Walk on the wild side…

Thursday 

So I wanted to do the Kamares to Apollonia walk with Ronnie, but in the end we just did the return leg. I did try and do the walk with him in March, from Kamares but the valley was partially  flooded, so we had to turn back. Today,   Mike drove all of us to Apollonia and I set off with Ronnie, as Hazel and Mike had chores to do together. It was certainly not as windy inland as it was in Kamares. The walk starts along the road back to Kamares, and then turns off, on a side road to a hotel. Unfortunately I could not see where the footpath started, I think the pile of building rubble created by nearby building works meant the path was hidden. So we did a diversion of our own making, hoping we would see the path and get back on track. 

We carried on, and by a church that I knew that was on the path we managed after a bit of clambering, got back on the path. I did remember that the last time I successfully did the walk a fallen olive tree barred the way, I had had to clamber over that, but it must have been cleared. Ronnie was enjoying himself, he has a thing about lizards, very often he would dart right or left in his attempts to catch one. 

Later on the path has pipes running beside the path, first of all, metal ones that have leaks. This ends up flooding bits of the path. I thought Ronnie would drink the water but he didn’t. However at the first place a leak was, I saw a big snake slithering off, to get out of our way. It’s the first time I have seen a snake in Greece, some of the ones here are poisonous! Eventually after passing more olive trees on old terraced hills, the path goes down towards a valley that is a river bed, mostly dry during the year. The paths are not signed as well as Andros, they just have a red and white painted flash on stones. In the river bed there is a huge concrete dam, I have never seen it flood enough for that dam to do anything. We could start to see the sea by now. There are also some small fields by the river bed, some grape vines are growing here, and a few cereal crops, I might have seen potatoes. 

Eventually we reached a large metal container, used to store water for animals. Ronnie jumped on the wall to get to it and drank some water. Before I knew it, he had jumped in and was swimming around. Then he wanted to get out. Due to its slippery sides, he could not, so I had to reach in and give his bottom a shove. Then I had to avoid getting soaked as he shook himself off, which he did more once.

The rest of the walk passed without incident. As Ronnie likes Spanakopita, we went to the bakers and I bought one for lunch. I then sat down outside the Old Captains Bar and ate it. As you can expect Ronnie had some.while I was  eating it, Hazel then turned up and I handed Ronnie over to her to take him home. A lovely walk.


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