ANNUAL NEWSLETTER 2001

RETURN TO GREECE

Barry and Margaret Williamson

2001 saw the second half of our round-the-world cycle ride which was followed by a motorhome and bicycle journey across France and Italy to an Autumn of cycling in Greece.

Another year ends, the seventh since we retired or resigned early from Huddersfield University or Technical College, as the case may be. We continue to travel and to be spellbound by the ever-changing pattern of our lives. The motorhome and our bicycles serve us well, and the motorbike (Alf to us, Alfa to the Greeks) woke refreshed after his 18-month-long hibernation in a Greek shed.

But we get ahead of ourselves; travel stories need to be told in their proper order. Our Year 2000 Newsletter was written below the Fox Glacier in New Zealand's Southern Alps. We had left the UK on 13 June 2000 on a 12,000-mile round-the-world cycle ride through Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and the USA. We returned, older and wiser, to the UK on 23 May 2001. There's an account of the ride enclosed (unless you already have one): any pleasure you have in reading it will add to the pleasure we take in writing.

Returning to the Old World from the New, we were distracted by problems: the Huddersfield house wanted cleaning, decorating, repairs, new tenants; the motorhome needed a service, repairs, MOT; and attempts to set up a 3,500-mile ride round the North Sea were thwarted by weather and traffic.

In 2001 we stayed in 165 different places on 3 continents, sharing experience with 119 co-travellers. We met 2 of them in the Holme Valley ('Last of the Summer Wine' country): Americans Dick and Audrey, first encountered in Sicily 3 years ago. They are in their 70's and own 52 ft of motorhome - 36 in the USA and 16 in the German-built Hymer they were driving to Nordkapp, Europe's most northerly point! Two more were in an apple-pickers' field in deepest Essex: Martin and Clare, ex-Art Teacher and ex-Ward Sister. They work in the summer and motorhome in the winter: Spain and Greece so far, Sicily next. We joined 30,000 other cyclists at their York Rally in June, sharing the Knavesmire Racecourse and singing from the same hymn sheet at a special service in the Minster.

By the end of July we had ferried the motorhome from Portsmouth to Le Havre for a summer of wandering. We crossed and followed the rivers Dordogne, Lot and Garonne, relishing a cyclists' re-introduction to the gorges, Bastides and Cathar castles of central southern France. At Le Rozier, where 2 rivers meet, we were able to complete the 75-mile circuit of the Gorges du Tarn et du Jonte that had defeated us when we first visited the area in 1995, the summer we started full-time travelling.

Fortified by this evidence of remaining fitness, we moved to the valley of the Ubaye in the Alpes de Haute Provence and camped in the small Alpine town of Barcelonnette, south enough for the mountains to be snow-free in the autumn. The valley is a Mecca (if it's still OK to say that) for cyclists of all kinds, even our kind. One of many cyclable passes in the area, the Col et Cime de la Bonette, is Europe's highest at 9,247 ft and the climb of 5,287 ft from Jausiers was a long-held ambition for us. There are only 3 Alpine passes over 9,000 ft and we climbed the other 2 in the summer of 1995: the Col d'Iseron just to the north and Italy's Stelvio Pass, north of Bormio on the Swiss border.

This year we succeeded on 6 cols, giving 25,762 splendid feet of climbing. We reached the summit of the Bonette twice, but the hardest climb was to the Tunnel du Parpaillon at 8,728 ft, below the inaccessible 9,200 ft Col du Parpaillon. It took 1 hour to ride 4 miles, coming down! Since 1995 we have climbed 58 Alpine and Pyrenean cols with a total height of 425,890 ft, involving 216,984 ft of climbing. This goes to prove that only an ex-teacher of physics with a calculator would bother to keep such information. In any case, cols are really meant for those incredibly lean, fit young men who slide past us on slim bicycles weighing about 3 kg, no mudguards or luggage, not even a KitKat (lean and hungry), without bothering to breathe. Or so it seems to us, in our baggy shorts, very English touring bikes, cheese and tomato sandwiches, and breathing enough for a V8 diesel.

We crossed Italy via Pisa, Florence and Assisi, using our bikes to save bus fares and to glide past the hordes of coach-bound tourists. It's good to lean your bike against something really ancient for a photograph with a difference (Margaret just leans her bike against Barry).

Blue Star Ferries carried us from Ancona to Igoumenitsa in northern Greece. The motorhome, not as overweight as it has been, shrank to a modest 7 metres before driving past the ticket-collector, who didn't mind either way. We drove south past Parga to Preveza for a few days cycling. On the Ioannina campground by the lake we met a young English couple, Richard and Penny, on a tandem, riding to Australia overland, crossing Iran and Pakistan and using Nepal, Tibet, China and Vietnam to link India with Thailand. However, the events following 11 September were causing a serious rethink!

We met them again on Camping Kalambaka, one of our favourite (if not the scruffiest) campgrounds in Greece, with a great view of the Meteora Monasteries, floodlit at night. We cycled to the Katara Pass, a ride of 70 miles and a climb of over 5,000 ft on the highest road in Greece. The tandemists were impressed: they had taken 2 days crossing the pass, spending a night in the Vlach town of Metsovo. We were suitably modest, it was only quite a bit above average for us!

Camping by the sea at Itea we followed a route used by pilgrims for 3,000 years, climbing 2,000 ft through a sea of olives onto the crag on which Delphi is perched. Asked if this was an auspicious time for travel to Australia, the Oracle replied: 'don't lean your bikes on my temple'. We know it talks in riddles, so what does it really mean? Later, cycling up an erratic road which follows the river Styx to the Styx gorge, we were able to prove that the road to Hell is paved with bad directions.

We write this newsletter at Aginara Beach, in the north-west corner of the Greek Peloponnese, an almost perfect place to escape winter. We share the large campground with only 4 other couples, including Mick and Flo who we are meeting here for the fourth time since 1996. Soon we hope to ride in the mountains of the Peloponnese, using Zacharo, Sparta, Gythion, the Mani and Pylos as bases, building fitness for our next round-the-world ride.

Our flight to Cape Town is at the end of January, followed by a 2-month cycle ride through South Africa, leaving via Johannesburg for Sydney. Stan and Celia, also old friends from Aginara Beach, are in Australia as we write, touring in their 'pop-top' Toyota campervan. We hope to take it over for about 5 months, giving us an opportunity to travel right round that great continent, exploring its remoter corners and cycling desert stretches with support and guaranteed accommodation!

Then we fly to New Zealand and on to Tahiti, opportunities for shorter rides, before landing in San Francisco. We have ridden across the USA twice before: in 1992 we followed the Canadian border, keeping as far north as possible and this year we rode in the Deep South. Next year, we plan to ride through the heart of the USA, flying back to the UK from New York during December 2002.

All of this, need it be said, is subject to contract, to God or gods being willing, to the fates being appeased, to Deus Volente, to wood being touched regularly and (most of all) to Insh Allah.

By now you may be wondering why we cycle so much. The legendary Australian character, Hardway Harrigan, has the answer. He's got 2 kids and when he was asked "How did you manage that?" he replied "Standing up in a rowing boat".