Shortly after arrival and in spite of the incident with the shoe (Sidebar - I swapped out of my cycle shoes when we arrived and some where between there and where we planned to pitch our tent 50 yards away I lost one….nowhere to be seen despite 3 sweeps. I was just starting to consider whether it might be possible to cycle the remaining 200 or so miles in flip flops when it turned up down some little side alley I hadn’t been anywhere near…nope me either total mystery….un sidebar!) we had the tent pitched and were just slouching in our chairs relaxing and contemplating our next move, although there was not much doubt that it very much needed to be a shower, when I saw someone I recognised walking towards us and bearing gifts (beer (Leffe to be specific) and Pastel Di Nata). Yes everyone, it was Dan ….the third man to our Three Men and a Tent who is coincidentally here on holiday with his family (hence why he couldn’t join us on our epic adventure) and so came to pay us an impromptu visit. Not only that he took us out to dinner in Carvoeiro (Which was genuinely really lovely but the highlight for me was we got to go in a car….so weird and so exciting I had to take a picture!). Dan took us to his favourite fish restaurant down by the beach and we spent a good couple of hours reminiscing about adventures past and those to come.
Eventually we had to say our “adios” and Dan dropped us off back at our campsite (now named “The Third Man”) and drove off (cars really are the most amazing invention!) into the darkness.
You would have thought by now I would have mastered this camping nonsense but truth be told it’s still a hard thing for me to manage. Last night did not go well and I got way less sleep than usual. Perhaps that was because yes we did have a few beers or because we were later than usual (1000pm, I know….dirty stop outs!) but regardless it was a long and largely sleepless night ….which is not what you need when you have 70 miles to cycle in the morning.
In terms of “a plan” we are both so tired now all we want to do is get to the next campsite checkpoint with the least amount of effort possible. Unfortunately we still have over 200 miles to cover in three days and they are simply not going to do themselves (unless Dan comes back with his car….just saying!). We have therefore pretty much given up on the Garmin which too often takes us the windy and occasionally non existent way and instead we elect to take the very direct but very main and very dull N125 pretty much all the way. It is less hilly and it probably is faster but it really is unpleasant and busy.
We do, to be fair, make really good pace…probably our fastest so far. Having briefly paused as per usual for supermarket lunch supplies, we decide that we have still not fallen so low that we would have a “picnic” at the side of this road. Instead we take a teeny tiny detour down to the village of Fuseta where we lunch by the beach and surrounded by crabs!
Fortified we push on for the final few miles and roll into Cabanas and our campsite for the night just before 1500. I can’t say it’s been a great day but we are here, we made excellent pace and there are only two days of cycling left!
As is my want before relaxing for the day I take a quick squint at tomorrow’s route and am somewhat surprised to see another ferry. Further investigation reveals a choice of a 200km detour around the ferry (undoable for us in a day) or a wait until 11am for the first ferry…..it’s a conundrum!!
