WAGS 19.02.2020: Going Gently

Rod's first walk of his 81st year,  I had pleaded with him to 'treat us gently' in my reply to the calling circular.  I don't know if he had been endowed with great sympathy as a gift on the day before on his birthday - but he did - (well almost)!
   The Whittles had been encouraged to return by my plea to Rod. Jim Brownlow too.  As there wasn't a 6 Nations Rugby game for him on the previous weekend for him to crow about, Yves didn't attend.  The Hopes were burnishing their suntans and rehydrating in Edinburgh. Janet and Frank may well still be exhausted from their comeback outing at Meia Praia a couple of Wednesdays before, Ingrid has a bout of bursitis - I could go on but we had a satisfactory quorum of 8, 6 of whom completed the tour.

        Jim had been burrowing in his wardrobe for some suitable Spring attire and had unearthed a superb Gilet from before they became fashionable.

 How to make a Gilet look cool (at 87)!

 It was festooned with pockets, including a rear poachers' pocket which he hadn't noticed until Myriam excitedly pointed it out.

     A bit of a hiccup in communications at the start. I realised that the Leader hadn't mentioned coffee in his call, and having in my mind previous failures at Para e Fica and the reputed internecine warfare among the owners and workers, I WhatsApped him at precisely 8:07 am with a query on the P & F coffee status. Said WhatsApp remained unread until 0941, by which time we had availed ourselves of the soluble caffeine at Pastelaria do Castelo.  It was in fact open, and Rod argued unconvincingly that he would have informed us if it were to be closed at the appointed hour.

    As we were leaving the restricted area of the car park in our cars  to start 200m. further down the road, a late decision was made to attempt to persuade the owner to grant us the special privilege of tosta mistas when we returned. Rod was successful in his negotiations so we reserved 7 (without further specification unfortunately) and Myriam dashed in to order some feijoada which was the prato de dia. More on this subject later!

   At the usual start, in John's absence in Edinburgh, I managed to take the worst starter photo in WAGS history........

 L-R Chris, Jim, Terry, Jill, Myriam, Rod, Antje (behind the lens - Paul)

I had been determined to use my Delfie  Camera App to impose my visage next to the group as an alternative to John's Gorilla Pod and remote control Gizmo, but alas. I somehow forgot to save it.

The group as you can see was getting pretty restive by this point, as I took the banker shot, only to discover when I viewed it later, that discipline had almost entirely broken down. Kudos to Rod and Antje for appearing to be concentrating on the photographer, but as they were both wearing heavy sunglasses, I can't be sure that they were really looking at me.

 Anyway we started soon after the appointed hour, and headed off down a long reasonably flat valley.
Amazingly there were still puddles and a few wet crossings to negotiate, but nothing likely to pose much challenge to the WAGS.

 Suddenly the volume of traffic increased:

First a motorbike rider who was halted and interrogated by the WAGS - he was from Spain........

 .....but he rather spoilt my next photo by going round the edge of the puddle rather than blazing through it!.

Then we had a Quad bike from Holland......

 ....... who shot past leaving a cloud of dust.

 We waited for the dust to settle and trudged on. At about the 3.5 km point, Chris and Antje decided not to confuse ambition with ability and headed back down the valley, but not before Antje had to climb halfway up the first hill to retrieve Sasha, who was reluctant to give up on the best bit of the walk.

After a long steady climb, we descended into the next valley. Rod disarmingly stated that there would be a few undulations. At the top of the climb, faced with options of more climbing and a longer circuit back, we democratically voted to swipe left and head for the tostas, even though I had a distinct impression that Rod might have preferred to test his 81 year old legs with a bit more climbing.. Was it worth it?

A photo opportunity arose as we passed an abandoned farm. In fact the walls were so thick it could have been a castle.

This was only a small portion of the ruins, and a huge amount of work must have been done to build the whole structure from stones and river mud.

Rod models a pen, which could have held elephants in musth.

A fairly straightforward gentle descent back to join the trail we had come out on.. The track looked more like a bedpan than a frying pan!!

ViewRanger version,

GE Version.

Garmin Stats:

ViewRanger Stats

ViewRanger Elevation plot

Quite impressive looking for WAGS until you realise the high point was less than 100m higher than the start point.

And so back to Para e Fica, arriving just after 1pm, when it was in full swing feeding the locals and a few estrangeiros in the know. Fortunately Antje and Chris had arrived back earlier and took possession of our reserved table.

        Sadly, the TM's were as equally dire as the starter photo. Rod had neglected to mention the crucial words com tomato e pao caseiro. Anna hadn't been there when he ordered and it had been sanctioned by her mother in law. As the waitress remarked - " She will promise anything to get money!"  Anna then said that she wouldn't have approved the order if it had been up to her, so as you can imagine not much effort went into their manufacture with hungry locals tucking in to the pratos do dia. In fact the TMs, soggy, in bimbo bread with minimal filling were so unimpressive that I didn't bother to record a photo. The one ray of light was that Anna took pity on us and provided a large plate of chips to share. No photo of that either! The final blow was that they had apparently given away Myriam's reserved portion of feijoada to a hungry local.  She did try to order  another option, Carapau, but it hadn't arrived by the time we departed because of the chaotic kitchen. She consoled herself with a healthy snack bar.

However we did take a couple of pics of the seating arrangements.

and...

The Glums!!

Anyway our maxim 'Solvitur Ambulando' evidently didn't apply in this situation. Must pay more attention to logistics in future,

Despite the irritations, it was another great day for walking and the walk was well within our parameters.

We did!

As a footnote, Myriam did a swift calculation of average age of participants, which has been helped by the absence of Geraldine. In fact I was the youngster of the group at almost 72. The average actually worked out to be 76 years 7 months and 22 days. Sounds high but it was a rough calculation by a famed Chinese mathematician!