Day 86: Thursday 12 June – Navigational Challenges, by Ken

Fifteen minutes before our planned departure time of 10:00 we drove in tandem up the steep slope from the camping ground and parked just outside the gates of Camping Internazionale Nettuno in San Leone. I visited reception to pay our bill. On the back wall was a photograph of a slim, long haired young man and an older man, presumably father and son. The younger of the two was sitting at the reception desk, he was no longer young and was now a pie or two short of 130kg.

San Leone Camping Ground

Having hitched up Smarty watched by the man from reception who like many others was intrigued by our towing arrangements. He spoke entirely in Italian asking how Smarty steered and telling us it wouldn’t be legal in Italy. Having completed Smarty’s pre-flight checks we boarded Mabel while the man leaned against a wall looking intently at Smarty. We noticed Mabel’s satnav seemed to have lost contact with satellites, I suggested to Jane she should drive down the road a bit and we would sort it out away from the gaze of the man from reception. After 15 minutes of trying to sort it out, Mabel still hadn’t locked on to any satellites, perhaps they had all fallen out of the sky? Neither could I find the manual for the satnav in the collection of documentation given to us by Elite.

Watching Our Departure From The Camping Ground

We did find an itinerary for the trip in the satnav (the route numbers and distances along each route which Jane entered into her notebook. It seemed simple enough, we just had to find the SS115 we had travelled on yesterday and follow that parallel to the coast. We decided to use the itinerary and our Europe road atlas to navigate our way 200 km, or so, to our planned overnight stop in Avola on the south east corner of Sicily. We swapped our normal roles of a morning, Jane opted to navigate while I drove.

It was fairly straightforward. A road off the first roundabout we came to was signed Siracusa and a short distance along it a route marker showed we were on the SP 71 which corresponded with our itinerary instruction to follow it for 8 km. Sure enough, after 8 km we turned right onto the SS115. It was signed to Gela and Syracusa – just what we needed. After 30 km I pulled into a layby and we swapped drivers. Initially, we travelled through agricultural country with its rich, almost black, soil. Some areas were covered in poly tunnels. After a while as we neared the town of Gela the landscape became barren and scrubby without any hint of a crop.

Just before we reached Gela I spotted a green (motorway) sign ‘E45 Siracusa’. Our atlas and a map I had studied earlier on the wall of the camping ground earlier showed a motorway to be built from Gela eastwards towards Syracusa. To me the sign indicated the motorway was now open. I instructed Jane to follow the sign, she did and shortly afterwards we found ourselves heading north, and not east, along the coast. Jane was less than impressed pointing out we were on an inland route to Syracusa and the turn we had taken was well before the start of the planned motorway. Both very valid points I thought. After a while we came to an interchange and I suggested to Jane we take the exit and find the ramp that would take us back the way we had come. She did, and at the bottom of the off ramp was a road signed to Gela. Jane wanted to take the road. I didn’t, the way ahead looked very narrow and I wanted to find the on ramp. We swapped drivers and I performed a tricky U-turn going the wong way around an island at the bottom of the ramp we had just come down. It worked, I found the on ramp and we were soon retracing our route back to the SS115.

We soon reached Gela, a very busy town with lots of side streets which cars drifted out of playing their game of chicken to see if I would give way to them. I didn’t, which made Jane very nervous, but the cars always stopped for us. The game of chicken is also played by oncoming drivers who want to pass the inevitable double-parked cars. They swing out well before the obstacle they want to get round and drive straight at you. I have found that by ignoring them, they will do the right thing and give way. Jane prefers not to risk it. Gela is a big town, in fact it seemed to have two centres and it took a while and lots of games of chicken before we were back on the open road again.

A text arrived from Adam saying he had dropped off our replacement satnav with DHL which was just what we wanted to hear. Jane replied telling him Mabel’s satnav seems to have given up.

On the outskirts of the town of Vittoria we pulled off the road for our lunch stop. We ate our customary bread, cheese and salami, the latter being very good and cut from a long sausage in the camping ground shop in San Vito Lo Compo. While we ate I looked for the elusive satnav manual without any joy and then reverted to playing with its touch screen. I’m unsure what I did, but suddenly it locked onto lots of satellites and was up and running again. We entered the coordinates of the camping ground we were heading for in Avola and set off. Jane was driving and much happier. Her happiness was short lived, coming into the town of Comiso the satnav instructed the first exit at a roundabout, Siracusa was signed off the second exit. Still, the road we were on looked good, but a left turn close to an imposing church required a tricky manouver around a badly parked police van and the subsequent turn to the right was impossible! The narrow street was far to tight for Mabel and, anyway, a car parked on the corner would have prevented something a lot smaller from making the turn. At that point a man appeared and offered to move the car. It wasn’t going to help.

We had been stationary for a while facing a narrow street, just wide enough for Mabel. Cars were squeezing by and we had to do something. I took over and started down the narrow street. Jane was very quiet by now and didn’t take up my suggestion of stopping outside a shop with bride’s dresses in the window to take photographs for Ella. We could see from the satnav there was a major road crossing some way ahead. After more than a kilometre along the narrow street, and ignoring persistent instructions from the satnav to turn right into streets much to narrow for Mabel, we finally reached the major road. It was signed to Siracusa.

Mabel's Satnav's Idea Of A Good Route Through Cosimo

From Comiso we climbed steadily via a series of hairpin bends. As we climbed we could see Comiso below and satnav indicated that by the time we reached a plateau we had climbed 600 metres. We stopped and changed drivers again.

Cosimo Recedes In The Distance As We Climb

Mabel’s display showed our range to be less than 200 metres. While that was more than enough diesel to take us to Avola, we had decided we should regard 200 km as a minimum and fill up at that point. Just before reaching Ragusa we pulled into a filling station. The diesel pump we stopped at had a hand written note which Jane translated as ‘Heavy Vehicles’. Not being sure what that meant and there being no attendant in sight we continued to the next station which was in the town of Ragusa. That was unmanned and self-service, but a note on the cash machine advised it didn’t take cards. The third station was also unmanned and while we tried to get diesel, nothing came out the pump. It was fourth time lucky, an Esso station was manned by two young men, one of whom filled Mabel for us.

Shortly after we left Ragusa we joined a motorway that would take us 25km leaving only a couple of kilometres to complete our journey. The beginning of the motorway had all the paraphernalia for tolls, except machines and barriers. We couldn’t decide whether they were in the process of being installed, or whether there had been a change of heart about tolling.

Jane was very pleased having chosen to have some easy driving to end the day with a satnav that was working. We left the motorway, passing through a similarly incomplete toll plaza and joined a local road. We knew our camping ground was just a right turn off the road. Jane slowed as we neared the turn with me counting down the distance to run. With less than 100 metres to go we saw the sign for Camping Paradiso Del Mare, but we didn’t see a turning. We continued and realised we must have missed the turn. The road we were on was too narrow for a U-turn and satnav’s map didn’t show any side roads that we could use to work our way back the way we had come. We continued and after quite a while the satnav showed a major road crossing ahead which had to be the motorway we had left earlier. We took the turn for the motorway and pulled over. Jane wanted to do a U-turn and go back the way we had come, I wanted to go back down the motorway to the interchange we had left 15 minutes earlier and try again. We eventually opted for the motorway with me taking over driving duties. This time we slowed to a crawl well before the camping ground sign, there was a road that passed through a very narrow gap in a wall. I doubted it was wide enough for Mabel and it certainly wouldn’t permit a right turn off our road. We drove on to the motorway interchange again! This time we used it to do a U-turn so we could drive back down the road and try an easier left turn to the camping ground. We crawled approaching the turning, I had real doubts it was wide enough and didn’t want to risk getting stuck on the busy main road. Instead we continued to the sign for another camping ground we had spotted a few hundred metres further along. The road there was much wider but ample to take Mabel.

Seen During One Of Our Orbits Trying to Find The Camping Ground

While the road started off reasonably wide it soon became much narrower and flanked on both sides by the high walls of house’s gardens. In fact it became so narrow we only got through by folding one of Mabel’s door mirrors. We crawled for a kilometre like that making some very tight turns along the way before reaching the camping ground.

I tried my usual “Parla Inglese, per favore” with the receptionist and received a very firm “No” in reply. In Italian she then took me through a list that included how many nights, how many people, a camper?, a car? and electricity? I understood and answered in Italian at the end of which she said something to the effect that it wasn’t necessary to speak English, with a big smile on her face.

A young lad with good English showed us a selection of pitches for Mabel and after a lot of deliberation, we selected one and Jane and I agreed which way Mabel should be facing. We set everything up at the end of which Jane announced Mabel was the wrong way round, we should have reversed in so as to give us more shade. Too bad, I’d had enough for the day!

A text arrived from Adam. DHL’s tracking system showed the satnav had been picked up. It was on its way and not before time if today was anything to go by!

It's A Tight Squeeze When We Finally Find A Road To A Camping Ground

Today's Trip (225km)