A begining: Alcoutim - Balurcos

They say that all good stories need a beginning, a middle and an end.
Well, after 23km today, this story has at least a beginning.
It started rather tenuously, the woman in the tourist office didn't know if this much talked about "Via Algarvia" was ready for action. She made a few calls, and told me that it was supposed to be finished last summer, but wasn't, that they had at least started putting the signposts up. Unfortunately their starting point for the signposts wasn't anywhere along my route. That said, a map and the GPS on my phone was more than enough to stay on track.
And there were many tracks, a choice, all pretty much going through the villages, so no problem if you detoured round and interesting hill or gully.
The hardest part of the day was, funnily enough, the start. It would have been very easy to just leave the hurley in the bag and not bother with the hurling element of my ambition. The big hair and sailing pants was already getting me plenty of funny looks, I didn't especially want to pull a large stick out of my bag and start leathering a ball down the road. But I did. I got some funny looks (not sure how popular hurling is round these parts), but I kept going. After ten or so people passed me by, I had almost forgotten what they were looking at.
And boy was I glad I did, the 10kg pack on my back makes it interesting, but there really isn't anything I'd rather be doing, than hitting a ball down dirt tracks, over rivers, up hills, falling into the odd ditch. Because every now and then the sun will break out, you'll find yourself breathless, chasing a small ball down a red rocky road, almost laughing and not even considering why.
Hopefully that's how most of the middle will be filled, along with the odd flash of different to keep it interesting.
As for the end, I already have it fixed clearly in my head, it ends with me striking a ball off the Fortaleze de San Vicente, the most south westerly point in Europe. I can already see how it will be, I am just interested to see how the middle will make it feel.