We had arranged to have
an iChat with Harry and Ella first thing this morning. While we connected OK
the picture kept freezing and the sound dropped out at their end. We reverted
to cell phones. It was good to catch up with them for an hour. Everything was
fine in NZ, Ella had been promoted but was growing tired of a lot of working
away from Wellington. She had a stint away on the West Coast coming up and
hopefully that would be it for a while.
 |
| Early Morning Fishing |
Breakfast was fried
potato left over from the moussaka Jane cooked yesterday with scrambled eggs
for me and fried for Jane. There was a big turnout for rowing training on the lake.
 |
| An Eight With The Cox In The Bows |
As usual we filled with
fresh water and emptied Mabel’s grey waste tank before setting off. The latter
operation saw Mabel leaning at what Jane thought was a precarious angle as her
left wheels had to be positioned on a ramp to get the waste tap over the
disposal point.
 |
| Emptying Mabel's Grey Waste Tank |
Our route skirted the
opposite side of the lake to our camping ground climbing into the hills as it
did so. We came across another herd of goats in the road apparently looked
after by dogs without human intervention. I estimated we climbed to about 1,000
metres, I didn’t know because Mabel’s satnav didn’t seem to like working
weekends meaning we didn’t have an altitude reading. We could see glimpses of a
motorway a long way below us and our TomTom satnav showed our mountain road
crossing and recrossing the motorway in tunnels.
 |
| Leaving Ioannina Behind |
 |
| Motorway Emerging From Tunnel Beneath Us |
We joined the motorway
for a while travelling through many tunnels. We left the motorway and took a
two lane road. It appeared Mabel’s satnav only wanted the morning off because
it woke up shortly after midday showing we were 750 metres above sea level. We
descended onto a large plain, the Plain of Thessaly, a long way below. In spite
of Jane using Mabel’s gearbox to slow us, the occasional use of her brakes was
sufficient to generate the distinctive smell of brakes overheating.
Fortunately, we were nearly on the plain by that point and drove on thinking
the airflow around the brakes would do more good than stopping to let them cool
off.
 |
| Brakes Overheated On Descent To Road Just Visible In The Distance (Note: Gorse is not just confined to Johnsonville) |
 |
| Greece Certainly Does A Good Church |
Nearing our destination
some interesting formations came into view – pinnacles rising out of the plain.
Our camping ground at Kastraki was overlooked by some of the pinnacles.
Following a friendly greeting in English we were told to pick any pitch we
liked. Unfortunately, there was no wi-fi, there was a problem with a cable in
the village.
 |
| Rock Formations Kastraki |
We chose a spot
sufficiently shaded by trees that avoided the need to put Mabel’s awning out.
We ate our lunch of bread, cheese and salami after which Jane went for a swim
in the pool and I caught up with the blog.
Dinner was the first
installment of Jane’s moussaka, it was better than either of the two I had
eaten in tavernas, and they were good. It looked as though there was sufficient
left for another 3 meals.
 |
| Mother Of All Moussakas |
As we sat over a bottle
of wine two motorbikes arrived, one carried a man and a woman, the other was
ridden by a woman. After looking around they decided to put up their tents near
us. The man came over and apologised for the noise, we said there was no need.
They were from Turkey. One of the women came over with a large bag of
chickpeas, "From Turkey", she said and asked us to help ourselves. Later the man and a
woman came over and said they were going to the market, was there anything they
could get for us. That was a great foretaste of Turkey.
 |
| Today's Trip (100km) |
No comments:
Post a Comment