Crete to Ancona

12 to 16 May
After a good night’s sleep in the motel at Sfakia we headed off for Iraklion following the coast north then across the mountains and a spectacular gorge before stopping at Spili. The scenery was very beautiful, very steep country with a lot of small area farming of grapes, olives there must have been thousands of areas of these small farming lots all mixed together.

All day John hardly used top gear stayed in 3rd doing around 25 to 30 mph due to the steep and windy roads, about 70 miles. By the end of the day John had had enough of driving slow and hard in 3rd gear.

Camped at Creta Camping beside the Cretaquarium and a swim in much warmer water. Then had a great cook up of soup, followed by Nasi Goreng and pork courtesy of Marielle and Hans Spranger.

On Wednesday, we ventured to Agios Nikolaos and wandered off the main road and found ourselves in the village of Hersonnissos where a neighbour from Yass had lived for a period. However, every time I took a picture, the vehicle bounced around and they were useless. Then another couple of tiny villages with very narrow streets requiring a lot of manoeuvring before we got out the other side and back onto the main road. We managed to scrape the side of a house once.

On the way back from Agios Nikolaos, the ute wasn’t performing at all well and is the subject of another posting by John.

Managed to get onto the ferry and to Pireaus. After that very trying day, we started travelling toward Patra and around 2000 hrs decided to try and find a camp ground on the way. Pulled in at Kiatro and had a lovely dinner and asked where the camp ground was. 10 minutes up the road became 10 km and then another 10 km when we kept on stopping to ask for directions. In the end we continued to Patra and the Rion Camping Ground, arriving at midnight. Next morning explored the Rion Fortress and are now on the ferry from Patra to Ancona in Italy. We are due to arrive there at 1230 after a 19 hour journey. More to follow.

Sorry all the photos are at the top but not much time to load and fix on time limits. Paddy is now at Knossos in Crete. There are the photos of Skafia and other things along the road.