Today we had booked in for our second attempt at the 25 waterfalls levada walk in Rabacal. We went to the local café for our now customary breakfast of coffee and cake and they made up some nice cheese and ham salad rolls for our packed lunch.
We felt quite optimistic as there were loads of people waiting outside the hotel for this particular walk with different tour companies. We thought this augured well and that the walk would probably go ahead. After a fairly long trip up to the starting point we had to turn around due to a road closure, come right back to the coast and then approach via a different route. The guide reassured us that the walk would still go ahead, but this did add quite a long time to the journey.
We had a short stop off at a really small village en route where the shops open (quite strangely) included a washing machine store and a tool store with a range of chainsaws which we thought Ben would find delightful. 🙂 He did indeed confirm that one of the models in stock was the one that he owns! This was to be last bit of blue sky for a while!
Yet again, the guide seemed really great and had a good sense of humour. It was quite nice when we set off on the walk and she pointed out a lot of different trees and plants. The woodland that we walked through is classified as laurisilva – a very ancient forest typified by the various types of laurel (bay trees) and which appears on the UNESCO world heritage list. One of these laurel trees in particular is really plentiful and is used to make the skewers for the traditional Madeiran meat kebab dish espetada. It has a high burning point so the skewers can be reused.
Along the way we saw mimosa and acacia trees as well as rhododendron and eucalyptus. There were some really colourful chaffinches at our lunch stop. The guide also pointed out various plants that we do get in the UK but which grow to a way larger size in this very humid and non-polluted environment. One of these was dandelion which was almost unrecognisable as the same plant. There were many examples of beautiful lichen, which thrive in non-polluted locations.
First, we walked to the individual Risco waterfall. After a fairly steep descent, this was mainly on the flat because it followed one of the levada water channels. It was a beautiful waterfall but paled in comparison to what we were to see later. Unfortunately, the rain then really came down. The water channels filled up to the point that they were overflowing in parts and we had to carefully pick our way across the path, trying to keep our boots as dry as possible whilst also avoiding low-lying branches overhead. By the time we got to the highlight of the walk, we looked (and felt!) as if we had been running through the waterfall!! The 25 fontes waterfall is 30m high, consisting of a group of different water streams coming vertically down the mountainside. At its foot there are rocks covered in small plants and a small natural pool. It was really stunning. We enjoyed our lunch there and the total lack of facilities added to the feeling of being in the heart of nature.
As we started our return trip, there was a steep uphill slope and you could sense that, having seen the highlight of the walk, people were starting to flag!! Many groups were using the path and in parts it was very narrow and hard to cross with other groups. Fortunately, we had a really good guide and a very friendly group and this helped us on our way.
At the start of the walk we had been amazed to see just how many cars were parked there and, given the conditions, felt really pleased that we had come by mini bus. The advantage of this became crystal clear when the guide spoke to her colleague and re-routed us because the mini bus could pick us up from any point at her convenience. She therefore put it to the vote and we had the alternative of walking a considerable distance uphill, followed by a considerable distance more uphill by road or going through an admittedly very wet and very dark tunnel, but on a route that would significantly shorten our return. Everyone was fairly tired by then so there was a massive consensus for the latter option. It proved quite an adventure navigating our way through the tunnel by torchlight. There was a short walk afterwards, past an old cable car, some Lilly of the valley and misty Eucalyptus trees and then we were all pretty pleased to see the mini buses shortly ahead of us.
It was absolutely brilliant to get back to our hotel room, have a really hot shower, a nice cup of tea and a chocolate digestive biscuit each which unbelievably had lasted since the flight over.
We were very pleased that we had pre-booked the other included à la carte restaurant in the hotel. This was a traditional Madeiran style restaurant called Adega. We found an alternative entrance so we didn’t even have to walk across the patio in the driving rain!!! The meal and service were really excellent. Dave had an interesting starter of banana and goats cheese in syrup. I had a really lovely sea bream with sweet potato and then for desert, Dave had a typical passionfruit tart.
We were glad that we had done the walk as it proved to be quite an adventure, but we were both ready for bed pretty early!! 🙂
I got some good video of the waterfalls and the tunnel but it might take a while to put it together so I will do a little blog post with that at some point.
