Rod and Dina were both unfortunately being out of the country. Apologies from Ingrid, Terry and Jill, Lindsey and Peter soon came in. Chris and Antje were on for the Pizza, but holding back on the walk, until nearer the day; John, Maria and Hilke would walk and eat, Hazel would do a short walk and eat as she was still nursing a fractured foot. Yves was fulfilling his matrimonial care duties,; Frank waited until the deadline was past, and then decided to come, but after arriving at Aldi in Lagos, he apparently couldn't find the Cafe do Bairro nor anyone who knew where it was and after a failed attempt to telephone me, headed back homewards. I did call him when he hadn't arrived but he was already passing Odiaxere, and gave up. Tony is remaining firmly in retirement, but from the remainder of the list I heard nothing.
Stats:-
Stats
Maria modelled my new Tilley, and managed to look HyperKewl despite the size difference.:
According to Tilley:-Our sun-protective Hiker's Hat is designed with an evaporative cooling insert, powered by HyperKewl™, to help relieve heat stress during treks. A rear brim loop provides a place to securely clip your Hat in place when not in use. These unique features, plus all the usual Tilley® Hat benefits make this the ultimate Hat for the trail.
Look forward to:
Look forward to:
- Maximum sun protection - fabric is certified UPF 50+, the highest given
- An abundance of shade - broad brim protects from both sun & rain
- Keeping cool - the HyperKewl™ Evaporative cooling material absorbs & slowly releases water through evaporation to help ‘super charge’ the body’s natural cooling process.
And so the starting line up looked like this: Maria, Myriam Hilke, Antje Paul, John
An effective low angle shot by John's remote camera. We got on our way at 0945, and it was a pleasant day, a bit overcast with a light breeze. (I got that in early as Myriam castigated me for the last blog when I didn't mention the rain. - and I thought only the English were obsessed with the weather!)
Over the hill by Lidl and past the mosaic specialist, who doesn't have much new work on display.
Further up, a moment to contemplate the new development planned the other side of Avenida da Fonte Coberta.
We dropped down towards Modelo/Continente where the rural part of the walk would start. Antje left us at this point to go to the Post Office via her car where she had thoughtfully left the PO Box key.
Across the large field, the sky turned atmospherically cloudy, but the rain didn't threaten.
Was this a discussion on how to cook pizza?
The high (or low) point of the walk was the Tunnel under the A22 extension, which is only accessible after prolonged dry weather.
Will I fit?
Hilke looked doubtful at this point, and started murmuring about 'bad knees', but most of us had been through before and the photo opportunities were a bonus.
Myriam posing for John who was still inside the tunnel.
From the other side.......
....and the other side!!
It was dark in there!
Once more out of the breach......
Piece of cake!
We crossed the N125 and walked up through the opulent Boa Vista Golf resort which is ever expanding, and all the cleaners and gardeners use electric golf carts to cover the vast distances between their jobs.
The Hills are alive.....
Soon on the way to Porto de Mos and Maria was happily engaged collecting her starter for the evening.
I meanwhile had one of my geocaches to check-
The view down to Porto de Mos was splendid as usual, and the breeze was very pleasant.
Down the last slope and Antje and Chris were in the carpark.
Antje joined us for the walk back to Pizza Oliva, and we hit our mark at almost exactly 1 pm.
Hazel and Chris were at the cafe and we had 8 for Pizza. This was not only an auspicious number in Chinese - .......
No. 8 has long been regarded as the luckiest number in Chinese culture. With pronunciation of 'Ba' in Chinese, no. 8 sounds similar to the word 'Fa', which means to make a fortune. It contains meanings of prosperity, success and high social status too, so all business men favour it very much.
.............but also in Italian, as a One -metre Pizza has 4 sections and we were in a position to order 2 one-metre pizzas and each choose a topping for one section. True democracy!
Once I had established the rule, attempts were made to sabotage it - "but I don't like ham!" - " I want that one as well!" - "I must have anchovies" - "I don't know what it is but I'll just pick a number!" etcetera
In the end I had to make a couple of tough decisions - particularly for Myriam who protested that I wasn't allowing her to choose what she wanted - " but someone has already chosen that!" and we ended up with two gloriously varied pizzas. For the record, I carefully wrote down the numbers against each topping on a scrap of paper, and handed it to the very attractive Moldavian Pizza specialist waitress - who proceeded to translate the numbers back to the names in her order book. I can't remember the names of all - Capriccioso, Especial, Quattro Formaggio, Marinara, Tuscan etc but the numbers went like this. Chris - 17, Antje - 10, Hilke - 5, Hazel - 13, John -15, Paul -12, Myriam - 7 and Maria - 20.
This was such a complex challenge for the pizza chef, that it took a while to arrive and the bruschetta complimentary starters were a fond memory.
While waiting, John settled his debt to me for the text message I had to send him owing to his reluctance to use WhatsApp.
Plus ca Change!! Not like a Scot not to take advantage of free messaging!
Hazel and I had a 'bag-off', which Hazel won by producing a second minimalist folding bag.
When the first pizza arrived, Hilke and Antje fell on it like ravening lionesses, not even allowing me to wait for the second pizza to hit the table for the historic double One-metre Pizza photo.
Digging in!
Luckily the second pizza arrived and our ace cameraman manged to capture this shot which didn't reveal too much of the desecration of the first pizza by a skilfully placed ice bucket!
We engaged the services of the lovely waitress to take a team photo from each end!
Jyll arrived to say hello towards the end of our feast and helped us out with a slice.
And happy to say, everyone left the table replete and content, sometime after 3pm and we left a couple of small portions for the Roman Gods of Pizza as a thankyou.
The walk track and stats:
First from John:
Stats:-
Total distance: 11.1 kms. Total time: 3 hrs 15 mins.
Moving time: 2 hrs 36 mins.
Moving average speed: 4.2 kph (Could be described as a snail´s pace, what?)
Ascent: 298 metres.
My ViewRanger Stats(regrettably not saved until I had been sitting for about 40 minutes)
And the ever-reliable Official Garmin:-
which gave the ascent as a mere 194 metres.
Whichever it was a fine walk and a congenial lunch. Summer is here and some WAGS will emerge early from their torpid beds to flourish as APAPS and as breakfast specialists.
Yves says " sigh....."
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