WAGS 29 05 2024: There Is A Pathway Through, or By Fits and Starts

It was about halfway up a very long and steep hill that, for some reason, I began to think of a strange English poem called "How They Brought The Good News From Ghent To Aix." It´s a strange piece of work, not only because it´s about three horsemen, only two of whom have names, who race off into  the middle of the night, during which night two of the horses collapse, but the third gets through, getting for his endeavours the reward of a large drink of wine, but especially strange because we never do find what the good news was that was the reason for the whole stramash. But one of the opening lines is famous

"I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three."

What I was thinking was not of galloping but the opposite

"I stoppeth, they stoppeth, we stoppeth all three" 

because whenever I stopped, Rod stopped and Yves stopped. or so it seemed. But why?

Anyway, here is Leader Rod´s report.

 A quite warm enough day when a modest band....namely John & Hazel, Maria, Yves and Rod gathered at Cafe Silva. Coffee consumed we actually started off 15 mins early...no bad thing bearing mind the  increasing warmth. 

We headed off below the cafe passing en route some of the most solid looking fencing possible. This turned out to be the owner of Cafe Silva creating some gardens alongside the Cafe but why he needs such expensively looking solid fencing remains a mystery. 

From there we looped back up to the ridge. The first ruined farmhouse along this appears to have been bought, or about to be, as the land has all been meticulously cleared. A splendid site this is too with great all round views and masses of that red rock which, as you all know is called Gres de Silves.

Here Yves tried to persuade Maria to sit on a little ledge of rock:-

Sensibly, she declined but did agree to take his picture of him in the hot seat.

Snapper Snapped

 Back to Rod

From there plans began to disintegrate somewhat. The old path along the ridge had become very overgrown and the prospect of prickly growth on seasonally bare legs caused a minor mutiny. We thus returned to the road. Here we had two choices one to head off back past Cafe Silva or descend to the valley floor  where some large scale ground clearance was in progress, in the hope that some through path along the valley floor was open. 

Overlooking the valley floor

In the event wrong choice! Our august leader of the day had tried this before but failed and ended up taking a hilly route round to the north. But a Silves Câmera chap supervising the clearance assured him there was a route. Whether there was  or not we didn't find it and ended up taking exactly the same track as we had used a couple of years ago. 

The Long Steep Hill Begins

Grabbing some shade

This proved to be bit more of a handful  this time. Passing years and hot weather all take their toll. There followed a bit of a farce at any rate; not that it seemed much like that at the time.

Not too far from the road but with still a hill to climb, the youthful members raced off to bring a car in case it was needed. Due to communication breakdown and absence of any bump of locality they ended up heading towards the wilds of the inner Algarve.

The tail eventually reached the road and naturally went in the right direction. By the time we had all met up again we were back at the beginning of the ridge lane leading back to our goal.

Some photos by Yves with his captions

 "It wasn´t ME!"

"Cool Shade"

"The Big Yin"

Why" ' It doesn´t look anything like Billy Connolly.

"The Bee"

"Maria´s Request"

"Artie Shaw"

I haven´t a clue why Artie Shaw. Have you?

Even then there was confusion as to the best way to descend from the ridge to the cafe. In the end we survived without much further ado...but maybe with the odd lesson to be learned.... in modern parlance. We did achieve 8k, but at rather higher cost than intended.

Track and the Statistics

Our leader had a busy domestic afternoon ahead and after slaking his thirst, disappeared before lunch...as indeed did Yves.

The prandial events must therefore be left to the blogger.

The Lunch

A sedate affair, just three of us, with chicken stew and omelettes being our choices, very satisfactory.

Closing Music

We will skip the Walking Music this because i am still puzzled by Yves´ photo caption "Artie Shaw." What had he to do with a field of thistles? 

Artie Shaw was an American clarinettist and band leader in the Swing Era. Quite a star in his time, he managed to get married eight times as well as to lead a very popular band. Here he is with "Stardust" and "Moonglow."