A new walk for us both!

Friday 24th December 

Had another lovely night with my friends, yesterday and a nice walk under the stars back home. In the morning, I had breakfast and while my friends went out and got the last minute things for Christmas, I took charge of their dog, and decided to do a walk I had spotted when looking at an online map earlier. The path goes to a lighthouse, it follows the coastline starting just by the church we visited the other day. I must admit I had not seen the start of the path, but I knew roughly where it would appear. While I was waiting for my friends, I saw one of the members of staff were in Cameron, where we will eat tonight, and I had a chat with them. After I met my friends, and picked up their dog, there was the small matter of an early lunch, I popped my head into the bakers and asked in Greek if they had my favourite pie. She replied in Greek, that they did and was one enough? Probably I said. To be honest, these are words I learnt at the beginning, easy stuff! We then sat down and shared the pie. 

As we ate  it sitting on a bench,  the lady from the bakers walked by and I told her in Greek, it was nice. We then set off in the direction of the church. We saw a swimmer in the sea, quite far out. While we went along the path to the church,  I kept looking along the side for any evidence of our path. Before we got there, we saw the remains of some old building, fortifications or something.

Eventually just before the gates to the church there the path was. It looked ok for us, soil surface with stones in it. We set  onto it. We passed above St Catherine, we were not to climb much at all, keeping close the the coast. There we some lovely views of the coast, a little boat put putted out to sea from the harbour. There were no animals like goats for my charge to chase, he was on a lead anyway. Where we went through a ravine, the path was still good. There were lots of the little cairns to show us the way. We then came across this, which looks like a windmill foundation, or something else perhaps.

We  carried on with more lovely views. There was no wind and with my jacket on, I got quite hot. I had water with me, so we had the first of a couple of pit stops. We were both enjoying ourselves. We then crossed a much more rocky ravine with larger rocks, a bit harder for both of us. On the other side the cairns still carried on, but it was a bit harder now, walking on larger boulders. The path was becoming more difficult and I decided we should call it a day, we had come a long way.

We retraced our steps, it seemed to take us less time on the way back. There was one last view of the church before we left the path. Where the path begins, I built a cairn out of large stones, and used smaller ones to interlock them into place. It  will be interesting if it’s their next time. 

We walked back to the centre of the town, I have noticed a lot of the new buildings, are not white, but are faced with local stone, perhaps to try and camouflage them, it’s happening in Serifos too. My friends passed us in their car, I decided to have a coffee, in the town. We shared a slice of pizza and then walked to my place to pick up and drop off a couple of things, on the way the owners of Cameron were inside with their daughter, so we had a quick chat. We then both walked to my house and then onto my friends. 

I would say in the town here, because of where my friends are, there are 45 degree uphill roads to negotiate, the first couple of days, it’s a real struggle, even though I am used to some hills at home. It will be no surprise to say that I am typing this in, one handed, the to right hand cuddling the dog!