A walk across white dusty land with hills covered by young forests, ploughed fields and scrub, and a monastery.
I took a taxi from my accomodation at Villa Thermopilon in Aradippou, North Larnaca, back to Kalo Chorio and the E4. The taxi driver talked a lot and seemed to take the long way round. From Kalo Chorio I headed across farmland on a track to an area of hills planted with young pines and some cypress called the Moutti tou Ziou forest. Wind turbines stood stationary on the hilltops as I followed forestry roads that contoured the hillside. I found an E4 sign near the start of the plantation but lost any others, should they exist, in the myriad of tracks intersecting each other. I stuck to my preplanned route, devised using Google Earth. The key challenge was where to leave the many forest tracks and join a road leading to Kochi. My route took me along the fence of a "solid waste disposal site" then down a gravel road which I assume served the wind turbines, which then joined the tarmac road to Kochi. As I walked down the edge of the tarmac, many lorries full of rubbish where going the other way then returning empty.
At the end of the road I regained an E4 sign by a United Nations memorial for those who died in the effort to bring long term peace to Cyprus. Particularly disturbing was the killing of three Austrian UN peacekeepers killed by a Turkish airborne attack with napalm. Poignantly, three blue helmets lay on the memorial. Walking up the road, the abandoned Turkish village of Kochi was obscured by an army base (where my taxi driver served his National Service).
After crossing beneath the main road to Nicosia, I followed a track through another young pine forest (the Megali Moutti forest) to the Archagelos church which nestled among some trees. A construction crew was building what might become toilets. With its door closed the church was dark inside, only two small windows, high up, and an oil lamp gave any light to the simply designed church.
I rambling over rolling hillsides, the stubble in the fields was being manured and ploughed. The cows providing the manure were sheltering from the sun under corrugated steel roofs. Do their noses get sun burn I wonder? Normally I would prefer to see cows enjoying grazing in fields, but in the hot, fierce sunlight of today that would be cruel. In addition if I was a cow I would not find the straw dry, dusty fields very appealing, better chewing the cud with my mates under cover.
Avdellero was a bit of a disappointing village, no coffee shops or other shops open as far as I could see, although the mud bricks above masonry on some older buildings had a certain architectural interest. I tried getting some water from one of the metal cabinets that I was seeing in various places, a picture of a child drinking a glass of water on the side, which itself made me feel thirsty for some cool water. The smallest volume I could buy from the machine was two litres, as I only had a 1 1/2 litre bottle, half a litre seemed to end up sprayed on the front of my shorts, giving a misleading impression of my problem.
After this village I entered the UN buffer zone for the first time. A sign attached to two oil drums said "no photographs, UN authorised persons only". Was I a UN authorised person? I could find no details in guide books or on the internet other than I should not hunt, so I assumed I was acceptable and continued to the village of Troulloi passed a military post on the hillside. A wonderful place in that the village had a shop open for cold drinks and an ice cream. It had a number of churches including one I thought was a mosque with people sheltering in the shade under a covered portico. Down the tarmac road was the monastery of Agios Georgios, possibly the last monastery on my trip. The bearded man at the gate asked after my faith.
Diverting to the village of Oroklini, I am now settled in the Hotel G Antonis. Listening over diner to the sound of British tourists and Queen on the sound system remined me what a popular place Cyprus was for British tourists and expatriates.
35 kilometres walked today with a 470 metre total ascent. A GPS track of my route can be found on wikiloc.com and on ViewRanger short code johnpon0047.
I took a taxi from my accomodation at Villa Thermopilon in Aradippou, North Larnaca, back to Kalo Chorio and the E4. The taxi driver talked a lot and seemed to take the long way round. From Kalo Chorio I headed across farmland on a track to an area of hills planted with young pines and some cypress called the Moutti tou Ziou forest. Wind turbines stood stationary on the hilltops as I followed forestry roads that contoured the hillside. I found an E4 sign near the start of the plantation but lost any others, should they exist, in the myriad of tracks intersecting each other. I stuck to my preplanned route, devised using Google Earth. The key challenge was where to leave the many forest tracks and join a road leading to Kochi. My route took me along the fence of a "solid waste disposal site" then down a gravel road which I assume served the wind turbines, which then joined the tarmac road to Kochi. As I walked down the edge of the tarmac, many lorries full of rubbish where going the other way then returning empty.
At the end of the road I regained an E4 sign by a United Nations memorial for those who died in the effort to bring long term peace to Cyprus. Particularly disturbing was the killing of three Austrian UN peacekeepers killed by a Turkish airborne attack with napalm. Poignantly, three blue helmets lay on the memorial. Walking up the road, the abandoned Turkish village of Kochi was obscured by an army base (where my taxi driver served his National Service).
After crossing beneath the main road to Nicosia, I followed a track through another young pine forest (the Megali Moutti forest) to the Archagelos church which nestled among some trees. A construction crew was building what might become toilets. With its door closed the church was dark inside, only two small windows, high up, and an oil lamp gave any light to the simply designed church.
I rambling over rolling hillsides, the stubble in the fields was being manured and ploughed. The cows providing the manure were sheltering from the sun under corrugated steel roofs. Do their noses get sun burn I wonder? Normally I would prefer to see cows enjoying grazing in fields, but in the hot, fierce sunlight of today that would be cruel. In addition if I was a cow I would not find the straw dry, dusty fields very appealing, better chewing the cud with my mates under cover.
Avdellero was a bit of a disappointing village, no coffee shops or other shops open as far as I could see, although the mud bricks above masonry on some older buildings had a certain architectural interest. I tried getting some water from one of the metal cabinets that I was seeing in various places, a picture of a child drinking a glass of water on the side, which itself made me feel thirsty for some cool water. The smallest volume I could buy from the machine was two litres, as I only had a 1 1/2 litre bottle, half a litre seemed to end up sprayed on the front of my shorts, giving a misleading impression of my problem.
After this village I entered the UN buffer zone for the first time. A sign attached to two oil drums said "no photographs, UN authorised persons only". Was I a UN authorised person? I could find no details in guide books or on the internet other than I should not hunt, so I assumed I was acceptable and continued to the village of Troulloi passed a military post on the hillside. A wonderful place in that the village had a shop open for cold drinks and an ice cream. It had a number of churches including one I thought was a mosque with people sheltering in the shade under a covered portico. Down the tarmac road was the monastery of Agios Georgios, possibly the last monastery on my trip. The bearded man at the gate asked after my faith.
Diverting to the village of Oroklini, I am now settled in the Hotel G Antonis. Listening over diner to the sound of British tourists and Queen on the sound system remined me what a popular place Cyprus was for British tourists and expatriates.
35 kilometres walked today with a 470 metre total ascent. A GPS track of my route can be found on wikiloc.com and on ViewRanger short code johnpon0047.
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| Moutti tou Ziou forest, trees are planted on man-made terraces on the hillside. |
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| United Nations Memorial near Kochi for those who died in trying to bring peace and reconciliation to Cyprus. |
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| Dry and dusty hills beyond Kochi |
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| Archagelos church |
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