Wednesday Algarve Geriatric Strollers: WAGS 02.05.2018: Pincho from Peter's Place

Some floral grandeur to start. Some of the beautiful roses in Sonia and Peter's garden.

Before we even reached Quinta de Refugio, the Happy Clappies had wished Hazel a Happy Birthday in the Pincho Cafe carpark, complete with original Portuguese lyrics

A rare visit to the Pincho area for the WAGS, Peter's local area, but Rod took the lead. He even managed to come up with some additional colour commentary, composed and despatched while catching his EasyJet flight to UK on Friday. Here is his account, colourfully embellished by some photos of the countryside and the WAGS.

John 'power-posing'* at the front with behind, from L-R Thyl, Peter, Rod, Myriam, Hazel, Paul Ingrid, Janette

* He is in good company! See HERE

Paul & Myriam, John & Hazel, Ingrid, Janette, Peter, Thyl, Rod were the ingredients for this week's WAGS walk. We met up at the restaurant in the mighty metropolis of Pincho where we might have had coffee had it been open.

That it wasn't had been fortuitously observed by local native Peter who managed to persuade Sonia to most generously offer to provide what was undoubtedly much superior coffee.

Coffee at the Quinta

This and some time spent admiring Sonia's wonderfully colourful garden meant a slightly late start but by 10.20 we were on our way climbing up to the ridge north of the Schroeder estate.....noting the exemplary husbandry of Peter's pine trees.

A rose by any other name.......

The weather threatened rain for much of the time as we descended to the valley on the far side but it never actually did.

Along this our trail, last used some 5 or 6 years ago, headed up what was an open track but was now a private gated property bearing the name of Quinta Goncalves. Our local native once again to the rescue announced he was well acquainted with the absent owner so in we went.

The rear of the property turned out to have a licensed medronho still, which made it even more lamentable that the owner was absent

Entrance to the licensed distillery

It's official!

. Through lack of use the track from thereon had become somewhat overgrown but still ended up where intended....which happened to be on the route of the original Algarve Way.

WAGS don't like wet feet................!

............unlike Anke

Another descent was followed by a long plod up to the ridge now decorated by a string of wind turbines.

Sky still threatening!

Worm's eye view of a wind turbine.

After following this for a while we headed south again opting for what was a fairly steep and rough route down. This hit the road west of Pincho where we had the option of a loop further south.

Steeper than it looks

Having achieved about 9k at this point we decided honour was done and we returned along the road to the restaurant. At this point it may be observed from attached stats that we were almost exactly on WAGS guidelines. The restaurant turned out to still be closed so after collecting a couple of cars used to ferry us to Peter's house at the beginning we diverted to Bensafrim to our now customary Barbaro's with their most agreeable level of fare.

" I used to be this tall!!"

Lebensraum!!

Little to add apart from the track and stats, except that we kept out a vigilant eye for genetically modified cistus plants. They are large and bright this year, but the best we could spot was a couple of 7-spotters.

The stats from Garmin first, showed that the distance and total climb were less than last week, although to me they certainly felt further. This was probably due to the long-researched phenomenon 'Leader's Delusion Syndrome', whereby if you are leading a walk you underestimate its length, elevation and difficulty, compared to if you are following and have no idea where you are going.