Running · Baleal, Peniche, Portugal · recorded with NomadTracks

Baleal: a 5.6 km morning run out to Peniche's old whaling island

Baleal is a former island: a knuckle of Jurassic limestone three kilometres north of Peniche, tied to the mainland by a tombolo — a bar of sand the sea built itself. This is a 5.6-kilometer out-and-back along that coast, run early on an August morning before the surf schools filled the water.

Nowhere more than about 20 meters above the sea, and 25 meters of climbing in the whole thing — dune paths, a few rock steps and the ramp up onto the island. Forty-two minutes out and back, at a comfortable 7:30 per kilometer.

Distance5.6 km
Elevation gain25 m
ActivityRunning
Duration41 min

About this data: this track and its photos were personally shared with us as samples by a NomadTracks user. NomadTracks never uploads, collects or shares your tracks or photos — your recordings stay on your devices and in your own cloud.

Route map of Baleal: a 5.6 km morning run out to Peniche's old whaling island drawn from the recorded GPS points on an OpenStreetMap basemap
The actual recorded GPS track — start marked green, finish orange. Numbered pins mark where the photos below were taken.

Download GPX Coordinates, elevation and relative times — recording dates are normalized out, photos not included.

Elevation profile of the track
Elevation profile over the full distance. Switch the map above to interactive mode, then slide across the chart — a marker follows the route.
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Dunes, then the isthmus

The first half runs north on sand and dune path, with the Atlantic on the left the whole way and Peniche’s peninsula closing the bay behind. Then the land narrows to almost nothing — the tombolo — and the run crosses onto what used to be an island. The village sits on that neck of sand, which is why Baleal has two beaches facing opposite directions: when the wind ruins one, you walk fifty meters and the other is clean.

Whales, then surfboards

The name is the giveaway: baleia is Portuguese for whale, and this rock was where whalers cut up their catch as the animals passed on their way north. The trade died when sand silted the channel and the boats could no longer get in — the same sand the road now runs on. On the high point stands the Ermida de Santo Estêvão, a small 16th-century chapel to the patron saint of fishermen, its single nave lined with 17th- and 18th-century azulejos.

A coastline with a golden spike in it

The strata at the island’s tip stand almost on end, and they are not just scenery. Peniche preserves an unbroken succession of Lower Jurassic carbonates, and in December 2014 the International Commission on Stratigraphy made Ponta do Trovão, on the peninsula’s north coast, the global reference point for the base of the Toarcian stage — the “golden spike,” set in a ceremony in July 2016. Every runner here is going past about twenty million years of seafloor, tipped up on edge.

Why this coast is the beginners’ one

Peniche is famous for Supertubos, but that is the southwest-facing side taking the full swell. Baleal faces northeast into the bay and gets the gentler, more forgiving version, which is why the surf schools are all here. On the run it shows as a slow change in the water: heavy and dark off the island’s outer edge, then orderly little lines of whitewater as soon as you turn back into the bay.

About the place: Baleal, Peniche, Portugal

Baleal lies about three kilometres north of Peniche in Portugal’s Oeste region, roughly an hour and a half north of Lisbon. It is a former island now joined to the mainland by a tombolo, and the village sits on that sand neck with a beach on either side — Praia do Baleal Norte and Praia do Baleal Sul — facing opposite ways. Peniche itself has the same story on a larger scale: it was an island too, and its own isthmus is what made it a peninsula. The bay side is the gentle water and the home of the surf schools; the exposed southwest coast is where Supertubos breaks. Summer mornings are the quiet window — by ten the north beach belongs to the schools.

What the recording is good for

This is a holiday run, not an expedition — and that is rather the point. The saved track is the exact line along the dunes, the elevation profile shows the few small rises onto the island, and the photos sit on the map where they were taken: the chapel, the boats, the tilted strata. Next summer it is a route to repeat rather than a morning to half-remember.

Low dunes and sea-spurge scrub on the coast path north of Peniche, Baleal’s white houses on the horizon
1 · Low dunes and sea-spurge scrub on the coast path north of Peniche, Baleal’s white houses on the horizon
Surfers lined up in the shorebreak below the dunes, the Peniche peninsula across the bay
2 · Surfers lined up in the shorebreak below the dunes, the Peniche peninsula across the bay
The wide bay south of Baleal from the dune path, kitesurf canopies up over the water
3 · The wide bay south of Baleal from the dune path, kitesurf canopies up over the water
Steeply tilted Jurassic limestone beds at the tip of Baleal island, the ilhéu de Fora beyond the channel
4 · Steeply tilted Jurassic limestone beds at the tip of Baleal island, the ilhéu de Fora beyond the channel
Atlantic swell breaking into the fractured limestone platform on the island’s north side
5 · Atlantic swell breaking into the fractured limestone platform on the island’s north side
The Ermida de Santo Estêvão, the whitewashed 16th-century fishermen’s chapel on the island rock
6 · The Ermida de Santo Estêvão, the whitewashed 16th-century fishermen’s chapel on the island rock
Open fishing boats drawn up on the sand in the sheltered cove below the village
7 · Open fishing boats drawn up on the sand in the sheltered cove below the village
Praia do Baleal Norte at low tide, the village strung along the isthmus and the island beyond
8 · Praia do Baleal Norte at low tide, the village strung along the isthmus and the island beyond
A surf school in the whitewater on the north beach, the island headland closing the bay
9 · A surf school in the whitewater on the north beach, the island headland closing the bay

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