A long day with no special sights other than passing a military area.
Last night at around 9:00 pm a car parked near where I was camping. I was in my tent reading my kindle as it was dark. Were they going to tell me I couldn't camp here? I waited in my tent. After a while a car door closed and they drove away. In the morning I looked inside the church attached to the disused monastery by my campsite. There was a freshly filled oil lamp that must have been the reason for the late night visit last night (actually not so much an oil lamp as a wick floating in a glass of oil).
The first part of the walk was through scrub land with occasional trees, lit by the yellow colours of the morning sun. I diverted into the centre of Lythrodontus for some provisions and a cup of coffee in the square with the other old men (what do the ladies do I wonder?).
The next section had an optional "nature trail", which was a path up a steep hill, then back down again. It did offer a panoramic view.
Later I found the track on my GPS had been ploughed over, there seemed some earth moving operation in progress across where the path once was. I took a nearby track that went in the right direction and walked into some military operation, close to what looked like a military camp. There were things that looked like tanks, but with wheels and rubber tyres. Fortunately they did not stop me as I went by, and they in turn went by me. Rejoining the E4 I found some new looking E4 signs (yellow diamonds but without the black border) that seemed to indicate some diversion of the trail, maybe to avoid the military camps I passed.
Delikipos village seemed to have little of interest so I had lunch (a sort of burger pastry affair I had purchased earlier) at the nearby picnic site. My way to the next village of Kornos took me through ploughed fields of stubble dotted with olive and other trees, with the odd rock outcrop sticking up. At Kornos I stopped for a coke. While in the morning the cafes seem full of men drinking coffee, in the afternoon they are empty, maybe siesta time, before cafe occupancy increases again in the evening.
Finally a climb up towards the Stavrovouni monastery on gravel roads through scrub, stopping a few kilometres short to camp on an old terrace, a steep climb above the track on loose rock. Again a car pulled up on the road nearby as the sun was setting. Suprising as I had not seen a car since Kornos, just two men in military fatigues carrying rifles....
35 kilometres walked today with a 850 metre total ascent. A gps file of my walk can be downloaded from wikiloc.com or ViewRanger under short code johnpon0046.
Last night at around 9:00 pm a car parked near where I was camping. I was in my tent reading my kindle as it was dark. Were they going to tell me I couldn't camp here? I waited in my tent. After a while a car door closed and they drove away. In the morning I looked inside the church attached to the disused monastery by my campsite. There was a freshly filled oil lamp that must have been the reason for the late night visit last night (actually not so much an oil lamp as a wick floating in a glass of oil).
The first part of the walk was through scrub land with occasional trees, lit by the yellow colours of the morning sun. I diverted into the centre of Lythrodontus for some provisions and a cup of coffee in the square with the other old men (what do the ladies do I wonder?).
The next section had an optional "nature trail", which was a path up a steep hill, then back down again. It did offer a panoramic view.
Later I found the track on my GPS had been ploughed over, there seemed some earth moving operation in progress across where the path once was. I took a nearby track that went in the right direction and walked into some military operation, close to what looked like a military camp. There were things that looked like tanks, but with wheels and rubber tyres. Fortunately they did not stop me as I went by, and they in turn went by me. Rejoining the E4 I found some new looking E4 signs (yellow diamonds but without the black border) that seemed to indicate some diversion of the trail, maybe to avoid the military camps I passed.
Delikipos village seemed to have little of interest so I had lunch (a sort of burger pastry affair I had purchased earlier) at the nearby picnic site. My way to the next village of Kornos took me through ploughed fields of stubble dotted with olive and other trees, with the odd rock outcrop sticking up. At Kornos I stopped for a coke. While in the morning the cafes seem full of men drinking coffee, in the afternoon they are empty, maybe siesta time, before cafe occupancy increases again in the evening.
Finally a climb up towards the Stavrovouni monastery on gravel roads through scrub, stopping a few kilometres short to camp on an old terrace, a steep climb above the track on loose rock. Again a car pulled up on the road nearby as the sun was setting. Suprising as I had not seen a car since Kornos, just two men in military fatigues carrying rifles....
35 kilometres walked today with a 850 metre total ascent. A gps file of my walk can be downloaded from wikiloc.com or ViewRanger under short code johnpon0046.
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| Following the track in the early morning light. |
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| Ploughed fields in which some grain had been grown, dotted with trees, a rocky outcrop in the distance, photographed a little after Delikipos. |
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