Who would have thought ? 2025 marks 20 years of blogging our pedestrian activities in the Algarve. Much evolution - some might say degeneration - AWW (1997), WAGS 1 (2015),WAGS 2 (2019). Sideshows: APAPS, Lagos COWS -and who knows? By next year we may morph into WADS ! The Hard Core is numerically challenged and a tad softer, but Ever Onwards !
WAGS 09. 11. 2022: One Has To Think Again
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One of the less
recognised responsibilities of a Blogger is to come up with an
original and, one hopes, snappy title for each week´s edition. So
when one already has such a title in mind and then when events
conspire to render that title meaningless and irrelevant, your
Blogger feels somewhat deflated.
And so it is this week.
The previous week, Rod had led the walk beside the Odelouca Barragem
and this week it had been his intention to take a look at the Bravura
Barragem. Then, for reasons given in his report which follows, that
idea was abandoned. And so the pre-ordained oh-so-witty title “One
Damn Walk After Another” lies abandoned on the cutting room floor.
Hey Ho !
And so to Rod´s report.
The day
dawned with a steady downpour and the arrival of an email from
the sole participant west of Silves announcing that he was put off by
the weather. That being the case it was unilaterally
decided that there was no point in the remaining 6 ( John &
Hazel, Maria, Yves, Dina and Rod), all from Silves eastwards,
traipsing all the way over to Odeaxere when we could find a perfectly
acceptable alternative locally.
We thus all met up at Victoria's in
Poço Barreto.
Culture returns to down-town Poço Barreto
From there we set off at a reasonable pace..
along a brand new tarmac
costing €59,853.69
leading into the countryside, until the money ran out
From the road, we had a distant view of our favourite condominium, still under construction
.not too
difficult in the absence of any hills in the vicinity....round the
many farm tracks criss-crossing the area
One of many pauses
Rod invites Maria to climb the trig
She took one look and said no
We briefly touched the
Silves- Fonte Louseiros road before turning back towards
our start. There was little worthy of comment really, as
we admired or despaired at some of the agricultural
evolution happening around us, and no other events occurred
to hit the headlines.
Next year´s strawberry crop
Yves repairs his vandalised cairn
In view of the easy terrain it
seemed like a good idea to try and extend the walk beyond the recent
7 - 8k which had become our recent norm.
We decide to take the extra loop and go right
So to achieve this we added
a slightly off-piste loop at the end through terrain which we
had not passed for a while. This, almost inevitably nowadays,
involved circumnavigating yet another serious looking
fence---protecting what did not seem immediately obvious.
We eventually came to a recognized track leading us back
down through the northerly suburbs of Poço Barreto. We
recognized we were in known territory by the delightful aroma of
baking bread emanating from the obviously highly
successful bakery now established there for many years. And so back
to Victoria's.
Dina´s track was 11.99 km
I do like my Guinness...where do I begin?
The black pudding is exceptional !
All the nosh was more than acceptable, even if
slightly marred by a rather moody daughter who capped it all by
making a somewhat uncooperative mess of the bill at the end. In any
event at least we achieved a walk of over 11k and at a
reasonable pace too.
If we do eat there again (if), we have to be prepared to calculate what we each have to pay, because they refuse to do separate billing. And we have to check the bill because they are not very efficient. The aforesaid young lady was rather stroppy when I queried the bill, at least she was, until I pointed out that they were charging us for 2 small Guinnesses and 1 large one, whereas we had in fact had 1 small one and 3 large ones. English breakfast with English service.
Of course , there are bad waiters all over the world.
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The WAGs are walking longer distances! Soon the name has to be revised!
ReplyDeleteWho was the quitter west of Silves?