Sunrise over Lagos on 30th September and reports begin to filter in of a serious “domestic” at Casa da Oliveira. Apparently, the Whittles´ washing machine had run amok in the pre-dawn hours and Antje, in attempting to kick it into submission, had damaged her Anterior Cruciate Ligament or some such essential, and was now doubtful about being able to lead her long-looked-forward-to “Over The Hills And Far Away” expedition to Bordeira. Presciently, however, she had enlisted Hazel and your scribe for her recce the previous week and through them had some leadership fall-back. At that stage, she still hoped to be at Carrapateira for the off. At 8.45am, however, she called to say that she couldn´t make it as she had been advised to rest. In the interests of feminine solidarity, she suggested that Hazel should lead instead. But when I relayed this to Hazel, she turned down the nomination point-blank. A vastly experienced leader in the shape of Terry “The Legs “Ames then hove into sight, but he too declined the invitation to lead on the grounds, I think, that he did not have a mandate and that, if he was to walk from Carrapateira to Bordeira and back, he wouldn´t normally have thought of taking Antje´s proposed route. So, there I was, stuck with it, to the detriment of my taking the usual number of photos.
The Starters outside the lively, early-morning, seize-the-moment Café Bravo
Starters: Dina (welcome back), Ros, Yves, Ingrid, TerryA, David, Hazel, Pam, Lynn, FrankM, JohnH.
Hounds: Rose, Java.
(Pam´s husband, Nick, was on hand to take the Starter pic but, being under the weather, didn´t walk.)
Track: not exactly as shown by the blue line in this picture, but near enough:
Statistics:
Start: 9.15 am – Finish: 2.15 pm.
Distance: 18 km.max.
Followers of political developments in the UK will know that, recently, a new leader of one party has emerged on the scene who has the novel idea that, although mandated as leader, he will not take any decisions himself but will consult his party at every turn. Bizarre perhaps, but I thought I would adopt his m.o. for the purposes of this walk and, to my surprise, it worked pretty well. I began by asking my party which direction we should take at the start. FrankM, who I guess had not much of a clue where exactly he was nor where going, pointed decisively up the Carrapateira hill (which was the correct way by chance ) and we were off.
On we went and at every crucial junction, we were as a murmuration of starlings, veering in unison, stopping and starting as if wired to a single inaudible signal, inseperable. Just as well, as I was struggling to keep up with the pack leaders.
We even paused contentedly to let Yves play with his prehistoric Lego set.
We breezed along to Vilarinha, no problems, and then tackled the 100 metre-plus ascent over the hills with suitable and amicable pauses for the more breathless. We crossed the upland interior without incident.
A relatively minor dislocation to party policy then occurred on the ridges above Bordeira. This was when when Lynn and Yves were inspired by the sights of an old mill and a trig point high on a hill up which they hared, leaving most of us flat-footed in their wake, with TerryA, clearly determined not to visit yet another ruin, staying put. At the trig point, which incidentally Hazel had discovered on the recce, Ros volunteered to go up top, which she did with some anatomical assistance from Yves, toujours le gentilhomme.
At Hazel´s trig point.
On the way back down, we found that Terry and Java had disappeared from the track. Abandoning them to their fate without a qualm, the rest of us made our way down to the village, from the south, by a narrow but reasonable path (which incidentally had not been included in the recce the week before).
The rooftops of Bordeira
The smokestacks of Bordeira
Here we were pleased to find that the Café, which had been closed that previous Wednesday, was now open again with Terry busy behind the bar laying out attractive dishes of fresh salad, boiled eggs and tuna – alas not for us but reserved for another group of walkers. But we obtained sufficient beers and other refreshments and took our lunch under the trees of the village square.
Terry and Java then reappeared, coming downhill into the village, from the west, and they plus Yves lunched on the Café verandah. (This means, Antje, if you happen to read this, that there are at least three viable routes down into the village from the ridge.)
And if any reader is getting confused (as I was at the time) about how Terry could be both going walk-about with his dog and simultaneously be preparing lunch in the Café, Ingrid explains that the name of the pleasant South African girl running the Café also happens to be Terry.
The post-lunch route took us along the flat ground towards the coast, first across a long meadow, then under the welcome shade of the pine grove, and finally along increasingly tiring sandy tracks and over the dunes to the beach, Praia de Bordeira, which was swarming with energetic people, seemingly all armed with surf boards and rubber-suit fetishists. As we weren´t so equipped, Nick was able to spot us easily among the throng and joined us.
At this stage, I´m sorry to report that party unity broke down a bit –everybody seeming to want to go their own direct way home, some over the rocks, some by a wet or submarine route through the tidal creek. Corbyn, be warned! Concensus and discipline are not birds of a feather. Anyway, those who did follow the leader and his circuitous route got across the creek to the boardwalk dry-footed.
Not to worry, unanimity was fully restored at the end of the boardwalk when all were of one mind in deciding not to struggle further on the sandy tracks of the Rota Vincentina but to take the easier if boring tarmac road home.
Back at Carrapateira, which was exceptionally busy with surfers and others, we found that the good lady of Café Bravo, in a remarkable demonstration of entrepreneurial get-up-and-go, had indeed got up and gone, and had closed for the day.
No, we are not open for business.
The other cafés meanwhile were open, bustling, and coining it. Among the crowds, we saw to our surprise a trio of WAGS (Rod, Paul and Myriam). Flint-eyed like a panel of judges on MasterChef or Strictly, could it be that they were there to assess our performance? Running an eye over the talent for possible new recruits to their sprinter group? Time will tell. Oh, and by the way, Paul told Yves not to mention the War (I mean, of course, the RWC.)
So, Antje, very sorry you missed what was really your walk; but it´s one that will be well worth your doing again – plenty of scope for variation. We all hope you recover quickly.
The Obligatory Quotes
There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader.
(Alexandre Ledru-Rollin)
And some have Leadership thrust upon them.
(anon)
Progress might have been all right once, but it´s gone on too long.
(Ogdon Nash)
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