Tuesday 27th October

We awoke to a fairly lopsided Land Rover, caused by an N/S rear flat.  Out came the high-lift jack and the bonnet mounted spare was soon on, although an inspection failed to find any offending nail or such like sticking out of the tyre - only a slight tear in between the tread.

We said goodbye to Paul and Steve, who had also suffered a puncture upon entering Greece, and headed down the coast to the ancient site of Nekromanteio of Afyra, only discovered in 1958, which ancients feared was the gate of Hades, but was in fact a small building complex set on a hill where an oracle communicated with dead spirits. SPOT

On the main road into Arta we found a tyre place where they quickly diagnosed the problem as a punctured inner tube due to corrosion on the inside of the wheel rim.  I was somewhat surprised as I thought our tyres were tubeless, which means that our tubeless puncture repair kit won’t be much use!

Back on the road we headed into the hills to see a different side to Greece than sand and sea.  We gradually climbed some 1500m through almost alpine like scenery to the town of Karpenisi, home to one of Greece’s ski centres. 

The windy roads meant that we arrived after dark, but we had always intended to stay in a cheap hotel, and after a bit of wandering around the centre found our destination, Koutsikos Domatia. The room had a kitchenette which allowed us to cook our evening meal and Anne to fill her hot water bottle as there had been quite a drop in temperature as we gained altitude. Plus we got to watch Greek TV - I’m never complaining about paying the licence fee again...