Sunday, March 31, 2013

Ten reasons you really should hike in Madeira

Sao Vincente on Madeira's north coast
We’ve been home from our holiday nearly three weeks and already I’ve been checking out summer flights to Madeira. Sad really, but that’s how much we love this small volcanic island in the Atlantic Ocean.

Quite how Madeira acquired its popular image as a holiday destination for retirees, I don’t know, because, unless you stick to strolling along Funchal’s promenade, this island is seriously steep and demands enormous amounts of energetic effort to walk anywhere.

You're never far from an ocean view
Fortunately, steep is good as far as hiking is concerned; the higher you climb, the better those views!

There are plenty of hikers in Madeira, although the majority do seem to hail from northern Europe. In our experience, it’s relatively rare to bump into a fellow Brit away from the coastline and the most popular levadas.

Anyway, I’ve listed here, in no particular order, the reasons we’ll carry on visiting and hiking in Madeira as long as our legs can cope with the terrain.

The levadas

First publicised to an English-speaking audience by Sunflower Books, the extent and accessibility of these watercourses never fails to astound us. They were originally constructed for irrigation purposes, but now Madeira’s 2150 km of levadas are the island’s USP.

Levada walks often demand a head for heights
Unfortunately, some levadas do demand a serious head for heights, but most walkers gradually get used to the sheer drops and flimsy rails – the secret is, don’t look down! If you really are terrified of heights and prone to the occasional wobble, it’s probably better to stick to less vertiginous routes, like Levada Nova to the west and Levada da Serra above Funchal.

Levada walking is a seriously sociable pastime and the frequent brief stops to chat to other hikers is all part of the fun.  As well as being really popular with tourists and guided tours, they remain a busy thoroughfare for local people who use them to reach neighbouring settlements or, frequently, their terraced vegetable gardens.


Waterfalls

Refreshing or just freezing? 
It’s fair to say that Madeira’s waterfalls are not individually impressive. What is remarkable is the sheer number of them. You don’t need to venture far from the urban sprawl of Funchal to spot a waterfall. 

After rainfall, waterfalls cascade into the ocean from cliff-tops and no levada walk would be complete without the odd waterfall. Best of all, many have easy access pools at their base, perfect for a quick, albeit icy cold dip.


Paul de Serra

Where do I start? This starkly beautiful and unspoilt high plateau of Madeira lies at over 1500 metres above sea level so is prone to low-lying cloud and mist.

We first discovered this amazing place (which is not dissimilar to the Brecon Beacons) back in February 2009 when we hired a car for the first time.


Clouds rising over the Paul de Serra
We returned the following March when the weather was warmer and spent many a happy day wandering across this enchanting landscape, enjoying picnics in secluded spots adjacent to a gurgling stream. I'll never forget my terror at having to cross a rickety wooden bridge over a small waterfall to Harri’s unnerving cries of ‘Solid wood!’.

Elsewhere on the plateau, the rows of wind turbines create an eerie, alien landscape when the mists descend.


Mountains



The path between the high peaks is carved into the rock
It’s when scaling Madeira’s mountainous interior that the island’s volcanic origins become most obvious. 

Pico Ruivo is the highest peak, towering above sea level at 1,861 metres. The summit is accessible only by foot but don’t be fooled into thinking that it will be quiet up there on top of the world. 


Mountain music on Pico de Areeiro
When we arrived on nearby Pico de Areeiro in July to walk the tough 6km path which links the two summits, we were delighted to find South American musicians were entertaining the crowds.


Tunnels


Sometimes I think of Madeira as one massive advertisement for a career in engineering. Gravity-defying bridges scaling deep gorges, levadas hugging sheer cliffs… and then there are the tunnels.  Long gone are the days when it took half a day's driving on torturous roads to get from one end of the island to the other. Thanks to EU funding, a lot of dynamite and a decade of tunnel building, the time taken to travel between villages on the opposite sides of a mountain can now be measured in minutes and not hours.

Wikipedia cites the Cortado Tunnel, on Madeira’s north coast, as the longest motorway tunnel in Portugal. Built in 2004, it is 3,168 metres in length (excitingly, all the new tunnels in Madeira display their length as you enter).  The Ponta do Sol tunnel is within a whisker of this at 3,167 metres and the Encumeada Tunnel is 2,700 metres.


Ready for a long, damp, dripping levada tunnel
You can’t travel far, on wheels or feet, without encountering a stretch of tunnel – and some of the older structures aren’t particularly well maintained. When we stayed at Paul do Mar in 2009, we were shocked to discover one morning that there had been an overnight rock fall inside the only tunnel out of town. It was passable – just – but it was a timely reminder of the mountainous, and therefore dangerous, nature of Madeira's roads.

Ocean views

It’s almost impossible to avoid having a sea view on Madeira, unless you’re unfortunate enough to stay in a ground floor room in Funchal. Every road, stone flight of steps and pebbled path takes you closer to the sky, until eventually the villages and terraces spread out below look unreal.

Once, staring at the ocean from one of the highest miradouros, I fancied I could just make out the earth’s curvature on the horizon. It might have been cloud but I still like to think that I was witnessing something pretty amazing that day.


Looking down is the norm when hiking in Madeira's mountains


The weather


The fact that the majority of pavements in Madeiran towns are tiled speaks volumes for the climate. It rains, of course, and when it does those tiles make walking in anything other than flat shoes absolutely treacherous. Fortunately, torrential rain doesn't happen too often. Madeira has a mild sub-tropical climate with warm temperatures all the year round.


A heat haze settles over the Atlantic Ocean
The weather varies depending where you are on the island. The high central mountains help to keep Funchal on the south coast drier and sunnier than the northern parts of the island. Porto Moniz, for example, on the north-western point of the island seems to be permanently windy with a rough sea. Paul do Mar, on the south-western coast, is much hotter, although there are sea winds.


Food and drink


Many people associate the island with Madeira wine (which tastes like dry sherry), but for us, the only drink is Coral, the island’s own refreshing lager. 
Enjoying Coral in Funchal's old town area

For a long while, we thought it was the only lager sold on Madeira, but then we stumbled upon Super Bock, a similar-tasting Portuguese lager.  This discovery left us with a dilemma: remain loyal to our first love (Coral) or admit that, as with Coca Cola and Pepsi, there was little difference in taste and alternate. We like the idea that Coral is made locally so we’ve remained true to it.

We eat out far less now that it’s just Harri and me (the escalating cost of dining out aside, we’re usually far too exhausted at the end of a day’s hiking to get into our glad rags and go out hunting food!) but when we do, I tend to choose espada with bananas (Madeira’s unique black scabbard fish is deliciously fleshy and boneless) and if Harri isn’t joining me, he more often than not satisfies his carnivore's palate with espetada (beef kebabs).

Other local delicacies worth seeking out are honey cake (even more delicious served warm), banana liquour and garlic stonebread (actually stonebread without garlic is pretty yummy too).

Architecture


Madeira's architecture is generally pretty impressive with beautiful old churches and quintas (grand mansions) dotted around the island. Houses are built in the most inaccessible of spots and at far higher altitudes than we would consider in the UK.  

If there’s a road, or even a track, plus sufficient land (no worries if none of it’s flat), it seems there’s always someone  willing to build on it. Madeira's imaginative architects often make the most of the steep landscape and design multiple-storey houses that look deceptively small  from the front.


This house looks tiny from the front...



... but considerably bigger from another angle

On our recent trip, I couldn’t believe my eyes when we spotted a large JCB-type excavator sitting on a river-bed near Porto da Cruz. There was no obvious explanation for how it got there – the river sides were impossibly steep (and deep) and there was a low-lying bridge just few metres downstream.  There seemed no explanation, other than it had been air-lifted into place!


Insects – or lack of


I'm well-used to being a walking snack for our six-legged friends. Unfortunately, this apparent tastiness to an entire animal class has ruined many a holiday. I once returned from one week’s holiday on the Greek island of Cefalonia covered from head to toe in insect bite. On another occasion, I suffered a severe allergic reaction after every midge in the Elan Valley decided to nibble on my eyelids.

I love everything about summer except the annual onslaught of insects, all of whom seem intent on sampling my blood.


Vivid flowers but no problems with insects
I don’t know if it’s because it’s an island or because the temperature is never unbearably hot or humid, but I just don’t have the same problem in Madeira. 

It’s wonderful to be able to sit outdoors after dark and know that you’re not going to provide the evening’s blood fest for the insect population. 







Saturday, March 30, 2013

Publication day looms


The author in the Brecon Beacons

 I would like to thank my partner for… providing cheer and company on the walks themselves, and for not complaining – too much – when the weather took a turn for the worse.’ 

Harri Roberts, author, Day Walks in the Brecon Beacons

Can there be anything more exciting than seeing your partner's words in print as his first walking guidebook hits the shelves (figuratively speaking)? To see your own contribution acknowledged in black and white?

Product DetailsApril 1 marks the official publication day for Day Walks in the Brecon Beacons (although the book has been available to pre-order from publisher Vertebrate and other online book stores for several weeks now). Underneath the thumbnail of the cover and book description on Vertebrate's site, there’s a little bio about Harri, which I’m going to repeat here:

Harri Roberts is a freelance writer, editor and translator based in Newport, Gwent. He has authored a number of Welsh walking guides, including a forthcoming official guidebook to the Wales Coast Path (Amroth to Swansea section). 

His love of the Brecon Beacons developed during research for an ambitious guide to the Cambrian Way, a high-level, Welsh ‘end-to-end’ across some of the most scenic and mountainous terrain in the country.

The trail levels out above Talybont reservoir 
So it’s finally looking as if all the hours of driving, freezing nights huddled in our tiny tent, aching legs and sore feet (plus the long hours confined to the study writing it) have been worth it. 

And just in case you're in any doubt, writing hiking books for a living is a long, mostly uphill struggle. 


I say this with feeling because I’ve been there alongside Harri from the outset and I'd like to believe my small contribution (photography and sandwiches) has gone some way towards helping him fulfill his lifelong ambition. 

To this end, I’ve trekked miles up, down, across and around Wales in sun, wind, rain and drizzle. I’ve been frazzled, frozen, soggy and sunburnt, hungry, thirsty, blistered and just bloody fed up. I've laughed and cried, paddled through icy waters and assisted in freeing countless sheep from barbed wire fences. I’ve ‘lost’ the camera more times than I care to remember, and spent more on bus fares in six years than in my entire previous lifetime.

Occasionally, for practical reasons (like needing to be dropped off/picked up miles from civilisation or a bus route or hiking in particularly difficult terrain like the Rhinogs), Harri has opted to walk alone but those occasions were relatively rare and as publication day of this first book approaches, I wear my hiking writer’s partner badge with pride. 

I've walked the miles, captured the images, earned my title. I've worked hard so that on April 1, I can announce with complete authenticity, 'Today, readers, I'm going to be The Walker's Wife'.

Looking down from Allt yr Esgair
Not that hiking in the glorious Brecon Beacons, with its spectacular peaks and escarpments, gorges, open moorland and peaceful valleys, can really be considered 'work'; rather we've simply been indulging our passion with the promise of a pay cheque sometime in the distance future .

Fortunately, the majority of our Brecon Beacons hiking was done last spring before the jet stream got stuck down south and the mountains were transformed into bleak, verdant bogs. Later, we were glad we'd seized the moment and spent the fine weather exploring trails, footpaths and quiet, metalled lanes.

We hiked some of the most popular spots in the National Park and some of the most remote. We joined a convoy of hikers approaching Pen y Fan from the north ridge (amazingly, we’d managed to forget it was a Bank Holiday weekend) and enjoyed the company of sheep on the isolated slopes of the (confusingly named) Black Mountain.

In early March, just two days after completing the Llanelli Half Marathon (my first ever race of this kind) and sporting rather spectacular blood blisters on the soles of both feet, I was back in the ‘saddle’, scaling a Black Mountains escarpment (Route 6: Castell Dinas and  Rhos Dirion) .

In May, and with the Black Mountains walks done and dusted, we battled against cold winds to complete a ten-miler around Mynyydd Llangatwg and Craig y Cilau (Route 9). 

Llangors Lake: a beautiful setting for bird-watchers
The landscape was always interesting and varied, even for a seasoned Brecon Beacons visitor like me.

The beautifully constructed wooden bird hide on the western shore of Llangors Lake was a wonderful surprise, as was the wooded ridge of Allt yr Esgair (Route 8). In the book, Harri describes the latter as ‘a pure delight, with panoramic views complemented in May and June by a wild profusion of colourful flowers’ . I can sum it up in two words, ‘absolutely stunning’.

The serene Olchon Valley (Route 5), just outside the National Park, is off the well-trodden tourist track but is equally appealing (the valley is now known as the setting for the film Resistance, based on the novel by Owen Sheers) and well worth walking.

Another Black Mountains gem is the 11th century Partrishow Church, with its intricately carved 16th century rood screen and the chilling, faded wall painting of a skeleton holding a scythe, hourglass and spade. 

A rival for Italy's Leaning Tower of Pisa?
A couple of miles away, subsidence in the hillside has caused the tower of St Martin's Church, Cwmyoy to lean precariously like a Welsh Leaning Tower of Pisa. 

One morning, we stumbled upon a field of daffodils, out of place against the wild heather-covered escarpment looming above but uplifting nonetheless.

We wandered among sheep, cattle and horses, along the Roman road of Sarn Helen, sections of Offa's Dyke and behind waterfalls.

Finally, in August and after the wettest summer in 100 years, we finished walking the Brecon Beacons and, for me at least, the hard work was over.

Inevitably, some memories fade as the months pass. But it doesn't really matter because we'll always want spend time hiking across the varied landscape of the Brecon Beacons, book or no book.

An unexpected field of daffodils 



Monday, March 18, 2013

The nature of vertiginous

ver·tig·i·nous  (adjective)
Causing vertigo, especially by being extremely high or steep.


Looking (a long way) down at Paul do Mer, Madeira
Who can forget the iconic shot of a terrified James Stewart dangling from one of San Francisco’s sky scrapers?

The opening scene of Vertigo, which last year toppled Citizen Kane from top rating in the British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound once-a-decade poll, brilliantly illustrates the debilitating effect that a fear of heights can have.

I’m not that keen on high places myself. I've ‘frozen’ at the top of several tall structures, most memorably Barcelona’s still unfinished Sagrada Familia and, closer to home, walking over the top of Newport’s Transporter Bridge (the 242 foot construction usually opens to the public on Bank Holidays).

On a trip to New York, a year or two before 9/11, I quashed my fears and ventured onto the Empire State Building’s observation deck, 86 floors up.  I was terrified and, as a result, later refused to scale the nearby Twin Towers, an opportunity now lost forever.

A hairy section of coast path on Gower
But my real, gut-wrenching, terror in the skies moment was on a roller-coaster ride in Las Vegas . This toe-curling monster was positioned on the very top of the Stratosphere Hotel Tower, which ‘juts 1,149 feet into the Vegas skyline’ (their words).  It took two margaritas before I could step onto the ride and I did the whole two loops with my eyes shut and my mouth open (screaming). It clearly wasn’t terrifying enough for other adrenaline seekers though because, seven years ago, the Stratosphere demolished it to make space for several new rides with names like Insanity and X-scream. I guess that about sums it up.

Hiking in Wales isn't completely without its nerve-wracking moments either, although the official Wales Coast Path does direct walkers away from the hairiest sections. 

Despite all these terror-filled experiences, I don't recall any memorable encounters with the adjective ‘vertiginous’ until our first trip to Madeira in 2007. Browsing through our collection of new holiday walking guides, it wasn’t exactly reassuring to note the frequent scattering of phrases like ‘the way becomes very dangerous [sic], ‘there is a sheer drop’ , ‘Hold on: watch you don’t fall!’ and ‘Some people might find this stretch vertiginous’.

The Madeira archipelago is basically a chain of big underwater mountains, some which rise above the ocean. Although it measures only 35 miles by 22 miles, Madeira’s highest peak – Pico Ruivo – stands at 1861 metres, more than twice as high as Pen y Fan (886 metres) in the Brecon Beacons. The island also boasts one of the highest sea cliffs in Europe – the sheer drop at Cabo Girão is 570 metres and it’s pretty frightening to stand on the viewing platform looking down at terraced fields and the ocean beyond.

You need a head for heights on the route to Pico Ruivo 
What's even more fascinating is realising there’s more than twice as much Madeira lurking underneath the waves as above them. The cliffs around the island apparently extend to a depth of around 4,000 metres. That’s one big drop.

I share all this because, if you’re looking for a bad attack of vertigo, Madeira’s as good as place as any to head for.
Our first full day’s walking back in December 2007 was one of the most frightening experiences of my life. We'd chosen a walk from Walk Madeira! (by David and Ros Brawn) and the authors judged there to be a vertigo risk of 3 (high) and warned about ‘an unprotected drop’. Hidden half-way through the instructions, one of them had noted ‘the water channel had left the cliff leaving a body-sized slit to drop where I thought the cliff might be’.
Our Sunflower Landscapes book advised readers who considered themselves ‘experts’: ‘ You should manage all the walks easily, provided that you are used to very sheer unprotected drops’.   
It was all there in black and white, the subliminal message being ‘Keep Well Clear’. Except... the concept of danger is cultural and, hailing from a safety-conscious country like the UK, it was impossible to conceive of a dangerous path being accessible to the public. At home, Harri and frequently encounter footpaths that have been diverted/closed due to 'hazards' such as bowing walls or construction work on canal towpaths (experience has taught us to use our own discretion in such circumstances) . The authors of these Madeira guidebooks must be overly-cautious souls, I decided.

By early afternoon, I’d changed my opinion. Madeira was a hairy place to walk; if anything, these Madeira-philes had understated the perils.

A head for heights is necessary on the Levada dos Piornais
As I clung to a cliff overhang on the precipitous Levada dos Piornais, I froze with terror. There was absolutely nothing between the narrow path and a long tumble into the valley below except a rail with a human-sized gap at the bottom. One false move and I’d be doing a bungee jump without the elastic cord. To make things worse, Alanna (then just 12) was hiking with us and, with her youthful exuberance, was bouncing along and relishing the hair-raising experience.  I was expecting her to vanish over the precipice at any moment.

I was right to be concerned. Six months after our holiday, a 61-year-old Belgian woman died on the same levada; two weeks earlier, a woman fell to her death on the Ribeiro Frio – Portela walk. In January 2012, two elderly Danish tourists (women) were found dead below Levada dos Piornais.  

It’s sobering truth that too many hikers die every year, mostly while trekking on high mountain routes. In Madeira, it’s the popular levada paths that people should be treating with trepidation.

At first glance, they look surprisingly easy: level paths weaving their way around the contours of wooded valleys, often with official sign-posting and cafes/bars en route. On the face of it, levada walking offers the opportunity for even the most sedentary of tourists to get close to the island’s natural beauty.

But maybe that’s the 'root' of the problem. The Levada dos Piornais is tantalisingly close to Funchal, to the heavily populated hotel region.  Ribeiro Frio is one of the most visited valleys in Madeira: people take photographs, have something to eat and then look around for something else to do. Too often, they set off for a stroll without considering their fitness levels, footwear and head for heights.

Harri walks one of  Levada Furado's less vertiginous sections
On our latest trip, we witnessed two separate incidents on the vertiginous Levada Furado where the female hiker looked down, ‘froze’ and turned back. They were probably wise to do so as there were considerably more hair-raising sections facing them ahead.

Following the meandering course of a levada is probably one of the best ways to experience the beauty of inland Madeira. Just remember to choose your levada carefully if you don't like heights! 

One last thing, I stumbled upon this brilliantly entertaining blog entry highlighting some of the real (and imaginary) perils one holiday-maker encountered on his levada walk.


Saturday, March 16, 2013

Isle find my Bali Ha'i

An azure ocean is a must for an island paradise (Porto Da Cruz, Madeira) 

‘Wonder how I'd feel, living on a hillside/Looking on an ocean, beautiful and still,’ American nurse Nellie Forbush wondered out loud in the film, South Pacific.

Well, it was a musical so she actually sang them, but as the long-term implications of her romance with wealthy French plantation owner, Emile de Becque, hit home, there was something she needed to know. Could she make a small pacific island her home?

South Pacific ignited my passion for islands
I was six or seven and living in a dirty, industrial south Wales town (this was in the days when Llanwern actually made steel) when I first saw the film, a hopeless romantic even at that tender age. South Pacific, with its island setting (and vivid colour filters), had an immediate impact on me. I was captivated by the idea of living on a tropical island, where the ocean stretched out as far as you could see, everyday life was relaxed, where you were surrounded by palm trees, vibrant flowers and bananas and the preferred mode of travel was boat.

In the film, the mystical ‘foggy’ island of Bali Ha'i loomed on the horizon, luring the unsuspecting to its shores and changing them forever.

‘Bali Ha'i will whisper, in the wind of the sea:“Here am I, your special island! Come to me, come to me!"'

Unreal it might have been, but I pinpoint my life-long obsession with islands to that very first viewing of South Pacific with the wonderful Mitzi Gaynor (amazingly not first choice for the part) stomping around singing about washing men out of her hair and being a cockeyed optimist.

'Real' islands have lots of banana plantations
Unfortunately, islands didn’t feature largely in my childhood, well not unless you count Barry Island (of Gavin and Stacey fame), the destination of choice for our annual street outings. With its gaudy boardings, noisy funfair and pots of tea on the beach, Barry didn’t quite fit into my idea of what an island should be.

Then, when I was nearly 20, something amazing happened. My sister, Gail, went to work at Smugglers Ride, a guest house on the Isles of Scilly. Within weeks she was loving island living and writing letters home in which she raved about her new home. Then, out of the blue, she phoned me. There was a job going, they needed another chambermaid at the Atlantic Hotel. Was I interested?

Was I…? I handed in my notice as a cashier/clerk at Harris Queensway and was on the helicopter to St Mary’s within days. Like Gail before me, I fell in love with the Scillies and the simplicity of a life where everything – work, leisure, shops, and friends – was within walking distance and nowhere was more than a stone’s throw from a turquoise ocean.

Gai and I enjoying the white sands of St Martin's, Isles of Scilly in the 1980s 
It was while on Scilly that I first became acquainted with Rachel Lyman Field’s poem ‘If Once You Have Slept On An  Island’.

My favourite stanza warns, ‘You may bustle about in street and shop/You may sit at home and sew/But you’ll see blue water and wheeling gulls/Wherever your feet may go.’

Enjoying an ice-cold dip on the Scillies 
Needless to say I adored Scilly and spent two happy summers there working first at the Atlantic and then, in 1983, as a silver-service waitress at Tregarthen’s Hotel.  There was only one downside. Though considerably milder than the mainland, the Scillies were still in the UK and although they boasted the amazing tropical Abbey Garden on Tresco, they still got their fair share of cold, blustery weather, grey skies and drizzle, even in the summer months.

The years passed and still I dreamed of my island paradise.

On the shelves of the Carnegie library on Corporation Road, I found a copy of We Bought An Island by Evelyn Atkins and marvelled that anyone could actually own their own island, albeit the tiny Looe Island in Cornwall.

I was filled with even more envy when I read Lucy Irving’s Castaway (which was later made into a film starring the late Oliver Reed). A few years later, and with her children in tow, Lucy followed up with another South Pacific adventure and wrote about it in her even more enjoyable sequel, Faraway.

The problem was that travelling to islands on the other side of the world took time and money – as a working mother of three I had neither. 

Over the years, I returned to Scilly for several holidays and even flew to the Greek island of Cephalonia (famous for being the location for the film, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin), but my heart still yearned for my very own Bali Ha'i (the actual location is the Hawaiian Island of Kauai).

Madeira: as idyllic an island setting as the mythical Bali Ha'i
And then, in 2007, Harri’s parents suggested Madeira for our first foreign holiday together. My first instinct was to dismiss it as a destination for ageing retirees, people who usually arrived by cruise ship and enjoyed afternoon tea at the exclusive Reid’s Palace. The toboggan ride at Monte was probably the nearest thing to excitement that Madeira had to offer. I can’t even remember what made me agree to go – something to do with Tenerife package holidays being very expensive over the Christmas period and mainland Europe being too cold.

Essential for island living - a waterfall to bathe in
How wrong I was about Madeira’s appeal! On that very first holiday, as we strolled high above the banana plantations on a rather vertiginous levada path and looked down at the glittering azure ocean, I turned to Harri and announced rather dramatically that I thought I’d finally found my tropical island.

We’ve just returned from our fifth holiday on Madeira and its appeal hasn’t dulled one iota – for either of us.

Madeira may not be situated in the South Pacific, but the memorable lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II could equally have been written about our magical, real-life Bali Ha'i. 

More on Madeira in future posts.

A Madeiran sunset - the perfect end to a perfect day

Friday, March 15, 2013

Struggling to adapt


It's not always easy to adapt to new surroundings, however beautiful
Why, after all these years, do I still find packing for holidays so difficult? What to take, what to leave behind, how many undies, posh frock or casuals for nights out, heels? The list goes on.

When we’re off on our UK jaunts, I generally tend to err on the side of caution; in other words, I pack the lot. In suitcases, plastic crates, carrier bags and rucksacks, it all goes in.

But this time we were flying to Madeira, which meant a strict weight limit and, that most inconvenient of regulations, no liquids in containers of over 100ml in the cabin (ruling out shampoo, shaving gel, sun cream, etc).

When we booked back in October, Harri and I had decided we could easily survive with just one suitcase, that 20kg of luggage between us would be ample for an eleven day holiday, which would involve running one half marathon, hiking most days, dining out… Now said suitcase was lying open on the bed, my half was looking decidedly small. I began to panic.

Take it slowly, I told myself. Slowly and methodically, then you won’t leave anything vital behind.

When it comes to packing for overseas holidays, I try to split items into three categories:
  • completely frivolous or far too heavy
  • might be useful but can survive without 
  • must not forget under any circumstances.
Inevitably, there are some things, my heated rollers for instance, which potentially fall into two categories. Ordinarily, I can’t live without them, but as they weigh roughly the same as a small child and I was supposed to be ‘packing light’ (possibly the worst two words in the vocabulary), taking them was a non-starter. 

Anyway, I’ve promised Harri that I’ll   try out backpacking this year – yes, proper, ‘two pairs of smalls and a sleeping bag’ backpacking – so this holiday seemed like a good opportunity to practice straight hair.

I could do this, I told myself. I could set off on holiday with half a suitcase of clothing plus hand luggage. I started flinging things back into the drawer with gusto.


Relaxing with a glass of Coral and our new adapter
It was only 24 hours later, when we were unpacking in the Sao Paulo and Alegria Hotelthat the full extent of what I’d left behind hit me. Where was our Portuguese phrase book? The cheap Ikea sun cream?  My eye shadow? 

But far worse, from a practical point of view, was the missing electrical adapter. If there’s one thing that falls into the ‘can’t live without when abroad’ category, this is it. We needed it to charge our mobile phones, dry my hair (we were self-catering for five days) and charge our camera batteries (more on that later). I actually remember getting it out and putting it on the bed but for whatever reason it hadn't made the final 20kg.

This was serious – as serious as the time I left my daughters’ new coats behind on a camping trip to north Wales (I had no choice but to buy more), though perhaps not of quite the same magnitude as one of Harri’s childhood experiences. His father, Garrod, forgot to pack the tent poles on a family holiday to Cornwall. Realising his mistake, he packed the family – wife and three boys – back into the car and drove home to Cwmbran to get them. I think I’d have settled for buying a new tent, but then petrol wasn’t so extortionate back in the 1980s.

Well, we weren’t about to re-board a plane to the UK so we'd just have to buy another. Harri reasoned that the large supermarket just down the street was bound to sell them. We searched the aisles hopefully and came out empty-handed.

The cliff top walk from Camara de Lobos 
Harri came up with Plan B. We were doing a walk for Walking World the following day (Saturday) from Camara de Lobos back to Funchal along the newly opened promenade. The walk would take us past Funchal’s main hotel region, where, he reasoned, there were bound to be lots of shops selling the ‘can’t live without’ items at inflated prices.

We trawled round all three floors of Forum Madeira, Funchal’s answer to Cribb’s Causeway (though thankfully on a much smaller scale). It was all fashion, sportswear and cafes. No electrical shops and no adapters.

Finally, in despair, I persuaded Harri to do the one thing that men resist at all costs. You know, the thing that involves (ssshhh!) asking someone. Suddenly our luck changed.

The man sitting behind his computer in the small mobile phone/wifi shop was English. Not only that, he had a spare adapter at home. Best of all, his apartment was just metres away.

Man at C&A is still alive and kicking at Forum Madeira
I’m not religious but very occasionally you get the feeling there’s an omnipotent force watching over you and this was one such time (another was finding a 1917 edition of Raymond, Or Life and Death in a box of tatty old books I was sorting through at Raven House Trust).

Our new friend was indeed true to his word and wouldn't accept anything for the adapter.

So our holiday was saved by the kindness of a stranger. I’m thinking of flying with British Airways from now on though – for a higher fare price, each passenger gets a generous 23kg luggage allowance.

And that battery charger that we did remember to pack... someone (mentioning no names) managed to leave it behind in Madeira. Which only goes to prove that packing properly is essential at both ends. 

Sometimes it's easier just to sleep your way through problems