The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
‘I’m closer to an olive than I am an Olympian’
Abigail Blasi is tentative, but her children take to the water with rower Helen Glover in the Algarve
Our kayaks slid across the mirror-flat water. It rippled like silk in our wake. We were on a preternaturally beautiful lagoon, its surface reflecting the pale, cloudless blue sky: it felt as if we were enveloped in light, our boats dark brushstrokes on a luminous canvas. Gabriel, my 13-yearold son, had been grumbling about having to leave behind his friends in the UK to head to the sunshine, beaches and watersports of the Algarve – poor him – but as soon as we had the chance, he was first into a boat, zipping out towards the horizon.
He was clearly thrilled by the freedom of this calm expanse. Herons and cormorants flitted above the surface to gather on tiny weed-bundle islands. Wild samphire, prickly pear and purple-tipped cactus fringed the banks. In the distance a man was bent double, weeding something from the water’s edge. Our guide explained that he was plucking out clams. Before we climbed aboard our kayaks, Gabriel discovered a praying mantis on the banks of the Ria Formosa and brought it over to us, gazing at this alien creature that resembled the love child of a leaf, a butterfly and a grasshopper. Minutes later he and his brother were arguing about what to do with it (it survived unscathed) but for a moment they had been silent, in awe.
It’s hard to believe that this extraordinary natural park lies so close to Faro airport, such an easy trip from Britain. When you think of the Algarve, it conjures up resorts and beaches, but the Ria Formosa is a 38-mile (60km) maze of lagoons, channels, marshes and islands, that stretches along almost the entire length of its coast. Its dunes are knitted together by Mediterranean maquis, a wild tangle of scrub that’s tinged chalk-green, mauve and rust.
I was here with my husband and two sons at the Algarve’s Quinta do Lago, to kayak, run, play tennis and more as part of its new Active Living packages with Helen Glover, twice Olympic rowing gold medallist. Her four-month-old son Logan (dad is TV naturalist Steve Backshall) was there too, and cheerfully bobbed along in a sling, blue eyes constantly curious, for most of the activities. I’m closer to an olive than I am an Olympian, but I was hoping this introduction to the outdoors with Helen would be a chance to get us all outside, away from our moth-like devotion to our screens.
I had felt slightly nervous about taking to the water with an Olympic rower, but Helen set us at ease. When we tried stand-up paddleboarding the following day, she explained how to angle the board when the wave of a motorboat threatened to upset our balance. Gabriel was off again into the distance before I’d even stepped aboard. I watched him paddle away, a trail of sunlight sparking across the water. The sun warmed our faces, and we were all in T-shirts – no need for wetsuits, even though it was midwinter back home.
It took a few minutes to get my balance: I’d never tried stand-up paddleboarding before, but in calm water it was much easier than I expected. I instantly saw the appeal of this graceful-looking, tranquil sport, and it was only moments before I felt as serene as a duck trailed by her ducklings (OK, mine are way ahead in front).
At 8am the following day, Helen took us through some stretches, explaining how stretching noticeably improves sporting performance. She told us about training for the Olympics, and how she used to wake at 4am to train before work (as a PE teacher), then again until 11pm. I glanced across at Jack, hoping that he was absorbing these inspirational tales of Olympian grit, but he looked half asleep, midway through a stretch on the mat. Perhaps we were not quite in the zone for pre-breakfast family exercise yet.
Our base, Four Seasons Fairways, was a whitewashed collection of immaculate villas and apartments, surrounded by golf courses (Europe’s finest). It’s a let’s-take-a-break-from- reality complex: no traffic, no noise, and no trying logistics. On arrival,
Jack said, approvingly: “I feel like we’re in Bel Air.”
Jack is the keenest runner in the family, and so joined Helen for a run along the bank of Ria Formosa. They ran down to the water’s edge and around its banks, before crossing the bridge. It made a change from cross-country at school. Birds flew overhead, insects buzzed, ferns filtered the sun by the water’s edge and the whole landscape was a messy paintbox of colours, the winter sun beating overhead. I could see Jack’s stubborn determination to run ahead of Helen all the way, and once they had circled the waterway and run back to Fairways, we were amazed to find they had covered 4½ miles
(8km) – it’s so much easier to run when you’re distracted by the scenery.
The following day we took an open-backed speed boat from Faro to the Ilha Deserta. This is still part of the Ria Formosa Nature Reserve, a desert island only 20 minutes offshore. We sped across lapis-blue sea in a yellowcanopied boat, to the protected island, which has just one restaurant, Estaminé (meaning, simply, “place”), at its centre. Its building is sculptural, rust red, accessed via boardwalks to protect the vegetation. The owners told us how, on rare occasions, storms have blown up and they’ve had to stay overnight on the island. “It’s wonderful,” said Isabella, the crophaired, smiling restaurateur.
A marine biologist, Tom, walked us around the raised walkways, explaining about the island’s rare plants and bird life. There were once holiday homes here, and so there are ornamental plants introduced by previous inhabitants, as well as the stretch classes, kayak and SUP sessions with Helen Glover throughout the week as well as a VIP welcome pack, daily mountain bike and tennis court hire, PT classes and a guided 5K run. Flights and transfers not included. Supplement available for additional guests sharing the same villa on request. natural vegetation, but the houses were removed in order to protect the landscape. The seawater lapping the white-sand edges of the island was startlingly blue, and as we walked on the wooden slats at the water’s edge, Jack exclaimed, “Look at the fish!” There were shoal upon shoal of mullet, glinting silver, just beyond our feet.
Wild thyme, rosemary and oregano scented the air, a profusion of herbs, interwoven across the sandy landscape. Other than the restaurant, the only other structures were three ramshackle wooden shacks, the home of the island’s sole remaining resident, a fisherman who must relish his own company.
We ended our walk at the restaurant, rounding off a perfect afternoon, feasting on its signature prawns, the fat juicy clams that we had
A maze of lagoons, channels, marshes and islands stretches along the entire length of coast