WAGS 09. 11. 2022: One Has To Think Again

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.