Day 126: Tuesday 22 July – Z To A, by Ken

Our plan was to start packing up Mabel at 08:30 so as to be on the road in an hour, or so, for the 5 hour plus drive from Zografou to Alexandroupoli that would take us within an hour’s drive of the Turkish border. Our well oiled machine didn’t run quite as smoothly as usual thanks to me throwing a spanner in the works metaphorically speaking..

Mabel’s display shows the engine oil level when the ignition is turned on – five vertical bars varying in height and calibrated ‘Min’ to ‘Max’. Except when parked on a slope, the display has always shown ‘Max’. From time to time I do a visual check of the oil level using the dipstick, just in case… This morning the check showed the oil level to be half way between the max and min marks on the dipstick. Mabel needed some oil after 6,400 kilometres, that’s not bad going. The oil filler cap seemed to have been welded on and it took a lot of effort to free it. Fiat have crammed a lot of engine into a small space and the only way I could see of adding oil was via a funnel and a jug bought specially for the purpose. Clumsily, I managed to dislodge the filler cap which I had left loose on top of the pipe. It disappeared into the bowels of the engine rattling on its way down before landing with a soft thud on something that wasn’t the ground. Looking under the engine I found the whole of it was covered by a plastic shroud secured by dozens of screws. Removing half a dozen screws gave a sufficient gap to get my hand in and retrieve the cap. As always with these things putting the screws back was a lot more difficult than getting them out, mainly due to the springy plastic of the shroud. Jane had to give me a hand with one particularly troublesome screw in a wheel arch.

The fun with the oil filler cap meant it was 10:45 before Smarty was finally hitched onto Mabel at the top of the very steep, rough unsurfaced track from the camping ground.

As usual Jane drove the first leg. Our route took us back the way we had come on Saturday as far as the top of the gulf between the left and middle peninsulas of Halkidiki. By the side of the road were numerous stalls selling fruit and vegetables. We stopped at one owned by an elderly woman. She was lovely, greeting us with a very friendly ‘kalimera’ and she had enough English for us to have a limited conversation. We left with pears, peaches, plums and green olives. We weren’t in need of olives, but the sample she gave us to taste were so delicious, we couldn’t resist them. Before leaving she posed for a photograph with Jane.

Roadside Fruit Stall

Fruit Seller Looking Rather Serious

We left Saturday’s route at the top of the gulf and headed inland climbing through olive groves into hills. Since setting off we had been puzzled by our two satnavs showing different overall journey times and distances to our destination. Near the town of Poligros we travelled on a new section of road, our new satnav didn’t know about it and showed us travelling across fields, our new satnav had us on the road. Once we got to a road they both knew about, the displays agreed exactly.

We continued to climb into hills on two lane roads that were often narrow at times. After a while a large plain stretched out to the north many hundreds of metres below us. I guessed 300 or even 400 metres below, I didn’t know because Mabel’s satnav was having a rest day - again!

The countryside could have been England after a long hot summer (unlikely, I know) with lush green trees and hedgerows lining the road and bleached fields beyond. For the first time on this trip we saw serious sunflower crops, many fields had plants with their heavy heads bowed low as if they were depressed or embarrassed.

England?

The Haywain Greek Style

Sunflowers

We passed garden centres – there’s lots in Greece, with small trees that had been trained into spirals and others shaped to resemble two balls, one on top of the other.

Spiral Trees

In Greece It's OK to Stop For A Chat And Take Up Half The Width Of The Road

Jane drove over 100 km before we finally reached the east-west motorway that would take us within 10km of our camping ground in Alexandroupoli. Initially, it passed through hill country in deep benched cuttings similar to those we had designed for our unsuccessful Transmission Gully tender. Had the east-west motorway cuttings been designed by Eleni, a Greek geotechnical engineer who joined Opus in Wellington and was part of the Transmission Gully team?

Did Eleni Design This?

At about the half way point of the day’s trip we stopped at a service area just off the motorway for lunch. It was our usual, bread, cheese and salami plus taramasalata that Jane had bought in the camping ground shop. We finished the meal off with some of the fruit purchased earlier, it was fantastic, very tasty and juicy. We visited a filling station next door that had a grey waste dump point. The smell on a hot afternoon was absolutely disgusting, someone had obviously emptied the contents of their toilet there. Added to that the hopper below the grid that our waste was discharging into filled with water. As we drove away Jane could see it was overflowing across the hardstanding! We filled Smarty with petrol having read that fuel is a lot more expensive in Turkey. The attendant was at pains to ensure I could pay cash. I was at greater pains double checking it was petrol after my efforts to save a few Euro leaving Morocco in 2012 cost a small fortune as the result of the attendant filling her with diesel.

We stopped at yet another toll booth. The attendant had spotted Smarty and he leaned out  of his booth pointing to the €8.40 on the tariff below his window, then to €6.00 and shrugged his shoulders with a beaming smile on his face. We said €6.00. He smiled again and picked up his phone. After a brief conversation he pointed to the €8.40. We said "No  €6.00". He laughed and held out his hand for his €8.40.

€6.00, or €8.40?

The camping ground in Alexandroupoli was large and busy. There were a lot of Bulgarian registered vehicles parked. We were given the largest pitch yet on our trip, complete with a hard standing. As we were only staying for one night we just put out our chairs and small table under the awning.

We went for a walk on the beach. It was a wide sandy strip with some umbrellas and loungers. The beach shelved gradually into the sea unlike all the other beaches we have visited in Greece which dropped off steeply. As a result, bathers were standing and not bobbing. To the west was a mass of white umbrellas behind a wire mesh fence. The sea was heaving with bathers. We counted the umbrellas as ten deep and many tens wide, most had people under them even though it was early evening.

Beach At Alexandroupoli

What's The Collective Noun For Umbrellas?

We decided we had to eat in a taverna on our daft night in Greece. The camping ground's taverna was a handy - less than 100 metres from Mabel. The owner was a bit of a comedian. After asking us where we were from he said “New Zealand, there are no taxes there, in Greece there are lots of taxes”. I said “but no-one in Greece pays their taxes, do they”. His reply was “there are new rules now” with a broad grin.

After he had corrected his mistake of bringing a jug of white wine and not the red we ordered (a result of him not wearing his glasses, he said) we ordered shared starters of grilled cheese and aubergine balls with mains of octopus for me and pork souvlaki for Jane. The cheese was laced with chillis and breathtakingly hot at times, the aubergine balls were more like patties, but we enjoyed both dishes. The two octopus tentacles were delicious tasting more like tender chicken than fish, Jane’s pork was really good. Later our friendly host claimed the octopus caught in the area were the best in Greece.

Today's Trip (345km)