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.