WAGS 15.05.2019: Tick-Tac Go

We will get into the title later.  This was (probably) to be Myriam's and my last WAGS walk of the season as by the time we get back from UK, we may be well into the heat of summer and early starts. 
No doubt someone will come up with something for the next couple or 3 weeks.
       Cafe Tassbem in Figueira chose this week to take a holiday from preparing excellent TM's for hungry WAGS, so after a bona fide recce on the Monday, Trigo Bom Padaria and Pastelaria was the chosen RV point. The wording of the green embossed WhatsApp invite read:- 

".....we will meet between 0900 and 0930 for coffee and drive to the Cultural and Sports Centre to start soon thereafter."

   By 0935 we were still a couple short of a full team, and no exculpatory phone call, nor did they answer our attempts to contact, so we moved to the start point near the Sports Centre, and after a pause for the starter pic, set off. 
    

Ten at the real start: Myriam, Ingrid, Hilke, Paul, John, Hazel, Frank, Jill, Terry and Tony

We had a lot of firsts: First appearances of Frank, Tony, Hilke and Jill for some time, though Tony assured me this was not yet another comeback. Also, the eagle-eyed may have noticed something new in the Headgear Department - not only the four genuine Tilleys in various traditional shades (Ingrid kindly removed her facsimile so as not to ruin the photo!), but a bold vibrant statement by myself in the debut of my Hikers' HypeKewl Evaporative Insert T4M0-1 Tilley . It is in a rustic shade of Russet, and I had spotted it in a flash half-price sale at £40. It has a padded absorbent insert which should be soaked in cold water before going out in the sun. It slowly evaporates, maintaining the head at 10-15 F cooler than without. It says! And I can say it does work. Can be replenished with a splash of cool water from one's drinking bottle if it dries up on a long sunny walk.

HyperKewl T4M0-1 modelled by.........(No Botox used in this picture!)

        Anyway enough of that, the Ten Good Walkers were just crossing the N125 to head for the bridge, when John detected the Lost WAGS arriving in a cloud of dust, sweat and excuses. 'No it wasn't 10 o'clock'  RTFM!!

Most of the main group straggling across the temporarily deserted N125.

A little late for the Starter photo!

John went back to round up the Lost Sheep, and safely herded them across the road with Myriam

and then to the bridge. Our original crossing was to have been around 0945 when I had checked there were no trains By now it was past 10 am so we took extra precautions!

Myriam checking for trains!

All clear - let's go.

Tony's highly trained dogs, Jess and Shadow enjoying a mud bath

A hot dry day but fortunately a cooling breeze from the Atlantic.

The dam made a convenient break.

Descending the calcada slide

Ancient Monument photo opportuny. Only one Conchie!

There followed a pleasant walk along the cliff path till we turned back over towards the main Alvor road, 

Estuary view towards Lagos.

The main road was very busy. Tony's dogs were running free and this caused some anxiety to everyone except Tony! I sped on ahead to avoid witnessing any potential problem.  Myriam and Dina hung back. Hazel acted 'in loco suo uxorem' and told Tony to control the dogs. It worked, as we all (including dogs) survived the 500 m of Alvor road before we turned down a wide track back to the dam.

Track by ViewRanger

John's SatMap Stats

Total distance: 10.00 km precisely
Total time: 3 hrs 01 mins
Stopped time: 0. 45 mins(?)
Moving time: 2 hrs 16 mins (Of course, I went back to collect Yves and Dina.)
Average moving speed: 4.4 mph
Ascent: 160 meters.

    I had reccied the open restaurant/bars nearby and we reached Restaurant Tic-Tac, which looked promising with a Prato do Dia and a promise of TMs and bifanas. Plenty of space, but as is the common practice, Tony and Frank didn't linger. Hilke and Ingrid stayed for a short chat but apparently don't need quality tucker after a walk! Myriam got stuck into her Prato do Dia, which was tentatively identified as Red Snapper.

Prato do dia

A couple of us settled on the bifana option:

Colourful but a bit dry!! needed the tomatos, mustard and a dash of piri-piri sauce.

.....while John, Terry and Jill kept faith with a type of TM, that is unlikely to have me rushing back.

Hilke says farewell............

......closely followed by the new Full Leading WAG!

Good head!

Hazel spots something....

Yes, in the Restaurant TicTac, we had a tick attack, which provoked quite an extreme reaction from Yves to the point where he almost left the scene. By then the poor little bloodsucker was so mangled that photographic attempts failed, though  post-walk it prompted this exchange from a couple of accomplished Google researchers:-

John wrote:

It seems that there are something like 899 species of tick, and that there are three families of tick. One family, the Nuttella (Nuttalliellidae. CB Nutella is a brand of sweetened hazelnut cocoa spread.) or something like that, are a single species so it is not very well-known. The other two families are much better known and are well-established. 99 million years or so. One family, the Argasidae, are the soft ticks which consist of about 198 species. But we are not concerned with soft ticks. We in the WAGS being tough nuts are naturally more concerned with the family of Ixodidae or hard ticks, some 700 species, which have a scutum or hard shield and an external feeding apparatus or “mouth” to be technical. Unfortunately, because Yves knocked the living daylights out of today’s specimens, your correspondent is unable to be more specific about which today’s species was

DNA analysis suggests that the Argasidae may be paraphyletic whilst the Ixodidae may be a clade (me neither).
There seem to be two scientific ways of classifying the hard tick.
One is:-
Species: Dermacentor variability
Genus: Dermacentor
Family: Ixodidae.

The other is:-
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Chelicerata
Class: Arachnida
Subclass: Acari. (hence the general phobia)
Superorder: Parasitformes
Order: Ixodidae
Superfamily: Ixodoidea.

What all this leads up to is that we can now invent our own phobia to describe Yves’ quite understandable reaction today as “Ixodidaphobia”.

Myriam riposted:-

All the identifications are too technical! When I had dogs, it was a routine in the summer to check them. I must have killed enough ticks to scare Yves shooting up to heavens and would refuse to come down ever again!!

Allegedly only the females stick on the skin to suck blood until they look like dark beads and the males only crowd around the bloated female. Never did any research on this way of identification (discrimination?).

I leave that to the very recently qualified tick expert to find out the truth! 

Luckily he does not suffer from Ixodidaphobia, otherwise even reading the word would trigger the phobia!! Perhaps a glass or two of grape juice will calm the nerves!

For those that have not followed the above and are still with us, I will use graphics for clarity.

 No precise pictures were found of the Algarve Salt Marsh ticks, but possibly a larger blacker version of this one below,  Why the poor thing has had its anus and anal groove highlighted, can only be down to the perverts that frequent the world of media. Be afraid - be very afraid!!

And now a quiz to see if you have been paying attention:

Q. How do you insert a tick into a Frenchman?

Answer (scroll down)

A.   French✅man