Far West Route 66 camping, near Moncarapacho

Saturday 19/01/19

Not too much to report here, it rained a little overnight but when we woke up there seemed to be a break in the weather, so we unloaded the bikes and headed off on a ride with a view, as suggested by our neighbour, Ron.

One of the local hills has a tar road leading up to it, with outstanding views of the Algarve so we decided to see how much our fitness has improved.  It's around 300m elevation to the top, so we decided to see how far we could get.  Google Maps shows a continuous climb almost from when you leave our camp, growing steadily steeper - and this turned out to be the case.  If we had waited for a nice clear day we would probably have taken some stunning pictures, however the low cloud and hazy skies ruined things a bit.  

Half-way up

Looking out over the Algarve towards Olhao

We took it slowly and had to stop a few times to catch our breath,  but we made it to the top - cycling all the way.  Whilst the climb was hard, we are both definitely getting more fit, and enjoying being on our bikes.  The surrounding area is full of orange and lemon orchards, which is lovely to see.

At the top - looking towards the interior

The ride back was fantastic, we hardly had to pedal!  All in all it was a great ride out for us and we timed it well, most of the rest of the day was spent indoors because of rain, so we had an admin and reading day.