Out of Season Training

Ready for Take-Off

The blog has been a bit quiet since the concensus was that it was getting a bit too hot for most WW's. The disappointment was almost tangible, so I have undertaken to rouse myself from a bout of Lyme Disease, (see http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/lyme/index.htm ) and the ongoing World Cup, to regale you with an account of our personal activities in the field.

Myriam and I have entered, nay, rushed into the field of Geocaching during the off season. There is a link to the site on the left, which is most informative. We are proudly known as "Team Caracache" - slow - but a bit tasty!, and have to date located 9 caches, and we hope to lay out one or two of our own in the near future. There are around 50 caches in the Algarve and Baixo Alentejo, and more almost every week. Mike and Jyll have also entered the fray, and may be found scrabbling around under rocks and in gorse bushes in the neighbourhood. I hope Terry will join in when he gets his GPS.

Most caches are located in imaginative and scenic spots, and can be reached either by a decent walk if you are energetic (and don't have a 4X4), or approached much more closely by vehicle. Then you have to read the owner of the caches' mind as they devise some ingenious hiding places.

There have been a lot of ticks about this year, the weather conditions seem to have favoured their breeding programme. At least two (Xana and Nathan) of the WW dogs have had tick fever, and I, much to my chagrin, have joined them. It was, I suspect, on a cache hunt in a valley near Sargaçal, where we saw the local shepherd and a large flock of raggedy looking sheep, and a few mangy dogs leaving the area as we arrived. I didn? even see the little blighter that got me, but I woke up on Monday morning with a small itchy bite, which I assumed was from a mosquito. By evening it had grown to about 4 cm across, and by the next morning it was a fierce red looking patch with a black centre, about 12 cm in diameter. At this point I went off to the doctor, and was diagnosed as an infected tick bite and possibly the start of Lyme Disease. The rest of the gory details and photo are below.

Beware of Ticks!!

Taken on the third day after the tick bite, this is typical of early stages of an infection which could lead to Lyme Disease. See http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/lyme/index.htm The first day was just an itch with a small raised red patch, the second day, the centre of the bite went black and the red circle expanded to about 10 cm. The whole area was very hot and I had muscular aches and pains. I then went to the doctor, and was prescribed antibiotics, but the red area kept expanding until day 6 when it started to become paler, and I began to feel better. The worse part, of course is that the minimum 10-day course of antibiotics is meant to be undertaken without the benefits of fine wines to enhance morale!! On a threat to change doctor for a second opinion, she relented and conceded that one glass a day would be good for the patient. And have I got a good glass!!!

For those that missed it!! Sunrise on the Summer Solstice

"And gentlemen in England, now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,"
So said Henry V according to Shakespeare, and it was well worth getting up for it!!
Myriam's smile was brighter than the sun, and even Xana and Maio raised a grin!

Summer Solstice 21st June 2006

It was a Wednesday after all, so Myriam, I and the dogs were off to Ponte de Piedade at an unearthly hour to watch the sun come up. If you click on the pic to enlarge it, you can just make out Myriam in silhouette between the trees.

Seven stroll by the Sea, WW 07.06.2006

Leader: Paul
Present: Myriam, Janet, John, Rod, Lindsey, Andrew
NO DOGS!!!
Walk: Ponte de Piedade and past Luz and return (22 km)
Time: 5 hrs 15 minutes walking (Total time 6 hrs)

Before Mike pulls me up on the discrepancy between the Title and the lead photo, ace cameraperson, Myriam has not mastered the time delay shot yet!
In anticipation of a very hot day, I decided that it would be a good opportunity to avail ourselves of the Atlantic onshore breezes, at least on the way back, and try to get out and back without returning on the same path. The overall result was not too bad; except for the section through Luz, and the back way down to Porte de Mos, it was achieved. Had the tide been anything other than at it's highest, mid walk, we could have crossed round the headland between Ponte de Piedade and Porte de Mos in one of the directions.
This was the first walk in living memory in which we were not accompanied by any of our dogs! Regrettably Maio is not up to it any more, and Xana was recovering from a mild bout of tick fever, so they were out. Of Rod's pair, Purdey is in the same boat as Maio, and Pooky was left to keep her company, as it looked a hot day with little opportunity for dog drinking water.
Janet turned up sans socks and had to cadge Andrew's second pair (brave woman!). Fortunately for the assembled team, she seemed to have remembered everything else, and The Magnificent Seven set off soon after 9 am with a tour round the lighthouse and north up the coast for a warm-up on the undulating coastal path. Hardly had we left when Andrew suffered a 'senior' moment, and couldn't remember if he had locked the car, so jogged back to confirm that he had! The route progressed inland after we had confirmed that the tide was too high to get round to Porte de Mos via the beach, and from there again inland through the soon to be completely urbanised area between Porte de Mos and Atalaia. A slight navigational error, during which we discovered the DIY House (photo below) resulted in howls of anguish from shorts wearers as we took a direct route through some overgrown pastures to regain the track. Fortunately the absent Mike was on his way to London for a quick coffee with his brother, so no blood was spilled.
Arriving on the escarpment near the Trig point with the panoramic view of Luz, Janet opined that she didn't care for walking through the town (the temptation of too many tourist shops!!) and would turn back. Bravely she descended from the top to the lower plateau before turning round, thus burning an extra 568 calories according to my pedometer!
We stuck with the coastal path towards Burgau, and admired the newly redecorated 'Arab House', which has lost some of it's kudos with a pale grey colour scheme and a hand-painted floral tile frieze below the eaves. We didn't see Osama at a window, but it is pretty obvious that he is camouflaging his Algarve HQ.
Lunch from a commanding viewpoint gave us a different aspect of the huge orange house
pictured below. We returned to Luz through a mix of earthen paths and undeveloped plots, and the rapidly growing urban sprawl inland, to be faced with the prospect of the scramble up to the trigpoint. I announced to the disbelievers that it was actually only a 4 minute climb and about 60 vertical metres to the Trig point. Andrew, Rod and myself went for two variations of Route One straight up to the top, and the others took a slightly longer and less steep path. The point was proved as I broke my record to reach the Obelisk in 3min. 32 secs followed by Andrew (4 min. 02 sec), Rod, (5 min. 09 secs), Myriam and Lindsey in 6 min. and 20secs, and then John strolled up from another direction looking remarkably cool in 7 min. and 10 secs.
The reason for all this macho posturing came when we reached the Cafe at Ponte de Piedade, and Myriam innocently revealed that she was supplying cashew nuts and Japanese crackers with our drinks, because I had managed to survive another full year on God's Earth, and I had been trying to prove I can still cut the mustard although I must be almost into my Fifties now!! Lindsey made it an even more auspicious occasion by gifting us some Kumquats (for Myriam's Marmalade Factory) and some French beans for dinner! Thanks Lindsey.
 

Lunch and Running Repairs

Lunch above a modest dwelling between Luz and Burgau. Andrew took the opportunity to carry out some running repairs, as he had sacrificed one of his pairs of socks to Janet who had had yet another senior moment and left the house minus some items of clothing - that is her socks!! Although we had no shade, a pleasant breeze from the cool Atlantic made it reasonably comfortable.

Hasn't she grown!!

View of Luz from the 'obelisk' Trig point (110 m). The town seems to have grown by about 20% since I last looked! Much speculation from the assembled experts as to whether Luz could be self sufficient power-wise if the energy from its' human waste, chip and hamburger fat and bullshit uttered in the bars, could be harnessed!

"Des. Res"

This edifice between Atalaia and Luz looked to have been 'modified' by an enthusiastic amateur DIY exponent!! Rod picked up a few tips for his own construction! 

Terry's Tor Tour - WW 31.05.2006

A Welcome break - after 20 minutes!!


Leader: Terry 1
Present: Lindsey;Mike; Chris; Antje;Thyl;Myriam;Paul.
Oscar; Tiggy
Length: 16.7 km
Total time (including stops) 5 hrs 20 minutes.

You can always tell a good Leader - if the Cafe at the meeting place isn't open - he leads you to another before the caffeine levels get dangerously low!! And so it was. We gathered on a gloomy overcast and humid morning at the Cafe Soc. Rec. Torense which was deserted apart from a few forlornly empty bottles left from the night before. Thyl arrived in a cloud of dust just seconds before the scheduled 'Off', and sensitive to the rising tide of mutterings, Terry reversed his planned walk and we set off into the heart of the surprisingly large metropolis of Tor. Twenty minutes later, and technically out of Tor, we found an open Cafe Funchais, (pictured above) where morale was restored.
This was another of Terry's largely new walks, and it proved to be a 'Walk of Two Halves'. Another 6 minutes after the coffee, and 2 kilometres into the walk, we finally left the urban area into the countryside. The morning was fairly level on decent tracks, with a little bit of paddling as we negotiated a couple of streams which were still flowing quite well. One highlight was meeting a group of workmen repairing the branch road that led from Loule to Tor, one of whom was clutching a 'v'-shaped twig and professed to be identifying the route of a spring under the road. Whether he had just hastily snatched the twig, which twitched in his hands, just to impress the 'estrangeiros' I couldn't possibly comment, but suddenly Lindsey loudly claimed to be an experienced water diviner, and took the twig from him to test it herself. Regrettably it didn't work, but she excused herself saying that she normally used metal rods for the purpose! (See photo below).
I didn't have many firm memories of having been in this part of the Algarve before, until we arrived at a large deserted Quinta after about an hour and a half. Others recalled having been there before, possibly with Maurice, though Thyl thought it was with Ian Cooper.
We pressed on past a quarry and up towards a well signposted 'Cesteiros' (basket maker) which duly appeared complete with three senior practitioners of the art.



Soon we had to negotiate some high stepping stones (Blondin eat your heart out!) and arrived at one of the most luxurious locations we have had for lunch this season. A spirited conversation on the merits of various headgear ensued, and Mike proposed that we set up another sub-committee to advise walkers worldwide on how to select and customise their hats.

After lunch the walk changed - first we crossed the river and returned to the stepping stones via some muddy reed beds, and Antje managed to get a wet boot. Then, the Master of the Bamboo Diagrams was severely tested as Terry cut off uphill on a narrow gorse-infested path to the top of the valley side. To be fair, he was wearing shorts himself, but blood was spilt!! Thyl dredged up a memory of having been on this path some years previously on a famous walk led by David (now moved to Andorra) on which my daughters, Tanya and Oriana had come, fashionably wearing short shorts and tank tops, and had been irredeemably scarred, and also accompanied by the Canadian Ambassador to Washington and his son, who was not amused by the hostile terrain (the son that is).
We emerged to better paths at the top, and continued through a few small hamlets, with pretty houses, and along some narrow but well-preserved caminhos to arrive back at the Tor Recreational Club, which was now open for a well deserved apres-walk Bohemia. Alas and Alack - Terry's good leadership score suffered a mighty blow, when our hostess revealed that not only did she have no Sagres, but she only had 'boys' size' Superbock!! As I write, the Chief Blogger is still suffering from the effects of having to substitute a couple of bottles of Cristal for his preferred tipple.
Despite this, it was an excellent walk - we were lucky for the overcast which kept us cooler, and we completed the 16.7 km in a total of 5 hours 20 minutes, of which some 3 hours 50 minutes was actually walking. With my new GPS the stats keep coming!!! Average Moving Speed - 4.3 km/hr.

Terry provided comfortable facilities for lunch! 

A Test of Balance - Seven High Stepping Stones. 

The Divine(r) Lindsey - and new best friends!