We left Albufeira on Sunday and drove all the way into Spain, and then to La Rosaleda campsite in Conil where we stayed before Christmas. We are camping here for a week, while preparing for our 1000 km hike on the Via de la Plata to Santiago de Compostella. The last five weeks on the Algarve was almost continuous blue skies and warm sunny days, interrupted by on only one day when it rained for an hour or two. I have been running, cycling, working out at the local gym, and together we have had some lovely long walks. We should be nice and fit for our marathon trek over the next two months.
I began running in the mornings when we arrived at Camping Albufeira mid-December and I have gone out every day since. When we left on Sunday I had already completed 91 consecutive days, I have arranged that we don’t head for our walk from Sevilla until next Tuesday when I will have reached 100 days. My routine has been to stay in bed with a cup of tea until the sports report finishes on Breakfast TV, I then get up and do some stretching to warm up my legs before setting off about 8 am for my run. I am usually out for an hour and when I get back stretch again before settling down for my breakfast. There are lots of quiet country lanes on the other side of the main road from the campsite, they are fairly traffic free but there is a constant problem with dogs that their owners can’t control or keep secure in their gardens. When I started back in December my pace was average but now as my fitness has improved I am now moving faster, and hills, there are plenty of them, are not a problem. I am looking forward to when I get to my 100 days target, walking about 20 km daily on the ‘Via’ will seem more like a rest cure after this regular running.
Some of the group that I cycled with when we were there three years ago had arrived in February. The two guys who led the group previously, Dennis and Graham, aren’t coming. Dennis had an accident in Spain and his car was written off, they are staying there for the winter until the insurance sort out the claim etc. The ones that have arrived are John, ‘senior’ and Sue, Ron (his wife Roz doesn’t cycle), and another John and Loraine. Another couple Ted and Irene joined the group for a few rides at the beginning of March. The rides weren’t very long, somewhere between 35 and 45 km, and it was easy more social than racing. We left the site at 10 am three days each week and generally we were back in time for lunch, but we did do a few longer outings when we took sandwiches and a drink with us for lunch. Some of this group were when younger long distance runners, John ‘senior’ and Ron have done a number of 100 milers and Irene was also a champion long distance fell runner. John said that he had wanted to run the Comrades Marathon in South Africa but couldn’t manage to fit it in. He had worked for a paint company in Grimsby that had a connection with a factory in Umbogentweni on the Natal south coast, not far from Umtentweni where we have our house, but he couldn’t organise a trip or visit there to coincide with Comrades. The three guys worked together before the factory closed, John ‘senior’ was the Works Manager, Ron a shift supervisor and young John a fitter; they have all been coming here together for a number of years.
The gym I have been going to is in the centre of Albufeira. I walk there and back mostly, it takes 40 minutes each way, but when I have been cycling in the morning I usually continue there on my bike. It is only a small gym and during the day when I normally go it isn’t busy, and there is no hold up or queues to use the equipment. On average I workout there five days each week for sometimes two hours and my muscles are becoming firm and obvious, especially my ‘six pack’. It has become a routine over the last 3 months going to the gym, I’m going to miss it while on the ‘Via’; another reason why I consider the walk a relaxing period.
During the first half of our stay here we were going on the walks organised each week by the rally on Mondays and Wednesdays. I became bored with them, they were too slow and far too many stops; I gave them up. Moira felt the same about the Monday ‘stroll’ but she continued going on a Wednesday for the much longer ones, which went to routes further afield. She also wanted to get some training done before faced with the more difficult days on the ‘Via’ that were ahead of her. We continued to go out together on a Sunday for a route selected from our Cicerone guide book. One particularly lovely hike we did was along forestry tracks above the twisting and winding Odelouca River. We were rewarded with some magnificent views of the river below and recorded these in ‘panorama’ using this facility on our new camera. Some of these photographs are in the ‘Algarve Photo Album’ on this blog. Another walk we did was from the coastal resort of Vilamoura about 25 km east of Albufeira. We took the bus there and returned by the beach. It was easy at first on flat, hard packed sand, but after an hour the rocky shoreline forced us to climb to the cliff tops to an undulating path. We were hoping to see the spring flowers that on our previous visit covered the flat cliff tops in profusion. This time, either it was still too early in the year or because of the lack of rain, there wasn’t many in bloom and it was disappointing. I did do one of the rally Wednesday walks last week with Moira, when they drove to Monchique and climbed Foia, the highest mountain in the Algarve at 902m. It wasn’t much of a climb as Monchique, where we parked, was halfway up the slope and after that it was only a gradual incline up a wide track. The summit was spoiled by numerous telecommunication masts, souvenir shops and cafes.
With all this energetic activity during the day we were too tired at nights to go out anywhere. We generally got to bed about 8 pm, after dinner and the washing up done, to lie back and watch a couple of hours of TV. The reception is very good with our large satellite dish and we can pick up most of the UK channels and radio stations. There is usually something on in the evening that is worth watching but one series that we particularly enjoyed was ‘Call the Midwife’, a drama about the 1950’s midwives working in the east end of London. At other times we are reading books from either the Kindle or the iPad, this is far more convenient than carting all the books around with us that we now have electronically. One thing we continued going to was the whist night organised by the rally steward. We weren’t able to repeat our earlier winning successes but Moira did get the booby prize a couple of times for the lowest score.
While at Camping Albufeira the internet on the site wasn’t at all reliable and I wasn’t able to keep this blog up to date. Now we are at La Rosaleda, the Wi-Fi is first class, a strong constant signal, and I can be sure that any work I begin on the computer won’t be interrupted. I am bringing everything up to date and I will be doing a daily blog of our walk on the Via de la Plata, though again it will depend on the availability of internet whether I can publish it each day. We will see!!
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