6 and 7 July
We packed up and left our house at Nazare, had a last coffee there (NZ$1 for two coffees ...), took some last photos of the "black widows". Nazare is famous for these elderly women sitting in chairs waving signs for "rooms, zimmer, chambres". They wear short black dresses with heaps of petticoats underneath - traditional but actually not very flattering.
We headed inland to a central mountain national park, Parque Natural da Serra da Estrada. Pleased to get away from city and beach traffic. Nazare got exceedingly busy during the 8 days we were there - glad we saw it before the masses arrived.
Spectacular peaceful mountain scenery. Lots of granite strewn around. Camped in a camping ground at 1065 m and felt the cold at night! It was only 11 deg when we drove off in the morning. A hairpin bend road, but all sealed, took us up to Torre, Portugal's highest peak at 2,000m. There is a small ski run here. After this who should we meet on the road, but Selwyn Palmer and John Rix two orienteers from NZ who we knew were planning to tramp here. They were walking up the road to start a 4 day tramp in the Serra Estrada! Nice to catch up with them again. They had stayed at a hotel in the town of Mandeigas which we were heading for. As the price was good we decided to do the same (no camping ground nearby was our justification).
In the afternoon we attempted to do a mountain walk from the town as described in the Lonely Planet. Well the information is not accurate. We ended up doing a 4 1/2 hour trek, mainly on sealed country roads to our destination Poco d'Inferno. Not really an inferno, just some pools and waterfalls - the sort of thing you could see anywhere on a tramp in NZ - but the mountain setting and forest was nice. We met a Dutch couple who had the same problems using their Lonely Planet trying to get there - but they had taken their car this time! Must write to LP...
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