Skip to main content

In the mountains

I raised my eyebrow a little, almost an involuntary movement. "Can we do something special tonight?" Dawn had said. There was just time for an intake of breath, before she continued, " I think it's time for a bit of wild camping". Just a little uncertain of what direction we were taking, I glanced at SWMBO and before I could clarify, she did it for me, "Up in the mountains - I think it's cooler and we can get off the grid for 24 hours".
Then it was clear, a spot of camping in the wild, now that was in the plan and we were agreed it was time.

So we left our orange grove, beachfront campsite, which is always a wrench, setting off over the thumb and into the interior of the eastern finger of the Peloponnese. Soon we were high above the Saronic Gulf, using all the hi-ratio gears to move round the hairpins. It's amazing just how quickly the height is gained and the views are stupendous.


We drove up the astounding gorge formed by the seasonal river Dafnon and were looking out for a monastery perched high above it. 


This is the Panagia Elonis nunnery, comprising quite a number of buildings tucked under the rockface high above the road. It is maintained by four nuns in a silent order, although we only met a priest and he spoke, saying "Yassus".


It's a tight turn off the road and along a short access road to a turning space and car park. From there a short walk on nice steps takes you to the buildings.


Looking down into the gorge is just as stunning.

Now it was onto Kosmas, a beautiful village sitting at well over 1,000m. There were the obligatory local men watching and waiting in the square, plus a lady who tried to sell us about ten years worth of herbs in a big bag. We do cook with herbs most evenings but what she thought we would do with that quantity, I don't know. Herbs also smell nice but not in the confined space of a Landy for a month or two.


We turned onto a dusty track a few kms out of the village, in search of some privacy, tranquility and views.


This is bee country and there are many many hives


We picked our spot, killed the engine, climbed out and were deafened by the noise of millions of bees all making their way back to the hives. It was like that Windows screensaver where all the stars rush by as you are speeding through space, "Give me warp factor eight Mr Sulu".

So that didn't quite tick all the boxes and we searched for another site and found one with a slightly less panoramic view but considerably fewer bees. The barbecue came out and we were happy.



So we had a night of camping in the wild. We were quite prepared, with a big water container and a trowel if it had been needed ( it wasn't). We are not fully sealed into the Landy doing this, in that some items need to stay outside, such as the table and chairs.

Most stuff though, is inside the Landy and as we have proved in Austria and in Serbia, we can use it as a motorhome in the rain too. Give us fine weather though and it's easy. There were no flies at such a height and it was cold enough to keep the windows closed. At sea level, with mozzies around, things would be different as we don't have any fly screens. Maybe we will need to make some.

After a great night and a slow start on account of the surroundings, we packed up and headed for the coast once again.











Labels:

Comments

Rachel said…
ah, wild camping: the best camping!
14 June 2015 at 20:08
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The empty map of Macedonia and into Greece

Continuing south towards the Serbia / Macedonia border, the satnav warned of a lack of detail, "do you wish to continue with this route?" However we are not intrepid explorers and Macedonia comes with a few " be careful" warnings, so we decided to stay on the motorway :-) We didn't explore Serbia; it will wait for another trip. So it was on to the border. Here, passport and V5 were required again and also proof of insurance. We didn't have any of course. When we rang the UK insurance company call centres prior to the trip, most had no idea where these countries are. They don't understand non-EU. "Macedonia - can you spell that"? The nice man at the passport office was already expecting me to say that I would buy my insurance at the "Green card office" and he handed back one passport and the V5 and put mine in his pocket until I had the necessary paper for the Landy. Unfortunately in spite of the Land Rover being classed as PL...
9 comments
Read more

Remote mountains and how not to behave in them

Prior to the trip I had read somewhere that there aren’t any mountains in Portugal - at least I thought I read it. My preparations had, as usual, been focused almost totally on getting the Landy ready and Dawn, who had been doing all the other jobs was much better informed. “What? You are kidding aren’t you? Have you even looked at a map?” were some of the words she used when I told her this vital piece of information. As it became clear, there are mountains in Portugal - not massive peaks but high elevations are common and the extent of the ranges is quite large. The most remote and wild are the Serra da Peneda Gerês which rise to 1,440m but there are three others “Seras” in the Parque National da Peneda - Gerês, in which wolves roam free. First stop on they way there was the town of Guimarães, the day after “Portugal Day” and the castle and buildings were in tip-top condition. A Polish guy from Katowice who’s lived here for twenty years was selling bilberry jam in these c...
8 comments
Read more

"I'm the dog"

El Berro and  Camping Sierra Espuña  are nicely positioned for walking in these 'low' Sierras and of course the obligatory GR XYZ  long distance path crosses the village. The campsite people gave us a couple of short walk suggestions, written on A4 and translated by some English guy, Michael Ball. We waited until the end of the afternoon, so that the temperature was somewhat manageable and then picked one of the ~1 hour walks that start at the campsite. The walk is so simple that there's no description, just a small diagram that's well annotated with the type of path (wide main track / footpath), other markers (gate, incorrect route, fence). You can't go wrong, can you? Well the first part was easy. Follow the path out of the village, up a valley, through woodland, up and up. Then reach the ridge and the marked ring of stones. Don't turn right, carry on straight across. Then wander through a few trees and down to a dry riverbed, at which point you walk the (ve...
6 comments
Read more