28 & 29 August 2008

Thursday 28 August 2008

Logistics and prep day in Athens/Pireus, Greece.

Late breakfast at out swanky hotel followed by a number of chores. Had a quick march around the area to a bike shop and bank. Came out of both empty handed.

Later took a taxi around to the 'far side' AKA Kestella. We landed in the small port of Mikrolimano and spent a very pleasant afternoon having a long lunch and people watching from a pavement café.

At around 21:00, returned to the hotel to pick up Disharmony II and a minimalists dream of one very light pannier.

Off we trotted to the port to catch the overnight Pireus to Crete ferry.

Well, we've done our fair share of ferry travel over the years but never like this one, not even in the third world.

The quayside was utter, utter bedlam.

As the ferry was being unloaded it was simultaneously being loaded - via the same ramp. HGV's mixed freely with pedestrians and anyone who fancied wandering up the ramp did so.

How we ever embarked and left without anyone being squashed, we will never know.

We'd booked comfy seats on the ferry to try and get some sleep and very comfy they were too. The ferry was much nicer than we're used to on the Portsmouth - Brittany routes and we enjoyed the experience.

Tomorrow should see us arrive in the port of Hania, Crete from where we'll launch our final attack on the Euro E2E journey.

Friday 29 August 2008

Today is 'D' day. We'll be riding from the port of Hania, Crete across the spine of the island to Sfakia also Crete where the Gavdos ferry departs from.

Gavdos is the ultimate destination of the trip being the most southerly land point in Europe.

This means a sea level to sea level ride across a number of 3000' mountains Oh dear.

The inbound ferry from Pireus arrived half an hour or so late. Once docked, we bullied our way to the front of the queue, disembarked and departed around 07:00.

We bashed out our first Cretan 16 miles on the E75 main Hania - Iraklion highway in an hour.

Made a quick pit stop before turning due south along a secondary road that connected the northern highway with the southern port of Sfakia.

There followed a long climb of 800m over 14 miles to the top of the spine of Crete.

We were obviously turbo charged with all the riding over the past weeks and the prospect of it finally coming to an end. Additionally, running with minimal weight helped a lot.

After we crested the top, the road dropped for 10 miles into Sfakia back at sea level. How we were going to enjoy the return journey....

The climb was pretty straightforward though we took it at a bit of an animal pace being short of time. This resulted in Tracey having a very rare sense of humour bypass and Miles adopted a silent running approach - as you would....

The road became more broken the higher we climbed until a mile or so from the summit, it turned into a construction site.

We were hassling the vehicular traffic along through the roadwork's and on a couple of occasions, passed them and left them for dead... Hmmm, maybe crawled by and struggled on would be a more apt description.

As we commenced our 10 mile descent, we had to keep the speed down due to the broken road, tight hairpins and numerous cars.

Fantastic views over the south of Crete and its lovely blue sea.

We thrashed into Sfakia to join the ticket queue for the Gavdos ferry and bought the tickets with 4 mins to spare.

This ferry also then left late and plodded its way across to the island.

After 45 mins (the scheduled journey time), Gavdos was still a mere dot on the horizon. Seems the published schedule was a 'bit wrong'.

A couple of hours later we docked in Gavdos and immediately joined the ticket queue for the only return ferry of the day.

We had scheduled a couple of hours to look around a pristine, uninhabited island and we'd actually got a few minutes in a backpacker/crusty/dosser infested dormitory.

Gavdos it seems, is big on the alternative travel scene. Additionally, the ferry company seemed incapable of publishing accurate information and sticking to it.

This reduced our time at journeys end to a few minutes and it all felt a bit flat after so much effort.

We took a couple of the obligatory photos then returned to the boat for a bit of a sulk.

During the return to Crete, it started to sink in just what we'd accomplished and pretty soon we perked up.

The Gavdos ferry was also very late arriving into Sfakia and we still had a good 4 hours of cycling to deliver in order to reach Hania for the Crete - Pireus return leg.

Regardless, we bullied our way out of Sfakia up a 'delightful' 1:3 hill and commenced the reversal of our earlier 10 mile and 850m descent to recross the main mountain spine of Crete.

We were making good progress in searing heat and had reached the halfway point (5 miles/450m) when our thumbs inexplicably went into spasm and stuck out rigidly.

This confused a local chap passing in a Toyota Hi-Lux Taliwagon who seemed to think we wanted a lift. Us? What after completing our journey? Never....

Well, we don't like to be rude so we bundled Disharmony II into the back of his truck and jumped into the crew cab.

We then spent the next 45 minutes dripping on poor 'Paul' who drove at breakneck speed up, over and down the mountains before ejecting us just outside Hania.

What poor luck, this meant we'd now have to waste a couple of hours in a café and having dinner before catching the return ferry to the mainland.

This ferry was as chaotic as all the rest and we now forgive P&O and Brittany Ferries for all their sins on the grounds that things could be much, much worse.

Apart from the ferry being bedlam, the journey back to Athens was fairly routine.

Job done. Sigh.......

Today a tough Crete crosser of 45 miles and 1580m of ascent. Total trip 3785 miles.

More to follow.

Miles & Tracey