It’s what o’clock?

Me, at 4:30am when I was woken

Sunrise at Miradouro do Juncal and the PR1 walk to Miradouro da Pedra Rija both start at the observatory atop Pico Do Areeiro – together they probably form Madeira’s top tourist draw. There’s a special bus that you can book to get there in plenty of time for sunrise – it leaves from outside the cable car station at 6am, be there at 5:45am. It’s only €3 each.

Carpark carnage and goat yoga

On reaching the summit, it’s not even 7am and it’s still dark, and we are thrust into the chaos of the main carpark. The strobe of headlights swinging into the last few spaces illuminate the gaunt faces in the horrifyingly long queue shuffling towards the pay machine. It’s like ‘Night of the Parking Dead’. Not for the first time, I’m glad we got the bus.

We find ourselves a great spot to await the coming of the morning sun. But it’s the half an hour before sunrise that steals the show. The horizon is a neon band of high energy coral red – somewhere between scarlet and vermilion – with the glow of an old 3-bar fire. Spread before it and filling the valleys is a sea of slate-grey clouds that boils beneath a dark blue sky like it’s the edge of space.

You’ve missed the best bit!

Me, at 7:30am when I was saddened

It’s magical. And too soon gone in the oncoming daylight of the rising sun. At this point there’s a surge of people onto the mountaintop. Drones are unpacked to buzz annoyingly into the sky, and every boulder has someone on top posing for photos. It’s like dung flies around goat yoga.

Down the mountain, there is still a snake of headlights on the road up. ‘You’ve missed the best bit!’ I want to shout.