Safe Return Doubtful

Other than for ten minutes on the Croatian coast a few weeks ago, I hadn’t seen the sea since Shetland in August. Fast forward on three months and another island, though it couldn’t be more different. Even off-season there is quite a large population, just under 30,000 with quite a few Northern European expats.

It won’t be a surprise that this lifestyle really doesn’t appeal to me. It’s very hard to find any old traditional villages here, or to find any areas that aren’t developed with the infrastructure summer tourists seem to crave. However I’m trying..

Early on Tuesday morning there were thunderstorms. Fresh water lying around attracts mosquitoes. Whereas there seem to be always a few around, there were many today, and they didn’t have much problem finding me. I think I wrote that they’re twenty cats around Monday evening, the families in the two caravans, that had now gone, having fed them. This morning I counted forty, could have been more, but not less. You can see things from their point of view, they need food, but when there are so many they become a problem. Any thought of a third day here, which I had originally considered, was defenestrated, we hurried to leave.

After a meander around the north of the island I ended up on Kathisma Beach, a mile-long beach where the wide boulevard that runs parallel attracts campervans and motorhomes, which are made welcome in the summer by the many bars and restaurants. At this time of year they are all closed, but there were still a few vans, mainly Germans. It was a mix of young families home-schooling, even though they told me it wasn’t legal to do it in Germany, and surfers. This is a week of unsettled weather though, another storm was blowing in, and the surfers were confined to their vans. It was a sociable place to stay, the weather turned out to be showery, so it was possible to get out periodically, though the night was one of strong wind.

This actually was a named Greek storm, I found out later, but another, much bigger one is coming in at the weekend I was informed.

Thursday morning we were off, after a coffee and an hour with an English woman who pulled in, in her van, just behind me. Though English, she lived, with her 12 year old autistic son who was travelling with her, in New Zealand. Following the pandemic, like a number of New Zealanders I have met, she took a year out from her to Europe and bought a van. She had had some pretty bad luck. Her van had broken down several times, and in the north of Greece, a pine tree fell on her van in a storm. Fortunately, the damage was only superficial. She was desperate to find other families, but had found very few. I think her son was struggling without much social interaction, as indeed she was.

We drove down to the south tip of the island along the west coast, the Ionian Sea. Mainly the road runs away and high up from a rugged coastline. At this time of year it is great to drive on, and would be even better to cycle on. Lesser roads snake down to the beaches below steeply.

I am at the far south, where the coastline is of cliffs, and a narrow peninsula that is Cape Lefkas, also called Cape Doukato. There’s a lighthouse here, and no houses for at least ten kilometres. I’ve seen just two other visitors, a Bulgarian couple, and a young English couple who live out here. It is in fact, quite surprisingly, a wild place.

The light was constructed in 1890, a copy of the Stevenson lighthouses that had been built throughout Scotland earlier in the century. Though it stopped functioning during World War II it began again in 1945. In 1950 it was destroyed by earthquake, but fully repaired six years later. The light operated by oil until 1986, until it was electrified. It was then automated in 1988. The old keeper accommodation isn’t currently used. Another to add to my collection, just a small one at present, of Scottish and Galician structures, but ever-growing..

The storms of the last couple of days have given way to a cloudless and warm day, up to about 24C. The view across the islands, to Cephalonia, Ithaca, and Zakynthos, and the Peloponnese behind them, was impressive.

I hadn’t planned on staying here. The car park at the lighthouse was sloping, and walled in so without a view, but a couple of kilometres back down the road was the prefect place.