We moved inland and uphill. Yet again we are into slow curves, tight hairpins and steep hills. This is the central / northern Peloponnese and we are heading for Lagadia and then Valtesiniko which are villages on the Menalon Trail.
The blue skies help but these are really nice places, even though the roads we chose are eerily quiet and remote.
There are few campsites around and non near our destination and so we are intending to wild camp above Valtesiniko.
Walking around Lagadia we are spoken to by a couple with adult son. They are from Zimbabwe and so know Land Rovers. Looking at ours was the introduction to a long chat, where it was soon clear they had been white farmers, who were thrown off their land by Robert Mugabe’s men and left with nothing.
They then watched as the blacks tried and failed to get any sort of output from it. The irony is now that some of those same white farmers are being brought back as farm managers, although not this couple who are well past retirement age.
Their son is in website development and splits time between Rhodes and Norwich “because I can”.
In Greece we previously discovered that however remote you might feel, someone always seems to be aware of you. So you go to bed with a tiny ‘wonder’ in the back of your mind. The Park4night app reviews tend to be accurate and we were confident of an ok spot above the village.
First of all though we had to locate our friends of 30+ years, Mark and Jan who are staying in this village after completing the first day of the trail.
This is a 77Km hike over a number of days, walking these remote mountains and lodging in the spectacular villages.
We found them at the taverna and enjoyed an early Mythos before walking to the top of the village where they turned right to their guesthouse and we turned left and drove up steep gravel to our eyrie.
Later we enjoyed a great meal and discussed families, house renovations and life. Mark and Jan have had a s#^t 18 months but life is back on track.
The camp was perfect; one of the best and we were treated to a great moonrise and then an early sunrise, just as well, as in these high lands the night was cold.
We continued the tour of these demanding roads the following day and this included buying fruit and veg from the Arthur B equivalent and having a nice village square coffee.
Later we drove a few miles on gravel, to reach the bottom of a canyon, where we walked to a series of nice waterfalls. Smooth rock and a rope handrail helped but it was amazing how many flip-flops came towards us as we walked out, asking “how far is it”?
A second wild camp was made, this time at the bottom of a valley, several hundred metres from the very remote road. It was again a peaceful night,with no cars or animal noises. The moon is waxing now and is late rising and it was dark!
It also got cold, about 8C and we weren’t really prepared for that, so were a little restless.
The next morning we headed south to our favourite seaside place…
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