A family buggy adventure — Portugal
Into the Dust
One August afternoon. Two hours of forest trails, open fields, the sea — and a frankly ridiculous amount of dust.
Orange goggles. Blue bandanas. A convoy of buggies, a camera on the roll bar, and a family that had absolutely no intention of driving slowly.
GogglesOn
It started politely enough — rolling out along town roads, grinning at the camera, pretending this was going to be a gentle sightseeing drive.
The calm before the dust.
Seatbelts on, bandanas up, everyone squeezed in. Somewhere up ahead a guide was already disappearing round the corner.
Into theEucalyptus
Then the tarmac ran out. Tall, skinny trees closed in on both sides, ferns brushed the wheels, and the light came down in stripes.
Sun through the trees, engines through the silence.
Every bend opened another corridor of pale trunks. Every straight was an excuse to put the foot down.
Eat OurDust
The first rule of the trail: whoever's in front gets the view. Whoever's behind gets the dust. We were very often behind.
Brown
out
Clouds of fine orange earth, hanging in the sunbeams long after the buggy ahead had gone.
16:30
16:28
Somebody drew a heart
in the dust on the dash.
The GreenTunnel
Past the cornfields the trail dropped into a tunnel of trees so thick it turned the afternoon green. That's when the laughing started — and didn't stop.
Nobody could stop laughing. Nobody tried.
SaltAir
A sandy track between the dunes, a smell of salt, and then — out of nowhere — the Atlantic.
From forest to ocean in one afternoon.
Pebbles crunching under the tyres, wind off the water, and the first clean air we'd breathed in an hour.
Hello,
sea.
We'd been chasing dust for an hour. The ocean was a very good surprise.
Corn &Mountains
Then the world opened up: wide farm tracks, cornfields taller than the buggy, hills on the horizon, and a long golden trail of dust behind every wheel.
The back seat sent its regards.
Through theVillage
Granite walls, a white church, festival arches strung across the street. August in Portugal — and a convoy of very dusty buggies rattling through it.
Slow
down.
Well — a little.
Same goggles. Much dirtier faces.
Two hours in, every one of us was the same colour as the trail.
The LongWay Back
Back along the seafront, nobody in a hurry for it to end. Goggles pushed up, stories already getting bigger with every retelling.
"Can we go again?"
The Film
Every clip straight off the camera, with the real sound — engines, wind and all the screaming.
Dust in our hair, in our ears, in places we're still finding. Same time next August?