WAGS 12 06 2024 : Over And Out, Or Not Quite All Out

Re this week´s title. "Over" because this week we made our first exploration of the Salgados Boardwalk bridge over the creek into Armação de Pera, and "Out" because that is how one closes down a radio call, it having been assumed that this would be the final episode of WAGS 2024.

But "Not Quite All Out". because just as this text was being finalised, lo and behold !  Rod materialises, casting off his familial duties, and offers to lead one more WAGS 2024.

So , on the now penultimate walk of the season, five of us met outside Café Paradis for an early start on a breezy and mercifully cool morning. 

The Starters: Leslie with sunshade, Hazel, Yves, Maria , and JohnH

The Café didn´t appear to be open yet, so we headed off in the direction of civilisation, a.k.a. Armação de Pera, in search of a coffee.  And soon enough there was A d P  a vision of whiteness, gleaming in the distance.

We had heard rumours that there was now a bridge from the boardwalk across the Armação Creek into the town and the rumours turned out to be true.

There it was... a veritable bridge, which turned out to be a good look-out point for water fowl spotting and photography.

 

It was at this point that Leslie dispensed with her sunshade and extracted her white sunhat from its light-weight carrier bag which promptly flew away in the breeze and alighted in the creek below us. Cometh the hour, cometh the chevalier. Yves dropped everything (or nearly everything) and without hesitation threw himself over the barrier to try to retrieve the bag from the clutches of the raging tide.

which he did and, ever the professional camera man, also took the opportunity of capturing on film the applauses of his appreciative audience.

He also found the time to take two excellent bird pics.

Daddy-Long-Legs

Grey Heron

Calm restored, we then made our way into the metropolis of A d P.

pausing to admire the commemorative plaque, ( first of many no doubt) to Stage 1 of the the Eco Via and  the Ciclo Via. If there is to be a criticism of this new bridge, it is fairly narrow and, because it is an authorised cycling route, bicycles can a be a minor hazard to mere pedestrians. Take care.

But we negotiated it safely enough and then, glory be, we did find our coffees. In a small café called Café Diana, next to millionaires row in A d P. Remarkably enough the coffees were not at tourist prices, so recommended. Four euros for the five of us.

  We spent some time there because our professional photographer decided to give first Hazel, and then Maria, some tuition in how to take mobile phone photographs while shooting into the light. This involved lessons on  how to turn on the flash to counter bright back lighting. You can judge for yourself if the tuition was successful. The two dark pictures are those with tuition. The bright ones are after subsequent photoshopping. by your blogger.

Enough said, it was then back across the bridge, for some duck photography and then down to the beach for shoes off and a  brief paddle.

Shovellers, the ducks, so I am told

The beach was very crowded, as this impressionist shot conveys..

 Then it was sand off and shoes back on again, which was when Yves challenged the Blogger to publish this picture of his if he dared. Challenge accepted. Watch this space.

We then left the beach and headed towards the Salgados lagoon, where it was a real pleasure to see it filled with water again after the previous few months of dried out muddy expanses. 

This was the lagoon in January this year:-

Dried out in January 2024

and this was it this week...

Now there is bird life again.

Another Daddy-Long-Legs

Possibly Spoonbills

Mallards

It was now getting a bit hot.

Back at Café Paradis, it was still not open. Closed perhaps for a holiday. Yves, who had come along especially to translate the Menu Française for us non-Francophones, now simply  put his boots on and went home, as did Leslie, off to nurse her cat.

The Track and the Statistics

Speed still very low.

The remaining three of us then headed of into the boondocks for a simple Portuguese roadside almoço, in actuality at Casinhas which is beginning to get its act together quite well.

 

The Lunch

Javeli à chefe

Alheira com ovo

Cachaça porco

 Closing Music

One more in our sequence of Walking Titles which has being going over the past few months. Haven´t had any complaints. Come to think of it, haven´t had any compliments either. Do any of you switch your audio on, I wonder.