Out and about #10 - Vilarinho das Furnas, Serra Amarela

Ver Serra Amarela #1 num mapa maior

The plan was to go all the way up to Louriça (the top of Serra Amarela - Yellow Mountain) - 1359 m.
However, slow going on the road and a bad start through thick vegetation made me go for a lower point.

Serra Amarela is partly within the Peneda-Gerês National Park and the beauty of this its wild landscape is apparent even here.

The walk starts at the Dam of Vilarinho das Furnas, named after the small village it submerged in 1972.

Once you hit the single track road (for the last dozen miles) you are high up and the scenery is really great.
In contrast with Scotland where the hilly dramatic landscape is generally accompanied with huge areas without human presence, in Gerês the human presence is everywhere with small villages speckled almost everywhere. No clearances there of course.

The village of Germil on the way to the trail. Notice the stratified plots of land, typical of small communities that must live out of this harsh environment.

I didn't expect to see any evidence of the village, as I thought it was completely submerged, however the is a good part of the village on the banks of the reservoir.

The village kept a old communal life and communal rule, very common in olden days which lived on into the first half of the 20th century in quite a few of the more isolated villages.

The photograph does not really make it justice, this view was far more dramatic as I came through the bend.

There is a rough gravel road to the right of the dam with a gate. After settlement in court, the descendants of the originals settlers guaranteed property of the the land of the old village. Hence the gate and sign. You are free to roam however.

The road follows the lagoon and goes only up to Vilarinho das Furnas.

This isn't an official trail, and I had forgotten to jot down the trail on the map I printed out. DOH!
I had spent a lot of time looking at it from Google Earth, so I had quite a good idea of where the lines should be.
However... I chose the wrong stream to start from at the trail head, and error of about ten metres, which took me eventually way off course.
This is an example of problems that looking at aerial photographs can lead too. Dried stream beds and animal tracks can seem like proper trail from above. It even fooled me on the ground.
I eventually realised that I would have to go through steep ground with abundant gorse if I was to reach the next clear way-point area, the saddle bellow. I eventually spotted the actual trail and got there.

At this point I did the math and realized I would be able to make the top and be back home at a reasonable time. I opted to go for the small top to the right, a huge craggy lump, rather than continuing with the trail on the left.

A view from the top.

Coming back to the village I found the trail actually crosses through its ruins. The light now was getting golden and in a way softening the roughness of the landscape.

Coming back to the car, and having made good time on the path from Vilarinho das Furnas, I couldn't resist going down to the bottom of the dam and up the other side. A hard slog I can tell you, and a great disregard for my knees.

It was splendid though, to be so near the jets of water out of the dam.

All in all it was a great walk, with a sense of isolation I haven't felt in a while. I intend to return and do a longer walk up to the top.

Out and about # 9 - Serra da Nó

Another walk in north-west Portugal, very close to Serra D'Arga, this time south of the Lima river.
I've made two visits to this hill recently.
You get good views of the Minho's landscape, hilly and very scattered and densely populated.

I started from the Senhor do Socorro Chapel because it is easy to get to. There other such religious sites in this hill, and as you may recall from the Serra D'Arga posts, it seems to be a common thread. The west side of the hill is within the village of Facha which has 7 chapels beyond its church. Portugal as historically been a deeply catholic country, particularly so in the north. Many crosses, shrines ("Alminhas"), chapels, churches and cathedrals dot the map, not always near settlements.



You start going past the Forest Guard House (sadly long abandoned), the road in forest road (dirt and gravel) and winds up towards São Cipriano Chapel. This trail passes near, but you have to go off it to visit.


The trail takes you to the north part of the ridge line, from where Ponte de Lima can be seen. This is a very nice town, if you are ever in the north of Portugal, its definitely worth a visit. Stopping for lunch is a good idea.


Near the tower there are a few stone tables and benches, as is customary to happen in Portugal in any place with a view.

I continued south along the gorse covered top of hill. Gaiters would have prevented some of the excessive pricks from the thorns.

On the southern slopes.many new paths have been opened in the high gorse, but many are dead ends, so I spent some time trying to find a path in the maze.

I spotted the main forest road that would take me back straight to the Senhor do Socorro Chapel and the car.
I cut down through an old path with overgrown vegetation. Good thing too, it started drizzling when I got down to the path.

With the help of a split prism focus screen and F22, I managed to get a bit better pictures.

In the back garden

Messing about with focus and out of focus.
 I used the 50mm F1.7 MF lens and extension tubes.

With everyday objects, specially where contrasting colours or lines are present, very beautiful frames can be created. For this type of photography, you throw away the rule book, and just play about until something appealing pops up on the viewfinder.


Playing around with viewing angles and depth of field you explore the same subject but get very different results.

Out and about # 8 - Back to Serra D'Arga

I went back to Serra D'Arga, this time a longer route, but overlapping #7 for a great part.

View Serra D'Arga 15-01-2012 in a larger map

I  recommend checking my previous visit for some more information on the place.
Last time I took the more direct route from Cerquido to the peak (Alto do Espinheiro) an came down the other way. This time I did the opposite.
The forecast was for rain, and while this did not materialize at home, as I drove north, and particularly near Viana do Castelo, it was obvious the cloud would be with me soon.
As I reached Cerquido, it was raining properly... I stopped for a couple of minutes in the car considering i I should go or just turn back. The rain became a bit less strong, which was the push I needed. I geared up and head-off.

A nice old man gave me directions on the path perplexed by my willingness to walk uphill in the rain.
After the first 50m of ascent the rain was gone, and did not come back.

Its a better scenery without clouds.

This side is a bit steeper than the north path, but it was fairly good going, at least it as better than I expected
It was very wet underfoot, but with such a rocky ground, it was rarely boggy.
My knees started to feel a hurt a little, I really have to lose weight and get walking poles.

After a breather and water at the top I continued past the free roaming horses in the plateau and on to a small top (806m).

A look back.

There's another tower to the left of this one, probably its replacement, both are out of commission and rusting away.
After this I decided to go of the trail and cross to the start of one of the tracks for the string of wind power generators.

I crossed two streams and some boggy terrain which together with the stumps of the burnt bushes was a testing ground for my new Karrimor KSB Munro boots.

As I neared the start of the track, this huge cloud was moving over the mountain, which together with the dimming light gave an extra spring to my step.

Made my way down, with proper darkness for half the way. I must say I was well pleased by the boots, comfy and dry and good grip.

Check these extra photos from this walk here. The best I could do with the thecnical problems I had with the camera.

Tech Problems

My K10D has been having issues with focusing.

Although the there has always the odd of-focus shot, it has generally behaved very well.
Lately, however, the exception has been for shots to come out focused. The weird thing is that it seems like a more and more common problem.
I had changed the settings in debug mode for the auto focus, when I was doing some macro work with a 50mm lens. However I didn't notice any relevant change in the AF of my kit lens.

These problems and other circumstances have put me off shooing for a while.
Last Sunday, to refresh mind and body I went for a walk to Serra D'Arga again. Took the camera but got dismal results. I'll do a post on that soon.

Definitely annoyed with that since by now I've ruled out issues with shutter speed and shaking or focus error.

I thought it might be a dislodged focus screen, even though I'm not certain it actually plays a role in AF. Took it off and mounted back again. No change.

This is the techie bit and more of interest to geeky Pentax users. Long story short, I fiddled around with hacked software on the camera and got it working. For now at last, will confirm this as more frames are shot.

I had already reset the camera settings, but went into debug mode again and tried to play with AF settings.
For some reason it was set to -20um which is odd. I played around with the focus areas (0,1,2,3) and realized that the settings on 1 change the settings on others, rather odd...
What as different is that I set area 1 to a -250um compensation to get great results at 55mm on the kit lens, but then at 18mm it was way off.
I then set area 0 to the same and kept compensating until -450um to get great results at 55mm which also worked at 18mm.

Used a different lens, and still good.

Whether it is fixed or not, I'm not sure, but I'll go for some shots in different conditions and see if the accuracy holds up.

Missing it...

I've been away from Portugal now since my PhD viva in May.
My plans were not well defined and since a quick return was likely, I decided to travel light which meant not bringing my camera with me.

Well its hard... I miss taking photographs, framing the world and pressing the shutter.

Its especially hard because I've had the opportunity to do some walking and travelling around the south of Wales. There are plenty of beautiful sights to be seen.

On a recent walk near Pontypool, I took the path along part of the The Monmouth & Brecon Canal and up a hill to a small folly tower which serves as a war memorial.
The sky was clear and there was great visibility. As I adore landscapes, I was really missing the K10D then.
I realised then that since I can't take photograph I should do what we so often forget to do and really take the landscape and all its details. When I say we, I don't mean photographers, I mean poor amateurs like me.
Coming down I looked back at the tower and was struck by the beautifully picturesque image made by the hill line, tower and threes along the path.
I stopped and tried some frames with my fingers. I don't know if its because I really liked the "picture" or because I took the time to frame it and make a mental not, but the image really stuck from that outing.

I have to remember to do this more often, and definately take more time to appreciate the scenery.

Out and about #7 - Alto do Espinheiro

View Cerquido - Alto do Espinheiroin a larger map

A quick a close to home walk.

Alto do Espinheiro is the peak (823m) of the Arga mountain in the most northwestern region in Portugal.

The mountain is immersed in mistic and religious lore. There are several chapels dedicate to different saints and
The mountain features the Our Lady of Minho Chapel (Minho is the name of the region/province)
Like most mountains in northern Portugal, granite boulders characterize the landscape.

The track starts at the northern edge of Cerquido, a small place with a handfull of houses.

The trail starts with a gravel track which soon turns into an obviously laid path of granite boulders and slabs.

This clearly old track denotes the ancient relationship of the locals with the mountain. During this first part of the walk, the soundtrack were cow bells, cow or goats are the typical animal farming in this area.

The tracks winds it way up, at some points it even has side guards.

The watch tower marks the last point of the trail before descent starts.

The weather was very good, sufficiently windy not to feel the heat too much.

The visibility was very good, you could see a vast, densely populate area, very typical of this region of Portugal.

After a certain hight you can discern the wind mill blades. You really don't mind them here, the area is heavily populated, and there are clear signs of man anyway. For some though, these are definite stains in the landscape.




I went off the trail and up the boulders for the highest bit of the mountain. I think this rock was surprised to see me.


On the top of the mountain, you can see the antennas, off-roader tracks and man made buildings.


Finally I arrived at the Chapel, inaugurated a few years ago. There is an annual procession up to the chapel, so there is even a proper road, from the other side of the mountain.



These geodesic marks were used to triangulate and determine measurements for ordnance surveys.


My sloppy map reading skills had me overshooting the path down, after wasting a lot of time trying to find it, I started going down the hill through a steep incline, but eventually found my bearings.

The track down is the same as up, hard granite rock bed for the most part.

Light was getting that nice gold colour, even nice colours in the landscape.


I wished I had walking poles going down. My knees were not enjoying it very much.

For the landscape it was a very nice walk, its a pity about the clear signs of fire damage and the still developing vegetation. Later in the season should make a nicer picture.