AWW 12.03.2008 Alfer(ec)ce Adventure

Alfer(ec)ce Adventure: (NB Pronounced 'Alf a Recce Adventure)

First of all, and unusually for me, a retraction and an apology! I refer to the supplement to last week's Blog, entitled W.W.N.W, which was a new feature purporting to be a preview of this walk in tabloid style. Regrettably, it turned out that as with most tabloids, there was a tiny iota of fact, and a great deal of supposition and embellishment. I had (in good faith) even alleged that Ian S. who was to lead this week had started taking leadership seriously, and had performed a recce with a witness and cameraman. Little did I know that the recce had consisted of standing at a good vantage point in Alferce and waving his arm at the ridge to the east, and then a short stroll downhill to the first river crossing, where he proceeded to play at arranging wobbly stones, while being photographed, and then back up the hill to glow in his sense of achievement over several bottles of Sagres!!

wild goose chase

1592, first attested in "Romeo and Juliet," where it evidently is a fig. use of an earlier (but unrecorded) literal sense in ref. to a kind of follow-the-leader steeplechase.

The truth will be revealed in the following account!

The First XV outside Bar O Carlos,
(thanks to Alex's delayed action camera!)

Thyl turned up for the first time since long ago, having been on a Central American Adventure, and we also had Alex and Marcela standing in for Chris and Antje who were away on a romantic Anniversary trip to Spain. At least Tiggy enjoyed the walk! Most of the other 11 had been lured in by the promise of '18km and quite hilly'. Some of the more cynical among us had seen through the hyperbole and opted to stay at home!

Leader: Ian S.
Cannon Fodder: Alex and Marcela, John H., Ian W. Hilke, Lindsey, Peter, Dina, Paul, Tina, Vitor, Hedley, Janet and Thyl
Best Friends: Tiggy, Beroe

The track - note the 'Wild Geese' vantage point to the south!
8km before lunch and 11km after!

Stats: Total Dist: 19 km; Moving Time: 4 hr 41 min; Total Time: 5 hrs 53 min.; Moving Average: 4.1 km/hr.;
Overall Avg. 3.2 km/hr; Total Ascent 888 m.; Max Elevation: 397 m.

First of all let me praise the Leader, but faintly! Bar O Carlos was open and serving coffee for which my designated driver Alex, and Marcela were extremely grateful, having radically underestimated the time needed for preparation, feeding and emptying dogs, and attending to their own essentials. Nevertheless by some inspired driving, and my refusal to allow them to stop and pick up provisions on the way, we made it to Alferce with 10 minutes to spare - and we weren't the last. We eventually formed up and followed the confident leader out of the village at 0939 hrs.

The McScott Technical Tartan All-Terrain Jacket

The warm sun which we had enjoyed on the coast had been replaced by a gloomy cloudcast with northerly winds, and our Leader was resplendent in his highly individual cold weather gear. A chorus of "I'm a Lumberjack and I'm alright..." was quickly quelled.

No one tests the depth of a river with both feet. Proverb, Ashanti

(Except AWW's apparently)

The first crossing

After a nice downhill stretch of almost 3 km, we reached the first crossing, which was almost as advertised in last week's preview, except in reality, it was deeper and the stones which had been wrestled into position were too wobbly to trust. This led to a general doffing of footwear, and a cooling pedicure, except for Vitor, who attempted a risky traverse upstream and wet his trousers almost to wallet level!
I had been waiting for a chance to reveal my latest tech equipment, a pair of waders made out of wetsuit material, which with the brief exposure kept my feet warm and almost dry!

A fine calf!

We all towelled off to varying degrees and rebooted ourselves (in the archaic sense), only to find that 100 metres along the track on the unreccied portion of the walk, we had to recross the river, and it was deeper here.
With a cry of delight, Ian W. discovered a fallen log across the stream and nimbly flitted across.

Natural bridge

Alex too managed to cross safely, but when the CB (100kg) attempted the crossing, Alex (105 kg) had not fully vacated the log, and at the critical time the support gave way and the log dropped about 20cm, just enough to unbalance me. I executed a half turn and lunge towards the safety of the bank, but failed miserably and performed an almost perfect belly flop just short of the target. I now understand what they mean when they say you can drown in an inch of water!! I was wet to the chest, and both my camera and phone were fully submerged before I struggled to my feet, blushing! After that I didn't need any bridges - to boldly splash...

Peter has a 'moment'!

The river became even more persistent as less than half a kilometre further on we came to crossing #3.
Again there was a fallen log, but this time high above the water, and it gave Janet a chance to show off her balancing skills!

Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees. Jackson, Stonewall

(from Famous Last Words)

Blondin - who's he?

And that was the end of the serious water sports. We now had a long dogged climb up to the Trig point at Montinhos, where after the obligatory photo we took lunch after 3 hours and 8 km.

Pre-lunch pose at Montinhos TP 397 m.

After a generous lunch break by Ian's standards we pressed on to the south. Ian, as he repeatedly assured us, had 'done' this several times before. Thyl, too expressed himself familiar with the area. I myself could not recall being this side of the valley to the East of Alferce before, but then my memory is not quite infallible these days. The path along the ridge top was broad and the views magnificent, and the sun, at last drove the clouds away and brightened our spirits. The 'plan' if I may loosely call it that was to head south until we saw a decent path down to the valley to meet with the diagonal path going up the opposite side, which would inevitably take us to the famous piggery beneath Monte Velho to the south of Alferce.

"Cross my heart - I know where we are going!"

I must state that I did notice that the path we were on seemed suspiciously recent, and coincidentally went from pylon to pylon - and I was fairly sure that the pylons led to near Silves, but Hope springs eternal, and J.Hope, the Recce accomplice did not utter a word of dissent. After a couple of km. the cunning pylons decided to span a deep valley, and the path ran out at what would have made an admirable ski-jump piste. Alas no snow and no skis!
Undaunted the Leader announced Plan 'B' - or was it 'C', and we retreated, apart from a conciliatory avoidance of one of the peaks. We could see exactly where we wanted to go, but there did not appear to be any viable paths down the steep side of the valley.
After passing below our lunch spot, we continued north, ignoring the path we had taken on the way up from the valley, and set about a circumnavigation of the northern end.

"a kind of follow-the-leader steeplechase."

We almost found the path the leader and Thyl confirmed they had 'done' several times before, but eventually a minor rebellion resulted in a surge towards the immaculately surfaced San Marcos da Serra road, and the long uphill grunt on tarmac to the Alferce junction.

"Show me the way to go home..."
Now that's the way to cross the river in style!

It was a long steady slog up the road, but the Leader managed to stay in the lead and reached Bar O Carlos several lengths ahead of myself and the thirsty Alex.

...and this was fairly soon 'Ice Cold in Alex'
(just couldn't resist that one!!)

The faithful followers trailed in at intervals, and soon we were becoming ungruntled, and agreeing that it was one of the best led walks we had ever had!!

See no Evil; Speak no Evil; Drink no Evil!

The Leader was soon in cracking form, and promising even more ambitious and debilitating Mystery Tours. Fortunately the Secretary convened a meeting of the Sub-Committee, and a surprise virtual drug-test confirmed that he would be red-carded and sit on the bench until the end of the season along with Johnny Wilkinson and Dwain Chambers.

Leader's perks!

We are not retreating - we are advancing in another direction. Macarthur, Douglas after Ian S.