Levada do Furado

Holidaying on Madeira has not required many early starts but today is a bit different. We are going for a walk in the mountains along the Levada do Furado. This involves catching a bus at 08.10 at the far side of the city centre, having first had breakfast, made packed lunches and done the washing up. The alarm goes at 6.30 , well before sunrise in these parts.

The city is starting to wake up as we walk through. Daylight is arriving and the pastellarias are full of people having breakfast. It is breezier than forecast and there is a bit of cloud about but it looks to be a reasonable day for a hike. The bus is at the terminal and the driver soon appears to let us on. There are only three or four other passengers and we are soon under way, heading north into the mountains..

Our initial destination is Ribeiro Frio where we spent last week's wet Wednesday. Being driven up the mountain is a lot more relaxing than doing the driving despite all of our driver's efforts to bring a bit of excitement to the trip. Amongst his other duties the driver also has bread to deliver to a couple of the more remote catering establishments along the route. 

We arrive at Ribeiro Frio just after nine and set straight out on the signposted walk which leaves the road just by the bus stop. The vegetation is laurel forest, not too dense and now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Once it covered almost the entire island but now only survives in some of the upland areas in the north and centre of the island. The path is clear, wide enough to walk two abreast and not too wet or rough underfoot. The water channel for which the Levada is named is about 8 inches wide and four deep at this stage. 

It is quite cool, so we are wearing fleeces and long trousers, but dry and it looks like the last few days up here have been dry. We make good progress not seeing another soul until we have been going about an hour when we pass a couple heading in the opposite direction. The track gets narrower and the hillsides steeper as we start to pass numerous waterfalls. In some cases the water falls so far from the cliff that the path passes underneath the flow.

There are a few birds to see, mainly chaffinches that seem totally unfazed by passers by.

The cliffs continue getting steeper and the path narrower, with fences on the open side of the more precipitous sections. The drop is sheer in places but the terror is masked somewhat as the clouds close in and the view over the edge is - er, clouded. Even the intrepid guys who created this thing lost their nerve at times as the path and watercourse tunnel through rock outcrops.

After 8km we arrive at a junction next to a hydro electric plant that is fed by the levada, now much wider and deeper. Our route takes us down a steep, rough vehicle track for a kilometre or so. As we take our leave of the levada the sun breaks through for a few seconds but that is our lot. After the track we join another minor levada path. This watercourse runs down steep gradients in places and has horrible log steps on the path. Very hard on the knees when descending.

Somewhere in the clouds we have failed to spot the famous viewpoint on this route. There wouldn't have been anything to see anyway. The walk ends at the village of Portela which has its own viewpoint looking out over the north coast of the island. All a bit hazy but somewhere to eat our packed lunches.

Yesterday D researched the bus times out of Portela but the research turned out to be wrong. We have to kill an hour at a grotty bar with concrete tables while we wait for the bus. It arrives promptly, is rather smart and pretty much empty. We settle in for a luxurious ride back to Funchal only to be debussed in a Supermarket car park and told to transfer to an elderly wreck with five across seating and no legroom between seats. It was like being on a bus in Kolkata, but without the scraped exterior. At least it dropped us off near to base after visiting every street corner in east Funchal.

We dine out tonight and review the day's stats as produced by R's Fitbit type thing. She is claiming 18km which cannot be right. The levada was 11km, the walk to the bus station maybe 2km and the stroll to and from the restaurant 1.5 at most. Whatever the total we both agree that it was plenty for the day.