Five Feet, Nine Inches Above Ground

We began Wednesday early – saw the sunrise! Unable to sleep after 3 a.m. The curse of jet lag. It was all good. We eventually set out on a short hike to a close by favourite spot. The sun broke through the cloud cover and it was a rather nice day for walking uphill!

It was interesting to see the changes to the landscape. There’s more land being reclaimed for farming. It’s lain fallow for many years and become overgrown with holm oak, cysts, gorse, rosemary etc. Some of it is very prickly to walk through! More land has been fenced with 8 foot woven wire fencing. I didn’t know sheep could jump that high!

Wednesday melded nicely into Thursday with several games of Newfie Poker held at the home of Randy and Marc in Luz da Tavira with Pat and Gary. Jackson supervised from under the table. It’s about a 25 minute drive from Estoi. The return home saw us off to bed before midnight and I managed to sleep until well after sunrise on Thursday.

It was a bright sunny day with a lovely breeze. Just right for a hike up the “back” of the hill we toured yesterday. However, our favourite access point has now been blocked by fencing. So, we continued further along the paved road to another track we had never climbed. It was an amazing climb and the views were spectacular and it connects to the trail I had originally intended to climb. Jackson actually found the link: a narrow overgrown path totally sheltered from above. There was a medronho tree near the end covered in last years’ fruit.

The local shepherd (not the person in the green coat) showed up with his flock at the end of the afternoon. As you can see, the clouds had moved in again. It was a lovely end to a wonderful day.