Madeira

The island week

After four point-to-point caminos, the brothers changed the formula. Camino five had no start town and no finish line: one island, one base, one rental car. The island was Madeira, the Portuguese island in the Atlantic they had been talking about since the summer before - "One week hiking on Madeira would be cool in Spring," Nicki had said, and for once a plan survived exactly as first spoken. In May 2024, all three of them went.

Getting there was a journey in itself. Mike's route ran Charlottetown - Toronto - Lisbon - Funchal, landing on May 8 after a marathon travel day; Nicki and Dennis flew in from Germany. The research had been done in advance: rent something with a bit of power, because Madeira's roads are steep. They settled in at their base and picked a new walk every day.

The walks were the levadas - Madeira's old irrigation channels, with footpaths running alongside them through the island's green mountains. A different levada every day, then back to base for the evening ritual Nicki had promised months earlier: "Every evening a Madeira meat bbq." It was a camino with a car, a kitchen and a home base - and not one of the three complained.

It flew by. On the first morning home, Nicki wrote: "The week with you seems like a dream, it was over so quickly." The brothers flew home; Mike, in no particular hurry to get back, stopped off in Italy on the way - his daughter Sarah was working there at the time - and surprised her. But that is another story.