonially reunited with its grateful owner.

Re-united at last

In return thanks, Thyl invested Ian with a drapery variously described as a Yasser Arafat shawl/pink scarf/ Cambodian bathing garment intended to replace the 100 year-old blue scarf he is accustomed to wear. Nobody however is holding their breath that the blue object will not reappear.

(Hedley, displaying an unexpected knowledge of things Khmer, pointed out that the article in question is properly called a krama.)

The Leader finally got the walk under way at about 9.45 and lost no time in racing up towards Picota in the sunshine. The first surprise was a new building right in the middle of the path. The site was successfully negotiated while the purpose of the building was discussed: an EDP substation was the most popular choice ahead of a woodland sauna bath. Then, on and up, with magnificent views to the coast and with cuckoos calling in the background.

The next surprise about halfway up the mountain was a logging track running along a contour and cutting right across our path. We refound the path but soon found cut trees blocking it and, despite several helpful offers of a leg over or two, we had to return to the logging road. This we followed upwards until we regained the original track to the top.
The view from the summit of Picota (out over the long winding trail still ahead of us) was outstanding.

Only 4 hours to go.

However, the wind was icy, and we lingered only to have the obligatory trig point photo, except for Thyl who lay down in sheltered comfort to have his lunch.




Thyl disdains the oblig trig shot


On the way back down, the variety of spring flowers was much admired with the AWW's Horticuluralist-In-Residence being frequently consulted. (Comment from Lindsey:"A bit more education for the over 60s! Several people asked me for the name of the tall flowering bulb with white and reddish brown flowers. It's Asphodelus Microcarpus or Aspodel. I knew it was Aspho-something but couldn't remember it all.")

Here the Leader lost his way slightly, but Rod came to the rescue with the memory of an old track which brought us down to the Fornalha road at about noon. At this point, we parted company with Hedley, his guests George and Ann, and Hilke, who, all with other demands on their time, took the shortcut back to the Foz, and the rest of us had lunch.
Again, Thyl's stick was the centre of attention. How, he asked, is the head fixed to the shaft as if by magic. No screws or nails. Various ingenious theories were propounded, but a carpenter to provide the definitive answer was there none.


The stick itself


Lunch over, our way continued relatively uneventfully down the Monchique valley. We were passed by a minibus of schoolkids returning, we guessed, from a picnic; a guess that proved correct when we soon came across their campfire, a log still well alight although in the middle of the path. Lindsey then voiced the pertinent Archimedian thought "At 5cc's per sec, how many men does it take to put out a bonfire of 5000 BTUs?" but, alas, out of 7 male bladders present, 6 were stated to be empty and so the group moved on. However Thyl (truly this was turning out to be his day!) stayed discreetly astern of the caravan for a while. And then, in the non-attributable words of the sole but nameless eye-witness, the logfire was extinguished by a balding Belgian executive by an entirely natural and efficacious methodology whilst leaping like a Comanche brave round the waning flames amidst a cloud of white steam. (Sensitively, and in deference to the innate modesty of the AWW and the wish for anonymity on the part of the protagonists, Il Paparazzo forbore to take any pics of this episode.)
The route then wound over a number of "small" hills which, each in turn, elicited the enquiry "Is this the promised steep one?" Ultimately, there was no doubt at all which the truly steep one was as we hauled ourseves up to the ridge after crossing the Monchique road and the Boina River by bridge, Ian S. declining to dive in and put his new Cambodian swimming gear to the test.
As we walked along the ridge, we got a good view of Picota, seeing clearly how far we had walked. Descending to the Caldas de Monchique valley, we caught the fragrant scent of the heavily polluted ribeira de banho as we walked alongside it and pondered its origins - the pollution's that is, not the river's!
The remaining 10 finally reached the Foz at 3.30 and decided after the first beer that the walk was neither as tough nor quite the 25km as advertised but that, nonetheless, a good time had been had by all.


Back at the Foz