I had my usual – take it easy – morning with breakfast and coffee in the room. I also had a call with my old workmate, Martin R who has bike toured in Europe. It’s always nice to have calls with friends and family from home, but it meant I had a 10am start for a quite uncertain day.
I really didn’t know what was up ahead. There were wild camping and accom options about 100kms up the road, but I didn’t think I had that distance in me, especially after yesterday’s exertions. I left with a plan of putting in minimal effort for as long as possible.
“Minimal effort” included ignoring Komoot’s suggestions of riding up a largish hill rather than staying on a flattish and fairly quiet road. I played the day by ear and opted to go through Theba because of the cafes and supermarkets available there. The cafe I went to was really friendly with the waiter asking me a million questions about my trip. He’s a traveller too, so he got plenty of questions in return.
It was about twenty kilometres to the next town of Aliartos and I decided to reassess my day there. I stopped at the supermarket and worked out that I had another 40kms to go and that there weren’t many accommodation options near here. I decided to continue. It was pretty flat and picturesque as the road wound around a big mountainnand there were rock for nations with caves and a few archeological sites.
I missed a turn as I was chased by a large shepherd dog. It was a warm day and he was a bit late to start after me so he gave up pretty quickly. I then realised I would have to go back past him so I could take the right road. The alternative was an extra km or two – and that’s what I did. I didn’t fancy my chances with the dog. There were no people around and he was in charge and this time he would have been ready and waiting.
Not long after that the expected long, gentle climb began and the first few hundred metres were anything but gentle. I hit the wall and ate everything I could find, then slowed down and relaxed as the climb leveled out. From there it was fine as the road cut its way through the hills.
I had spotted a supermarket on the map about a kilometre off the road at the top of the climb. I thought I was very smart to leave my food shopping until then – until I found that the supermarket was a kilometre down a steep hill. I had no choice, so I got food and water for the night and retraced my steps to the top.
From there, things were easy but extremely quiet traffic-wise. I followed the directions to the wild camp spot beside a small cove surrounded mainly by bushland with a small church on the opposite side of the cove. There were a few people around the church but they weren’t bothered by my presence, and they packed up and left after an hour.
I thought – great ! It’s swim time ! But the small beach was littered with rubbish and completely uninviting. So I sat and relaxed, then set up camp and had dinner. It’s a beautiful spot, if you ignore the beach. And it was quiet too – no dogs, very few people, and no mozzies.
All in all, it was a perfect end to a long hard 100km day with nearly 1000m of climbing.