News from Portugal ...

Hi .... I've found a cafe with wifi so here is a quick update. We are in Guarda at the moment in the mopuntails in the centre of Portugal. We have camped the last 2 nights in a great little remote campsite near Manteigas. Yesterday we went for a walk. Here is my report ....

On Wednesday we set off for a 12mile walk from our camp site which we thought would take us about 5-6hrs. Over 11hrs and about 24miles later we arrived back! There was a board at the camp site with 3 different walks around the National Park. The guy at the camp site said they are well marked and we’d be fine. We set off at 8.40am and soon felt confident as we saw the red and white symbol markers and the path was wide and clear. There were one or two places when we had to decide which was to go but then we saw our friendly markers and we were fine.

After about an hour of walking my mobile phone rang. The line was breaking up but I could hear a serious sounding voice mentioning bad news. I immediately thought that one of our girls was in trouble but then I heard Dario’s name. The line became clearer and I discovered that it was a journalist, Vicky from Aberdeen who was writing a piece on Dario and wanted to know something about him and my friendship. So here I was walking in the mountains of Portugal speaking about Dario to a journalist in Aberdeen. I hope I did Dario justice. I’m sure there will be a number of tributes to him in papers around Scotland. She sent me a text today to say it could be in the Sun, Mail, Scotsman or Daily Record.

On the whole walk we only met one other person. A Dutch painter who said he has been coming to this area for 25 yrs and has a small cottage in the valley. He walks for 2 hrs every morning and he said he hardly ever sees anyone.

We stopped for lunch after about 6miles and we were really enjoying the views and the walk. We were feeling more confident that the route was well marked all the way round. Once we’d gone past 6miles it wasn’t worth turning back anyway.

The route was billed as a panoramic view and it certainly was as the views were superb all day. The path was dusty but clear and we were enjoying the walk. We kept seeing our friendly markers and happy that we would find our way back.

On one descent we walked through a forest which was welcome as it was getting quite hot in the early afternoon. We crossed over a river and then headed up the road. There were no guidebooks or leaflets of the walk but I had taken a photo of the route from the notice board and was trying to follow that from my camera. We seemed to still be on track and following the signs.
The first slight concern was that we had already walked 12miles and it was obviously there was still a long way to go. Plus our water was running out. But we walked on confident that it was the right way as we followed the signs.

After a couple of miles we came to a junction with no markers. Was it left or straight on? We had stayed on the main paths and that seemed point to going left so that is what we did. We walked on and eventually came to a farm with no obvious path going on.

We saw a local farmer and asked him where Covao da Ponte was. He had no English but pointed in a direction and indicated it was a long way up and down. So basically we had no idea where we were, we had lost the signs but knew the general direction of the campsite!

At this point I decided to make use of my garmin. Before we left I had put in our position and there is a facility on the watch where you can ask for directions back to that point. So it said we were 3.89miles from our destination and the compass showed the direction was SW. So we started following the arrow. The problem is that is based on a straight line and after a few minutes the direction we were aiming for was down a steep valley and back up the other side.

Now this is where I made the worse mistake of the day! I thought we could head straight down through the bush and brambles. We got about 5mins down when it became impossible to get through. We were scratched and sore by the time we got back up to the path!

So we would need to follow round the rim of the valley and hopefully get back on line. We walked for 10mins or so but the path was going away from the direction where we wanted to go. We found the markers again so felt we should go back and follow them again. We walked back down the same track but it too went the wrong way and disappeared.

I must admit at this point I was starting to be a bit concerned. We were over 4,000ft and it was very cold last night in the tent. If we couldn’t find our way and had to spend the night in the open it wouldn’t be very pleasant.

So we made our way back up on this path for the second time and we had decided to follow the main path until it hit a road and try and get a taxi back to the camp site if possible. Then Katrina saw a small path heading off left down into the valley. We had missed it the first time but once we got round a corner we could see it working its way down into the valley and also we could see it going on past a building up the other side in the direction my garmin was telling us to go! We were saved! For the first time in an hour or so we could see the way home.

My garmin still said 3.60miles to go but at least we were headed in the right direction. Then it got even better as at the bottom of the valley we crossed a fast moving stream and we were able to have a drink and refill our water bottle. Water had never tasted so good.

We climbed up out of the valley on the other side and then turned left onto another dirt road which had tyre tracks so at least we thought it must be headed to a road. The direction was still right so we continued to walk.

Following the garmin was good but it was a bit demoralising at times as it gives the distance in a straight line. There was one section when we had to follow round the contours of the hill. I looked at my watch and it said 2.3miles to go. We walked for 30mins or so round the road and I looked again 2.4miles but at least we’d found the markers again and were confident we would find the camp site.

The sun was starting to set by now and it was a bit cooler. We were trying to work out where we would appear and when we would see the camp site but we were both surprised to come across a small village that we had passed early on this morning.

We had ended up at a point we weren’t expecting but at least we knew the way! We could even see our foot prints in the dust from this morning! My garmin showed 1.5miles to go but we knew it was longer than that!

We followed the path and eventually saw the camp site and arrived back at 8.30pm almost 11hrs after we left! We had a cold drink of water and an ice cream. Then we couldn’t be bothered to cook some pasta so had a shower and went straight to bed.

I’m looking forward to downloading the route from my garmin when I get home to try and work out where we went. I was planning on going for a run the today but decided that this walk was good training for the Hardmoors race. I’ll see how I feel tomorrow.

Photos to come!!