Storms, and Lively Waterfalls

I left Meteora yesterday morning before the busy campsite atmosphere and tourist aspects of the place began to get too much for me. It had been great, but I suspected another day would not have been.

The family in the green bus at Papingo showed how home-schooling could work, and it was with an 8 and 10 year old. Two places down from me in the Meteora site was a French motorhome, also with two children being home-schooled, a girl of 10, and a boy of 12. The kids seemed bored. Having spent the morning hiking around the monoliths I read during the afternoon and Roja lay, as usual, outside. The boy was intent on annoying him, having realised that he reacted to him walking past dragging his sandals, bouncing a football. Roja very rarely barks, but found the child’s behaviour threatening. I also found it annoying, and told him so. The parents work in the afternoons, online from their van, and the children aren’t allowed inside. They are supposed to do their studying in the morning.

Though the monoliths may be considered mountains, they are only about 500 metres high, and lie to the east of the Pindos range, and as such, get quite different weather conditions, as I was to find out. Kalabaka, the village of the Meteora, has about 24C highs at the moment, 16C lows overnight, and is very dry. Up in the Pindos there have been more storms.

My route was to take the small roads across the range via the Manatania Pass at 1440 metres, (the Kastania to Matsouki road). I got to the pass with few problems, just the occasional minor rockslide, but after the pass the road condition seriously. deteriorated. Over the course of the last week the rain has been so heavy that it was washed out in several places, culminating in complete destruction about 10 kilometres from the pass. A guy sweeping around his house told me it was impossible to continue.

I should have realised this earlier. I hadn’t realised the damage was so serious. A few times the makeshift bit of track that locals had used instead of road grated on the underside of the van, even though I have quite good clearance. It was mainly mud, but the odd rock also.

With my tail between my legs I retreated, and that wasn’t easy. It was just about on the limits of what the van could do. It was necessary to go almost all the way back to Kalabaka, then join the relative new motorway back west to Ioannina, and then south, adding about two hours to the journey.

I finished driving just before dark, in the Arachthos Gorge at the village of Plana. This is a kayaking and rafting destination, and last weekend held a Festival, which marked the end of the season. I stayed at a campsite, which was closed, but the guy who saw me looking for somewhere, invited me to stay without charge, or facilities. Heavy showers peppered the evening, which made the place look quite bleak. The various streams feeding the main river were torrents, bringing with them considerable debris of tree branches and rock.

It will be necessary to keep an eye on these mountain roads in such weather conditions, more prevalent as winter comes. The water comes off the hills like flash floods and does serious damage. Repairs remain on hold until the weather pattern changes.

This morning dawned bright and cloudless, though that just makes the storm damage more evident. There were a few locals around, mostly doing various repairs to their land, and tidying up. I took the road heading west up and out of the steep sided gorge, back up about 500 metres, and onto the village of Katarraktis, nestled as most villages are here, in the bosom of this spectacular mountain range. The weather was at its finest, belying the carnage of the last days.

Katarraktis is a recommendation from Hugh and Pauline, who were here cycling in May, and another cracker. Aware of narrow streets, we parked up at the Monastery outside the village and walked in for coffee and a chat with the owner. We may well return here, she made us very welcome. But we headed up the zig-zags to the end of the road and the car park for the waterfalls. This was the place recommended to stay, and though on the recent wild days, it would be open to the weather, today it was superb.

Once settled, we took on a couple of hour circuit that took in the waterfalls, and incredible views of the peaks just above, and to the west, across the valley. At 1300 metres, the Tzoumerka waterfalls are amongst the highest in Greece. The left waterfall drops 87 metres, the right one 98 metres. Supposedly, there is water in them from October to June, but today, even after the storms of recent days, only the left one flowed, and it did so in abundance.