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19th - 28th june

Overlanding across Africa in our Land Rover Defender, Greece

Andy Lees
2006-05-14 16:44:25

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we decided to break the climb up over two days. the first day's climb taking us to the refuge, to spend the night and get used to the altitude (about 2100m at the refuge). apparantly this should only have taken about 2 and 1/2 hours, so we were expecting an easy day to break us into it. that was a tough 2 and 1/2 hours; especially as it took 3 hours, all up - very up.

when we staggered into the refuge we were relieved, and slightly surprised, to find them serving hot food and cold beer. we gulped down some of both, and it was only later, as we started to recover that we realised that it was actually quite cold and fairly cloudy. the beachside campsite we'd left that morning had been stinking hot, even at 8am. it's amazing the difference altitude can make. the strange thing was, between the clouds, we had a clear view down all the way to the coast and where we knew our camp had been. looking down from the terrace - perched high on a mountain ridge at the limit of the tree line - as we shivered in shorts and insufficient layers, it was hard to imagine the heat and the sweating holidaymakers, just there on the hazy blue horizon.

mount olympus - 25th june

the push for the summit. the big day had arrived. there had been some trepidation as we were expecting the last part of the climb to be a bit hairy. this fear was amplified a little as the previous day's "easy bit" had not been so easy. non-the-less, we gladly evacuated the refuge's dormitory and set off apace up the mountain.
the skies were clear and the scenery breathtaking. the dense pine forest became rapidly sparse; the trees becoming stunted and knarled, jutting sideways from the rock before curving up towards the light. snowstreaked peaks glistened in the distance and glaciers gripped the crevaces of the rockface, sometimes crossing our path, forcing us to crunch steps into their slippery sides.

mount olympus has three main summits; mytikas, scala and scolio. mytikas is the highest, at just over 2900m, and therefore the true summit. the climb to it is precarious and apparantly claims a few lives each year. just 8m lower is scolio, and scala a bit lower still. not being confident of our mountaineering skills, we aimed for scolio - nearly as high as mytikas and with better views (because the view includes the mytikas summit).

the morning was still clear and bright as we reached the summit at scala, breathless but grinning, and followed the ridge up to scolio. the view was spectacular, as promised. the adjacent peak of mytikas looked formidible, whisps of cloud trailing from it's craggy summit. we couldn't make out the path up to it. it looked unasailable. but if we looked closely, those two dots at the top; was that the two young american girls we'd met at the refuge last night? turns out it was.

kalamitsi - 26th june

kalamitsi is on the middle prong of halkidiki - the three pronged peninsula south-east of thessaloniki and for us it was that time again, beach time. despite it being the weekend the beach was uncrowded and we had lazy days sunbathing. in the evenings we sampled the local tavernas eating lamp chops (my favourite - claire) washed down with an ice cold beer. we stayed at a very small campsite, a bit like sleeping in someone's garden and each day we received a gift of figs and plums from the owner.
to turkey via alexandroupolis - 28th june

we're on the road now for a couple of days driving to istanbul. this will be our first border crossing where paperwork may be involved. one dutch couple we met had to totally unpack their vehicle to get through customs so we are hoping that this will not happen to us as the land rover has been packed and repacked enough times already!