Hoopee, motorways, windmills and villas

We arrived late at the aire last night, this was a wild west inspired site, and should have had electricity and Wi-Fi. But at 6-30pm everything was closed. They were all either in bed, or watching TV via their satellites.

Shame, Dora could have done with a little electricity. No matter, we found a spot, had dinner and joined our fellow motor homers with some shuteye. Next morning, I opened the blind, and there mooching around 3m away a hoopoe, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoopoe. Like the picture, he didn’t have his crest out. He was using his long bill to probe the grass, presumably for insects.

Now Susu has never got my love of birds, another thing I adopted from my Grandfather (mother’s father), who used to take us out along the quarries of southern England. It is something that has stuck with all our family, but even though I thrust the binoculars in front of Susu, I couldn’t get her excited about him. Just another bird, difficult to see. Maybe we need to head off to the coast for a bit of seashore life!

Now this was a proper site, international, well French, German and Dutch and probably a few Brits somewhere. Most sixty plus, overwintering in the sunnier climes. Like a lot of birds really. We decided to stay a while, let Dora recharge, clear up and do some IT for that Wi-fi. With our phones out like metal detectors, we went in search of a signal. Where we had parked was a bit of a cold spot, typical, we would have to move, here it was pretty slow.

After all of that it was getting on. We headed off to Lidl, we needed gas and petrol, and there was a McD’s, hopefully with a faster signal.

So by mid afternoon we only had time left for a short walk around Estoi. It wasn’t too far away, but yet again we would have to get a move on. We parked on the high street and headed west out of town. It is four o-clock and we have two and half hours walking. A bit of darkness maybe, and we have forgotten the torches. Makes life more interesting I suppose, and gets you seeing the sunset. Let’s hope the guide doesn’t fail us!

The start is obvious, we cross the motorway after 15 minutes. I think there has been a lot of laying of tarmac since the book was written, what should have been tracks are now roads, shame.

Ten minutes later we get to a quarry, we are accosted by a pack of dogs, desperately barking. They seem happy enough, tails wagging. They stop as soon as you turn to them, cowards.

The road has eventually become a track, but really these are just unpaved roads, that even Dora could negotiate. We head upwards, following a small stream.

Before crossing a bridge, frogs croak in the stream and once again we are on a road. True to form, the guide starts to let us down with some really vague description, ‘Turn left after about 5 minutes’. After 5 there is nothing, we retrace our steps, exploring every possible right. It isn’t until we are back at the bridge do we find the junction! Less than a minute away, ‘Unless you were crawling like a slug’ I exclaim, a phrase Susana now delights in!

We have wasted 15 minutes we cannot afford, but we are back on track.

We head upwards on a road, should be a track, but eventually we turn left up a stony track with a dry stone wall on the right. This is a crest.

There are good views back towards the coast.

A few houses litter the crest. After an hour we reach the collapsed windmills, after which there is a small dwelling with two large circular water containers.

Another few hazy directions, but we are making a good time. We are heading downhill into the valley. We can see our immediate objective, a large road running down the valley. There are large villas around here, we wonder whether they are owned by the locals, or expats! They are not particularly tasteful.

Unusually we find a path, a bit overgrown, but it makes a change. We ignore the instructions. ‘Turn left and go downhill’, it goes uphill! We see a track and head for it.

We drop onto another track before getting to the road and crossing it.

It looks easier now, we cross the river, rising above the valley. Someone has a compound filled with junk, what a mess, what a shame.

This is a noisy path, the road is busy as people head home from work.

It is half past five, but the sun is still above the horizon. We are going to get to the village before sunset.

As the sun gradually gets lower the light is amazing.

Perhaps this is not such a bad time to walk.

An OK walk, not particularly isolated, much like walking around the Kent countryside really.

What has been interesting about this walk is the excitement of whether we would be finishing it in the dark. With the hurry to start it as soon as possible, we left the torches back in Dora. Not very good on us. A very silly mistake. It wouldn’t have mattered so much here, as you are never far away from civilization but it would have been crucial in the mountains. We had our phones though, which we could have used instead, but as we use them heavily during the walk, taking photos and recording our impressions, batteries run out pretty quickly, so not very reliable as torches”. SM