Visit to the Far East

Madeira is not the biggest island but it does have a few distinct sectors. Funchal is towards the eastern end of the south coast. The east coast is dominated by the airport but to the north and east of that is the rocky peninsular of Ponta de Sao Lourenco. This sticks out like a crooked finger pointing towards Madeira's neighbouring island of Porto Santo.

Today we pick up our hire car. By happy chance the depot is just across the road from the hotel. At 10 a.m. D skips across the road and takes charge of a metallic grey Renault Clio 1.5 Diesel. After a quick stop in the hotel car park to load up and head out for the most eastern place on Madeira that has a road. We pick up the Via Rapid, a near motorway that crosses east-west above the city. A large part of the route is in tunnels and the rest is sharp bends and steep gradients, with kamikaze on-ramps. The traffic is quiet and D gets chance to acclimatise. Our route takes us through a tunnel underneath the Botanic Gardens, then we glide past the eastern suburbs of Funchal before diving beneath the runway of the airport. 

Beyond  here the signing gets a bit sketchy and we find ourselves going in ever decreasing circles in the port town of Canical. Eventually we give in and fire up the directions on Google maps. This gets us to the spot required. There are already lots of cars and we have to park on the verge, 300 metres short of ultimate road end. The path leading out towards the point is clearly marked and we don our walking shoes. The weather seems set fair, although there is a stiff breeze coming off the ocean from the general direction of Greenland. The route ahead is obvious from the many groups of people progressing along it. Not much solitude here.

The scenery is spectacularly rugged with sheer drops down to the Atlantic on both sides in places.

The track is quite steep in places and rocky underfoot, although there are fences/handrails on the most precipitous stretches.

We make it as far as the cafe which is about three quarters of the way along the peninsular. The last section involves a long, steep climb and would probably add a couple of hours to the walk. What we have seen has been well worth it and as we return we get to watch a kestrel hunting, hovering in the sky and then diving into the scrub.  As we return the wind has died down quite a bit and we can hear the birdsong in the grasses. Many small birds are flitting about, too quick to get a good spot but we do identify siskins and Berthelot's Pipit, a resident of both Madeira and the Canary Islands.

We get back to the car around 4 pm abd decided that there is still time to carry out part two of today's plan, a drive back over the mountains. The drive along the north eastern coast to Faial is almost totally in tunnels, one of which is over 3km long. With only amodest amount of faffing about and backtracking we find the road to Ribeiro Frio. The weather has closed in and there is a light drizzle falling as we commence a vertiginous and twisting climb through the forests. There is not much traffic but the road requires concentration and there are few laybyes. The drive is quite reminiscent of roads in the Himalayas but the road surface is better.

As we near the summit we drive into the cloud for a short while. The top is at 1412 metres and as soon as we pass the cloud clears and we descend in bright sunshine. We stop off at the supermarket for supplies and get back to the hotel just as it is getting dark. Supper is a self catered seafood risotto with green beans. Delicious.