Friday 19th May.
We woke up to a sunny day in our tiny trulli. That lifted our spirits. No looking for something around corners today. No driving. We just stopped.
Saturday 20th May.
At 9:15am we farewelled Giuliana in the garden of Trulli Dai Conte and prepped Reggie for moving again. We filled him up with GPL and diesel and got back on the road north to Bari. At one point on the motorway, Rodney kindly held back so that a car could join the motorway. The man acknowledged us by waving his arm out of the window…… with his mobile phone in hand!!! On the way into Bari, we stopped at a supermarket to fill up with food and the man on the checkout informed us that this was the coldest spring in over 20 years. We think he may be correct.
In Bari we followed signs to the ferry port, then followed signs to the ticket office as we needed to pick up the tickets in advance of sailing. Then the signs disappeared. We could see our ship, but it was only midday and we didn’t need to be there until 5:00pm for a 7:50pm departure. I think I should rename this year’s blog as “how to get lost every day in Europe”. We did finally find the ticket office on the dockside and a nice lady said we could remain parked there until boarding commenced. Great! We didn’t have to drive back into Bari looking for car park big enough for Reggie. We wandered through the Old Town, ate some lunch and on our way back got hit by a massive downpour. A nasty lady shouted at us as we quickly sheltered under her porch to put our raincoats on. We’re not sure why it upset her so much. By the time we got back to Reggie our shoes were completely soaked through and the rain stopped. Dang! We should have stayed under the nasty lady’s porch for 15 minutes!
We boarded the Anik Superfast ferry around 5:00pm and were parked on the deck just undercover and close to an open side window. We plugged ourselves into the electrics and by the time we sailed the sun had gone down and the lights of Bari were coming on. We changed our clocks again to Greek time, another hour lost, and crawled into our bed early. Fingers were crossed for smooth sailing. All evening there were constant loud announcement regarding restaurants open, shop open, and how to put on your life jacket; the latter did not ease my concern about the journey across the Adriatic Sea.
Sunday 21st May.
Around 5:00am the loudspeaker woke us up announcing we would be arriving in 30 minutes; we had arrived safely in Greece after a very smooth cruise. But we had a major problem, another one, the fridge was dead, and the frozen fish and peas were already defrosting. Whilst waiting to disembark we flipped through every manual. When the Internet finally clicked on, I waded through various websites to no avail. Suddenly the enormous truck parked six inches in front of us, moved forward and we jumped into our seats. It was pitch black outside and pouring with rain in Greece.
Feeling completely flummoxed, we followed all the trucks out of the port and then found a large layby to pull into until daylight. We needed to sort out our fridge problem and we needed to get south. But it’s a Sunday so there’s no chance of fixing anything today. Then again, at least the roads were incredibly quiet. We drove through steeply wooded hills and then clung to the coast with occasional views out to sea and past tiny beach villages below. By 9:00am we were getting hungry, so we searched for a nice spot to pull over to cook up some food for breakfast. We found a spot beside an old rusty grey container opposite Kastrosykia Beach. The sky was grey, the sea was grey and the huge islands on the horizon were grey, but the bacon rolls were delicious. With no fridge we decided to cook the whole packet of six rashers of thick cut smoked bacon and cram it all into yesterday’s rolls with a bit of tomato ketchup. Yummy. More manual reading was ‘enjoyed’ because we had now discovered that the ignition for the gas stovetop also wouldn’t work. And the raindrops continued to fall from the grey sky.
In a rather convoluted way, with no road atlas and the Internet now failing us completely, we somehow managed to find Kariotes Camping. And it turns out, we’re on the Ionian island of Lefkada and we didn’t think we would be visiting any islands!! To get here we drove along a series of causeways and then found ourselves in a short queue for a moving bridge onto the island. Lots of yachts were moving, in both directions, through what looked like a short canal separating the island from the mainland. It was fascinating to watch.
It’s a tiny sloping campsite that turned on a brief display of sunshine when we first arrived, and the bathrooms are good. Rodney started another investigation into the fridge/stovetop problem, feeling positive that it had to be a blown fuse. We searched the van, under seats, inside cupboards, under the passenger seat, high and low trying to find where the fuses were located. The manuals are useless. Rodney finally found that a 10-amp fuse – series 4 was blown. Eureka! But then we couldn’t find the box of spare fuses and bulbs. Just as Rodney walked across to reception to ask where we might be able to buy some, a British motorhome pulled into the campsite. The lovely Welsh couple insisted they would have the right fuse for us, but now we were more worried about them. We thought we had problems, but they told us a very sorry tale. Yes, they too have not been enjoying the grotty weather all the way from Wales. But Mal apparently started feeling terrible a couple of weeks ago and ended up in hospital for 10 days with high blood pressure. Louise then slipped on a wet ramp going to get medications for him and broke her right arm!
We now have a working fridge and stovetop. Fish and peas are on the menu for this evening and we’re now feeling very sad for a nice couple who are in a far worse predicament than us. Hopefully things will soon get better, for everyone.