WAGS 4.12.2019: Montes de Cima or Autours du Autodrome

Herewith Rod´s report:-

“WAGS WALK 4/12
“A very tardy and brief report and photos on last week´s walk....maybe for some blog artist to convert to a more sophisticated format! (Duly done! Ed.)

                                            The Starters at the Honey Café

Present were: John and Hazel, Terry and Jill, Peter, Dina, Yves  & Rod, plus Becky.

We all met up at Taberna do Manel, Montes de Cima and, after a few coffees, set off fairly punctually.

Past the erstwhile Patricia´s

One of the previous cross-country routes we had previously taken now bore an ominous Privado sign   Of course, we ignored that and pressed on without being accosted or shot by anyone.

A Portuguese Volcano

The  path had quite recovered from the fires of a year or two ago and was getting overgrown; however we reached the top which opened up a vista of perhaps Pestana´s least profitable hotel...not a guest nor employee to be seen.

We wandered over to the derelict farmstead just to the north of the Autódromo. This together with surrounding farmland seems to have been taken over by the Autódromo organisation and used as some sort of cross-country rally  practice area...

including an artificial mountain which John felt obliged to ascend (purely in the interests of the photographical record. Ed).

From there we wandered along the stream bed until we reached a point involving a minor amount of scrambling....

......this could of course have been avoided by walking along the race track circumference road which would have been terribly boring.

From there we headed up through a well-used gap in the fencing  which led on to a wider track. This followed upstream along the Ribeira de Arão which did show the odd sign of water here and there.

We had been along the upper part of this track before but the then wooded countryside has now been decimated by bulldozers...barring the odd fir or oak tree, the terraces are now denuded of any form of growth, awaiting who knows what.

This has rather spoiled what had been an attractive rural route but now has the advantage of opening up glorious vistas  of the architectural splendour of the desolate hotel!  

Don´t go left !

 (But they did)

So different was the countryside and the bulldozed tracks  that our leader selected the wrong one at a crucial point.

The Wrong Track

This led back down to the Casais road again and meant a tarmac stroll for the last km or so. Not that it made any difference to the distance, which ended up a WAGS standard 10.6 km. So to the Taberna do Manel again..such friendly folk..where the tosta fare was well up to scratch.”

A sort of omelette for Hazel

The ordinary tosta

The Especial Tosta

Following last week´s collection of somewhat irrelevant and would be artistic pictures,  for the delectation of those among us who are enthusiasts for antique farm machinery, here are pictures of two tractors seen during the walk.

One a Fiat, the other of indecipherable make.


And to conclude, a map of the track, reconstructed on Google Earth from Rod´s ViewRanger images, and deliberately tilted to one side so as to include and show the monstrosity that is the Autodrómio.

and some statistics:-
Distance: 10.6 kms.
Total time: 3 hrs 23 mins.
Ascent: 202 metres