We left Tavira before 10am, after a great breakfast.
We had our first day in Portugal only. We returned to ACT section 5 near the small town of Fonte Salgada and continued on to the ACT and TET section 5. Here we entered the Portuguese TET and stayed on it for the whole day.
Peter pulled a similar stunt with the suitcases as I had the previous day, but this time he chose my suitcases as his target. Kriega won, LoneRider bent a bit and one side guard broke off. A bit of sec glue fixed it.
This part of the TET, actually the end of section 5, is marked by steep exits, steep descents, and dozens of smaller and larger fords. Much of it on moderately difficult, not very clear and rocky roads, the exits were moderate to quite challenging (for loaded adventure moto and moderately experienced riders). The important thing is that TET is going in the opposite direction and some of the exits are easier as descents (but this was also true in the opposite direction for our direction).
At the beginning of one of the exits I tried to turn on the camera, slowed down too much,died and put the bike away. Fortunately, again at low speed and without consequences.
We had lunch at the Miramar Snack Bar (37.30161° N, 8.10111° W), which we approached by a fantastic (and moderately challenging) climb, a 1.2km climb of 400m. Unfortunately, I didn’t run the camera and it didn’t go any further up the hill. In addition, at one of the worse points of the climb, we were made more difficult by older tourists, somewhat terrified that two motorbikes were going the same way as them.
After lunch we skipped two trips, coincidentally they were right after each other. The first one (37.29291° N, 8.19140° W) was steep from our direction (which isn’t such a problem), but it was pretty broken and peaked before the end. It was easy to get around with a 500m long detour
The second one (37.29791° N, 8.20810° W) was very broken and we decided not to risk it. The detour was more challenging, it took about 30 minutes and we drove half of it on roads where we hadn’t stepped foot for years and the map was blank.
In the late afternoon, after a full day of hard off-roading, we decide to head to the coast and rest. For the next 2 nights we booked a suite with an outdoor heated pool.
We went to a recommended beach restaurant in town for dinner and it was well worth it.
Important note for future days – suitcases hold and don’t fall.
(198km, Atalaia Sol Aparthotel, Lagos)