Fuseta Portugal

Not much of a blog this one. We’ve spent two nights in Fuseta Monocarpacho, and one and a bit days (as you’d guess). This is rural Portugal, only about nine miles east of Faro, maybe only thirty from Albufira.
Fuseta is a fishing village and as per the previous post (maybe not explained specifically), and an area of `semi subsistence farming’. I say that because clearly some of what’s grown here goes elsewhere, but from the shops and stalls, quite a bit stays nearby.

The Entry Channel to the Village

Birds a Way out on the Sandbars

Inner Beach, Outer Sandbar

Channel Through the Sandbar to the Sea

There is a small fish market (which we couldn’t go in). A tiny railway station and train service and overall it’s just pretty and quaint and local. There are a couple of hotels or apartment blocks all closed up for winter, and there is our municipal campsite.

Fully Tiled Buildings

It’s a two night town if you’re touring, though there are plenty of over winterers on the campsite (predominantly French and Dutch). Fuseta is everything Isla Cristina just a way back over the border in Spain could be. A small fishing village with salt pans for preservation and a nature reserve. The difference couldn’t be more pronounced, this place is fantastic, clean within the parameters of a small town at the mercy of the Atlantic, cheerful and friendly.

Storks and Waders

Disused Salt Pan

Highlights for us have been the birds on the disused salt pans, eating fish and prawns caught that day in a restaurant that expands its alfresco seating and re-jigs everything on the fly to accommodate the customers, the fish is cooked on a double level Barbeque on the pavement, the salads, bread, olives and a half litre carafe of wine and beer and desert (as per previous post all come in at €20 or €25 and the bill amount is written on your paper tablecloth). They only do lunch, in the evenings they are closed.

Borage and Bees

Train

There are good well marked cycle paths, that zigzag between small holdings and homes and cross single track an unmade roads here and there. I was constantly reminded of England in spring, but for the occasional cactus or Prickly Pear.

That's Some Fresh Fish

There is something to be said for the land management here, Bees are everywhere. The lanes where the Borage grows actually hum with the noise of bees  (as did the almond groves way back in Spain). If there is a problem with bees in the UK, then based on what we’ve seen here, we the people are likely to be the problem somehow or another.

The sand bars just off shore are a protected area, though you can pick up a small boat and be dropped on them for an hour or two. They extend for at least twenty miles and when we get to Faro, we may go on one of the boat tours if they’re running.

It’s been pleasant and we looked forward to more of Portugal.

Lunch

Shadow Selfy

Urchin

The Road to Peniscola (Penis Cola tee hee hee).

14.5 kilometres to Peniscola (pen- ISC-ola) ancient fort town, circa 13^th Century, along a` road’ ... in the broadest sense of the word from Ribimar.

The Tower Marking the Blind Spot

First Sight of Peniscola

A Bush Shaped Like a Giant Nob

From Whence we Came

This road runs along the seaboard face of the Sierra Del Irta National Park and will never be made, except the switch back section up an eighty metre or so mount upon which an ancient guard tower stands, bleached and blasted white by dust and salt) before reverting back to petrol tank scratching, ball breaking, wheel spinning aggregate.

View Panoramica

The Mountains we Cycled Past

Dropped Down to Sea Level (for a bit)

The tower looks south down the coast to which Peniscola would be blind (the direction we came from). Once it would have provided advance warning to Peniscola should marauders or invaders have sought that towns blind side, with the quick wind filling their sails and the one or two shallow bays before the mount, where those invaders could beach their ships and march the coastal path downhill (mostly) to the town (though to be fair they would still have to f*%@ing mad to do it ... glad I’m not a suicidal 13^th century soldier looking for glory in the next life by getting well and truly killed in this one).

Looking north the 3.5 kilometres as the crow flies from the old watch tower (8.5 along the road, it’s that twisty) to Peniscola, the cliffs rise almost vertically from the sea. Only the ancient harbour would allow safe landing for those visiting the port on legitimate business, and one assumes the beach beyond, where ships could be careened or beached. The old walled towns buildings gleam white in the midday sun, rising to meet the old Templar Castle, with its buff walls parapets and stair cases only shoulder wide, steep enough to kill a falling man or stall a charge. Here and there those walls bare the scars of artillery fire; football sized pockmarks in blocks of stone dressing a cliff. I have no idea if those shots were badly aimed or deliberate. What I do know is that those shots were wasted utterly on walls that in some places are two metres thick, and as noted above literally just dress the under lying rock.

I suppose in my ignorance; having never been subjected to a barrage of cannon ball fire, I can't imagine what it was like for those inside the walls when cannon balls hit. However, when the gunfire ceased I think I would have been happier to be inside than out.

They Must have Been Slim 700yrs ago

The strategic importance of the castle (I think) is highlighted by the fact that the much more modern lighthouse, is set so much lower down the sea facing side of the town on what may have been a castle precinct sometime in the past.

A Very Pretty Town

The road itself was tough. The going there was hard enough but exciting because all that lay ahead was undiscovered. The return was nearly, very nearly a nightmare. The wind had been building in all day, and sped us forward. On the return, that same wind was in our face (the forecast had predicted the wind to turn ... it did, the following morning). The wind was shearing along the seafront from the south, turbo rolled along the escarpment into a gusting, dust hurling forcefield that defied low gears and in addition to the long steady gradients that eventually stopped me dead in my tracks, turning my bike into a wheeled walking stick and faithful leaning post. My quadriceps eventually cramped under minimal load; forcing me to kneel at the roadside to stretch, without inducing calf cramps. This so I could then walk the gradual but lengthy inclines to the next downhill stretch of track, and then roll, brakes on down what can be described as scree, dust and nubs of boulder jutting shiny and smooth from the car width path. Amanda took a fall when we were literally a mile from home, and boofed her wrists and knee, and collected some nice gritty road rash.

Oops

However and it’s a big however Peniscola (Penis cola tee hee hee) was worth it. It is a tiny walled town, maybe only as big as the Tower of London and its immediate precincts and moat, perched on a point of land between the rocky jagged coast of Alcossebre and Amposta (where the rice paddy is found).  It’s a real window onto a past we can’t even begin to imagine, important enough to have been augmented and maintained by kings and popes, and in use up until the Spanish civil war.

We revisited the place with the car a few day later, and took some more pictures, which we will post shortly.

Flood Plains, Dykes and Estuaries.

This is a photo post, the pictures were taken last weekend 3^rd and 4^th August. The Saturday pictures are the beach and along the Southend and Westcliffe seafront, where a pleasant lunch was had, the V2 Electronic Cigarette passed the beer test, and yet again I was amazed by the enormousness and clarity of the Thames Estuary on a sunny day.

The Sunday pictures are a walk from Leigh on Sea to South Benfleet heading west along the dyke that separates the tidal waterway “Hadleigh Ray” (the name of the waterway from South Benfleet to open Thames Estuary, that discharges a little north and west of Leigh on Sea behind “Two Tree Island), from the arable farm land that parallels the estuary from Leigh to Benfleet (via Hadleigh) north of the Dyke. Followed by the return walk back from South Benfleet, north of the Railway lines and arable land, via Hadleigh Castle back to Leigh, taking in the views from above the flood plain.

Westcliff to Shoebury

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Above and below, the start of Thorpe bay

 

 Leigh, Benfleet, Leigh

 

 

This image may help: the two large white lines, one along the south edge by the creek, and the other (slightly obscure) inland are the paths from which the pictures were taken.

Inland to Hadleigh

Towards benfleet

Towards Benfleet the industrial stuff is part Canvey Islan refinery and part DP World London gateway the newest port on the Thames, yet to be completed; http://www.londongateway.com/

 

 As above but with the lower slope of South Benfleet in view.



 Above and below Hadleigh Ray 

 

 The return path away from the creek

 

 

The path back to Leigh takes you uphill for some breathtaking views east and west; above is towards London, you could just about make out Canary wharf and the Shard, below towards the Isle of grain and Sheerness in Kent.

 

Amanda pointing the way home

 

 The DP world site is worth a look at. There are some interesting facts and figures, and videos to make it easier to understand.