The photo Diane took of me in Porto Covo marked the end of my backpacking trip. But the official end of the Fisherman’s Trail is 10 k north of Porto Covo. So Thursday, carrying just a daypack, I walked this final section. After 230 k of protected seascape in Southwest Alentejo and Vicentina Coast Natural Parks, the culmination of the trail was a bit strange.
It seemed a peculiar way to end the Fisherman’s Trail —but there is a silver lining here. The Sine plant was shuttered in 2022, as a consequence of Portugal’s shift to green energy. Approximately 60% of Portugal’s power comes from renewable energy sources, including solar, wind, and hydro. In fact, due to favourable sun and wind conditions this past January, fully 88% of the power consumed in Portugal came from green sources. Pretty impressive!
Certainly this was evident earlier in my hike, when I hiked through several wind farms.
I know not everyone loves wind turbines, but I find them quite elegant in their simplicity. They also make a cool whooshing sound up close, which if you listen carefully you can hear above the bird song in the video below.
A couple of years ago, I had the chance to visit a wind turbine in Nova Scotia, courtesy of my friend Diane Zwicker’s nephew-in-law Mike, who works for a wind company. It was very interesting to see the ‘innards’ of the tower and to learn how it can automatically change the direction and angle of the blades to take best advantage of the wind.
(I can hear my birding friends objecting that turbines kill birds. and they do. But research indicates that by siting them carefully (away from migration paths), and by turning the turbines off during heavy migration periods, bird mortality can be drastically reduced.)
The turbines weren’t the only wind power I encountered in Portugal. Virtually every village and town I passed through had a moinho de vento.
These windmills ground grain using huge granite blocks. None that I passed were operational now. Several had been turned into tourist accommodations — although given the lack of windows, I think they would be rather gloomy inside.
But back to Sines and the end of the tail. Luckily, as long as you walk south as I did, the power plant magically vanishes, and you are again bewitched by the beauty of the coast.
It was low tide, so I was able to hike most of the way back to Porto Covo on the beach, shoes off and toes revelling in the cool waters of the Atlantic. I even went for a ‘swim’ (jumped up and down in the breakers.) Can’t think of a better way to say farewell to the Fisherman’s Trail!