Day 10 - Castro Marim to Olhāo (57km, 250m)

Monday, May 12th, 2014

Route Map and Garmin Ride Statistics

The villa complex of the golf resort in which we stayed was really quite nice, even though it seemed to be constructed on some rather poor quality farming country. We each got either the top floor or the bottom floor of a two or three bedroom villa, and I shared with the Tonys for the first time. n

Breakfast was at 8:30am, and by the time we walked down to the designated minibus collection point, it was already quite sunny, but not yet warm. Indeed, it had been windy for most of the night, but this didn't become an issue was we started cycling.

We passed through what looked like orange orchids for a while, and this picture of a quiet railway line with the sea in the background is fairly typical of the first hour's cycling.

We spent a lot of time on "cycle paths" rather than roads, but most of these were just dirt tracks where a MTB would have coped better than a road bike. Convinced that we were still "on route", Derek and I followed a "bike path" until it became a swamp and we had to carry our bikes to the nearest villa complex. An American woman with an Irish partner (!) drinking G&T's on their balcony said "Oh, we've never seen anyone come out of there before". 

Nevertheless, they gave us a clue as to what went wrong, and we headed off for a coffee in Cabanas and a rethink about what to do next. By a stroke of luck, this was the kind of place we had been looking for all along. On;y "problem" was, it was full of English speaking tourists.

Back on track (problem being a hidden entry to the real bicycle path), we spent the next hour or so going around, beside, or in between salt pans.

And occasionally passing through rather nice towns such as Tavira. One of the group (Ged) said that Tavira was where he first went with his now wife about 30 years earlier (apparently it had changed a bit).

Then back to more salt pans, and bike paths crossing rickity bridges and board walks. A number of riders took the main road option when they saw how bad some of these paths were. But we persisted.

The Portuguese love cod, and cod is usually cured in salt, and salt comes in huge quantities from the salt pans of the Algarve.

It wasn't a long day (55km), but having departed at 10:00am it wasn't until 2:00pm that we arrived at Olhao, our Portuguese "top to bottom" ride complete.

Directly opposite the hotel is an estuary and a marina, and down the road a whole series of nice looking seafood restaurants. Derek and I followed Ged, Peter and Rob back to one of these for a latish lunch.

Where the waiter managed to sell a rather delicious Turbot to the two of us while the others, having rejected the turbot had sardines or mixed grilled fish. All of this was accompanied by a beer (or two).

We then went back and checked into the hotel and planned our afternoon by the pool - spectacular with a view of the estuary from the first floor deck.

But first - put the bikes back into their boxes, and then load them into the van for a trip back to the UK, and eventually (hopefully) to Dover where we will be reunited on Friday night.

Finally, a farewell buffet dinner in the hotel restaurant, farewells to those departing early in the morning, and late to bed. Well, it's now 11:00pm and I don't have to do anything tomorrow except move from the hotel to the apartment. I'm missing my bike already!