Day 105: Tuesday 1 July – Another Day on the Beach at Stoupa, by Ken

Jane woke with a touch of the squitters and I had mild stomach cramps. Perhaps the sardines and/or the prawns we ate at Pórto Káyio yesterday weren’t as good as they looked? Yesterday we had decided that we could afford another day on the beach at Stoupa and still achieve everything we wanted to on the trip. With us both feeling less than 100% it was clearly the thing to do.

Jane gave her cats their breakfast of bread and milk having had to visit the camping ground's shop to buy more milk for them.

After a couple of Immodium Jane pronounced herself good to go. As a precaution against having to make a dash back to base we drove down to the beach in Smarty. It was early, there were plenty of parks along the beachfront and we chose one outside the tavern we had eaten at on Sunday and established camp on their loungers under an umbrella at the water’s edge.

On The Beach Early Doors

 We had a talk about my Gumpesque moment yesterday afternoon, agreed we could both learn something from it and decided to move on. The morning was spent reading on our Kindles, mine fully charged this time. It was yet another hot day and I needed half a dozen dunks in the sea to cool off. That compared to none on Sunday morning and Jane wondered whether that was also something to do with yesterday’s lunch. The only other excitement of the morning was a cappuccino each delivered to our loungers by the taverna.

One Of My Many Dunks

Jane felt sufficiently recovered to eat lunch and we summoned up the energy to leave the beach, cross the road and take a table at the taverna. First thing on my agenda was the use of their facilities and on walking back past the bar the waiter had a puzzled look on her face saying Jane had only ordered water. I said she must be ill which brought a smile to his face and I ordered a large Mythos. Back at the table Jane said she had only ordered water as she wasn’t sure what I wanted. I told her I had a beer on the way and she added a half litre of red as soon as she saw the waiter. He smiled again. We decided on another plate of mezze.

While waiting for our food we got talking to a couple from Hornchurch in Essex who we had spoken to briefly on Sunday. They told us the talk of the village was a wooden footbridge spanning a dry stream bed from our taverna to another, empty, taverna next door. Apparently, the owner of the place we were eating at had bought the next door establishment and installed the bridge recently in the middle of the night. He didn’t have permission for it and the police had got involved. The bridge had tape across the ends preventing its use, it looked extremely flimsy, particularly the handrails, and I was sure no-one in New Zealand would have signed it off.

A little while later someone at an adjacent table asked the owner what was happening about the bridge. “Some people don’t like it” was the response.

Controversial Footbridge

 After taking our time over our meal we asked the owner if we could pay. He nodded and disappeared. It was quite a while before he returned saying he couldn’t find our order. Jane said it came to €21.50, the same as Sunday. That prompted a “whatever” from the owner and he walked off again. He reappeared about five minutes later and walked straight past us. I gave him €30 on his way back, he looked at the money for a while and then handing back €10 saying “you owe me €1.50”.

The afternoon was quieter than the morning, I only needed one dunk in the sea, Jane had a couple of swims.

Back at Mabel I emailed The Photo Warehouse in Wellington from whom I had bought Jane’s camera for her birthday this year asking if they could suggest anything to fix it.

Jane’s stomach was playing up again and she decided not to eat. I had some bread and taramasalata.