What for??AWW 12.02.2006

Been thinking about something like this for some time, so decided to get in before someone else rouses from their winter torpor and beats me to it! The Algarve Wednesday Walkers were founded back in the mists of time, by a loose collection of friends who had among others, two things in common. They liked walking and they lived in or spent a significant amount of time each year in the Algarve. By the time I came on the scene, there were two distinct sets of Algarve walkers, the Saturday Strollers and the Wednesday Striders, and to be fair there was an overlap between the members of each. Things evolved, and by 1998, there was a hardy and elite group of ramblers, who became known as the Algarve Wednesday Walkers, principals being Maurice Clyde, Rod Frew and a core of 6 or 7 leaders, (and Myriam who seemed to be in charge!), who were prepared to research and lead walks, on a rotational basis. Numbers fluctuated, but usually a dozen or so would turn out, and occasionally many more, when the "Winter Birds" arrived, or there was a meal or a celebration planned for after the walk. Jump to the present day. Despite fears that age and infirmity would deplete the group, there has been a steady influx of new blood, and a willingness to lead and discover new walks. The present standard is that winter, ie October to May, walks will be of around 4-6 hours and 12 to 24 km. Occasionally longer, but rarely shorter, except for special reasons. Occasionally there are special events;- an annual Round The Corner Walk, two days of 30 km per day from Carrapateira to Sagres and Sagres to Luz(photo is of the 2006 crew!); the Trans Algarve Via Algarviana, ca. 240 km and walked in sections; and random trips to Spain or other parts of Portugal as the whim takes us. I have just realised how boring this is becoming, so I will cut to the chase: What is this blog for? It has long been appreciated that owing to the lack of good accurate walking maps, our collection of walks has largely remained in the heads of those that lead them. Obviously there is a danger that should one of the key leaders become incapacitated, or leave the Algarve, or boycott the group in a huff because of a real or perceived disagreement, then his/her collection of walks will be lost to posterity. All of the three previous examples have happened. We have been lucky that Maurice had recorded a collection of his favourite shorter walks for publishing, before his incapacity, but we sorely miss his knowledge of the Algarve, and enthusiasm for the Via Algarviana project, which was to create a route across the Algarve from Alcoutim on the Spanish border to Cape St Vincent, the most southwesterly point in Europe. The baton has been taken up most recently by David Littlewood and Terry Ames, who are recording and walking the route as I write. I will leave it to either of them to contribute on their project. Last Wednesday, was the second walk of The Year of the Dog, and we are fortunate enough to count a number of dogs among our most enthusiastic members. It fell to my lot to lead the walk on February 8th 2006 and this was for me a new walk among untrodden ways. My MO for researching a walk has, hitherto been to think of an area, to take a drive around as much of the area as I could in the G- Wagen, and then to walk the walk leaving clues as to which path to take, or handwritten notes. This was not always satisfactory, and MISTAKES HAD BEEN MADE!! When helping Maurice with his notes for his published walks, it was easy to see the problems of a written description of a walk. Mike Pease compensates for his failing memory by producing 'Thumbnail notes' of his walks, which are typed in a minute font on a plasticised card hanging round his neck, and which work for him, but he has the eyes of an 18 year old! One of my other hobbies is Classic car Rallying, and although we mostly keep to metalled roads, the accepted form of directing the participants is to use a 'Tulip' Road book, apparently so named because it was first used in The Tulip Rally in Holland many years ago. This, in its simplest form, gives the distance to a feature or turning, and combines with a pictogram of the said point, to enable the navigator to tell the driver where to go!! All you need is a reasonably accurate distance measurement in your car, and away you go. I determined to trial this method for walking, although the distances I could measure with my pedometer were known to be at variance with official Euro km and metres. As this was open to argument, I decided also to add another indication - the TIME it took me to reach each of the features, and also an accurate pictogram of the feature and a short one or two word remark to aid in identification. I decided to call these "Bamboo Diagrams" with the fanciful notion that as the original diagrams looked nothing like Tulips, these could be imagined to look like a bamboo branch with various arrangements of leaves leading off! Advantages proved obvious - the 20 km walk I planned was recorded on about 40 lines of instructions, in fairly large type on A6 size pages which could be handled as a booklet by the leader. Janet Somerfield undertook to 'lead' the walk using the Bamboo diagrams, and with due modesty, and a few gentle nudges from other walkers who had also been furnished with the booklets, we arrived back at our start point in fairly good order, and almost on time. I intend to try and record most of our future walks using this method, and if practical publishing them on this blog. The blog will also serve as a short memorandum of each walk with regard to those attending, and any items of interest that occur or are raised during the walk. The list of those present will put paid to any contentious issues on who qualifies for the end of season blow out, as a subsidised contributor! Worth it for that alone! Now all I have to do, having opened this work without knowing how to present or lay it out, is to familiarise myself with the proceedings and make it happen!!!