WAGS 2024 04 17: A Messines Miscellany, or Not Much To It

 First, we have to start off with a correction to the previous week´s Blog. In that edition, we had shown a picture:-

and had said that it was of "the memorial plaque to 100 years of Algarve Railways."

Sloppy, inaccurate and misleading blogging.  Quick as a flash, our pre-eminent historian and stickler for accuracy Myriam stepped in to correct me, pointing out that the plaque commemorates the arrival of the railway line at Lagos and therefore the centenary of Lagos Railway Station, not 100 years of Algarve railways. The first railway in the Algarve had in fact opened in  1889. 

She also gave a link to the history of Algarve Railways:

https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hist%C3%B3ria_da_Linha_do_Algarve

so that you can read all about it, and more, at your leisure.

With that out of the way we can turn to this week´s walk. First, welcome back, Dina. One week she sends her saudades; next week, she is there in person. And welcome back to terra firma, Maria, after completing the sky-high Camino del Rei in Malaga.

 And now here is Rod´s report.

On a warm sunny morning Maria, Hazel, Dina,  Myriam, Chris & Rachel and Rod ...and briefly John who was suffering from some lurgi and thought it prudent not to walk...gathered at the Joao de Deus cafe in Messines before driving off to the Bridge over the River Arade at the top end of Funcho Dam lake. It was good to see the re-emergence of Dina following a spell of travelling and life in Lisbon, and of Chris & especially Rachel looking so well following her illness, back briefly and maybe eventually more permanently from Kenya.

Those who started

By the time we eventually set off it was already getting quite warm and we wandered upstream along the northern bank of the Arade. It was amazing to observe there was still quite a volume of water flowing down the river and the dam water level was markedly higher than we had seen on a previous walk, some months  back.

The river today

The same stretch 2022 12 01

After a couple of k. along the river we veered up  north to the long undulating ridge stretching up to S.Marcos. The track is marked by a massive pylon under which we rested briefly whilst estimating its height.....about 50m was the general opinion!  

Excellent pic by Myriam: there are people at the base.

The ruined farmhouse at the top of the first peak is just as it has been for years and the views as stunning as ever, so a while was spent gazing at them.  

By then it was really getting quite warm as we plodded on to the next peak, so we eschewed a visit to the actual trig point.  

"We are up here ."

From there some relief, as there are a couple of sharp descents, the second of which was enlivened by the presence of a rather threatening swarm of bees which seemed  to have got lost. 

A bee hive, or a bee swarm?

Nobody was stung so we reached the road safe and sound. In view of the advancing hour and increasing heat we decided to head back along the main track. The negative of that is dust from any passing vehicle but, in the event, the few that passed had the good grace to slow right down. The far side of the track is now fully fenced and a locked gate prevented us from completing an off-track loop.  

Refreshments at the end.

The Track and the Statistics

There are none, as Rod´s measuring gizmo allegedly succumbed to the heat, but a previous track in this area had looked like this:-

The Lunch

So we returned to the restaurant, arriving right on the dot of 13.00.....ironic really as this time there was nobody waiting to be punctual for! Still, lunch was good and served quickly as we would expect there.

There are no recorded comments about the food but, on the photographic evidence, there seems to have been a satisfactory range of choice.

There was however a lot of talk about expensive coffees, one variety being from Bali in Indonesia where civet cats are encouraged to eat the coffee beans. The beans then emerge as nature will have it in the civet cat poop, when human hands then take over and turn the well-travelled beans into coffee or Kopi Luwat, to give it its local name.

Dina is appalled at the very idea.

However aficionados of the brand assure one that the beans are thotoughlycleaned with water and UV light before processing, but they also assert that every civet cat gives its own unique flavour to the coffee. Get to know your cat at €112.90 per 100 grm.  

Rod subsequently countered this high cost item with something even more costly, where a small coffee shop in London is selling coffee at GBP265 a cup. This coffee is apparently a variety of Arabica coffee called "typica" - it doesn´t sound very typical to me - grown on a single estate in Okinawa Japan - not a well-known coffee growing area - with beans selling at GBP1490 per kilo.

Any entrepreneur who can persuade some civet cats to relocate to Okinawa to do their business there will be looking at the makings of an immense fortune, typica through a civet cat digestory tract  - price out of this world !.

And that´s it. Photo-credits to Hazel and Myriam. Next week, it is possible that the blog will be written by Artificial Intelligence. Watch this space.

Closing Music

"Walking The Blues." Not the Robert Johnson classic "Walking The Blues", which we have already had, but another song with the same title - words and music by Johnny Cash.