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nr.Ferrai - Thessaloniki
E.Route : Ferrai - Thessaloniki : ETD ------- : ETA ------- : Dist ------
A.Route : Ferrai - Thessaloniki : ATD 1034* : ATA 2048 : Dist 256 m.
- Depart field near Ferrai 1034
- 1234 - 1240 Crewchange/bogstop
- 1430 - 1553 Stop in Kavalla
- 1655 - 1659 Bogstop
- 1759 - 1800 Crewchange
- 1925 - 2003 Abortive stop at campsite
- Arr.beach nr Ag. Trias 2048
E.A.Spd. ------- : Gross A.Spd 24.98 mph : Net.A.Spd 32.30 mph
Stop time 2:17 hr : Speedo TD 15460 : Speedo TA 15716
Comment : The inevitable stop in Kavalla for cakes (*) revealed that we had made mistake in resetting clock, and that we were one hour behind our reckoned time - log times until Kavalla are one hour earlier than above. One of our finest strops in the evening, over the choice of campsite.
Jim Lindsay's diary:
30 September
We woke rather cold and bedewed with dogs barking just over the hill. At breakfast
we were joined briefly by a boy called Pete from London, who was hitching and had
seen our camp. We also noticed another police patrol stopping and inspecting us for
a time. This was the Colonels' Greece, so it was hardly surprising.
Everyone had been looking forward to visiting Kavalla so that was where we headed.
We visited the same café we had used on the outward journey. Since there were lots
of market stalls it seemed a good idea to buy some fruit for later meals, but it
seemed as though there was a gentlemen's agreement among the stallholders not to
sell at lunchtime. They all refused except one, who can't have been a gentleman,
and when we started negotiating with this trader, the other vendors all piled in
and shouted at him until he gave up. So we stayed fruitless.
There was another big disagreement just after we had passed through Thessaloniki.
Someone spotted an attractive-looking commercial campsite, but of course this was
going to cost money. We stopped in the driveway and the argument raged for quite
some time. I can't remember now which side I was on but it was fun when it lasted.
These shouting matches usually ended quite suddenly with most of one party
transferring to the other side, and this is what happened here. There was still a
bit of bad feeling, but connoisseurs agreed that it had been "a f****** good
strop".
Our language had deteriorated quite a bit during the trip, of course. I remember one
day when Liz Burcher spilt water all over the front of the coach yet again while she
was trying to make a meal, I told her more clearly than I probably should what I
thought about being soaked yet again. "Temper, James", she said.
The eventual decision was to travel on until we found a pleasant beach with nobody
trying to charge us money, and that is what we did.
Clumps of grass and octopus by Liz Y
It was becoming a habit, this crossing Greek borders late at night and flopping down on the first convenient
patch of grass. This time we arrived from the East and hit on a small rugged area by the road near Ferrai, or
Féres as it appears in modern maps.
By now, we had sleeping in the open down to a fine art, but even so the weather was getting cooler and the next
morning some people awoke shivering. Earlier we had learned to spread the groundsheet under our sleeping bags to
keep out cold and moisture from the ground. By the end of our journey, even the folded tent was used as a blanket
and barely enough to keep us warm. There's not much else to say about this overgrown patch. Clumps of grass are
clumps of grass and these served us well enough that night. A passing police patrol noticed us there, but said
nothing.
After breakfast we headed towards Kavala. We stayed for a while in the afternoon, a sort of sentimental visit,
another chance to wander in the town and saunter by the beach. We couldn't stay long. From there we set off again
for Thessaloniki to reach there by nightfall.
It wasn't only the terrain which altered over the length of our journey. On the way back, we saw the change in the
seasons and their effect on the landscapes of each country. In Greece, there had been a pristine field of ripening
wheat, where we had stopped briefly between Thessaloniki and Kavala. It had been a beautiful time of day with bright
sunshine and endless blue sky. Our bogstop here had felt vaguely inappropriate. Now at the end of September, the
scene was still pretty, but in a different way. Harvesting was over, the sun less radiant, the heat less intense.
That night we camped once more by the sea, this time on the Thermaic Gulf near the coastal village of Agias Trias a
few miles from Thessaloniki. Agias Trias means Holy Trinity and had only existed for a few decades. Many displaced
Orthodox refugees had been settled along this coast. Some brought their traditional skills as fishermen from Eastern
Thrace and Asia Minor. We found a pleasant place to camp, with a sandy beach, dunes and rocks on the shoreline.
It was dark when we set up camp and watched the moving lights of little fishing boats not far from the shore.
It was a bit cold in the morning, when some of us wandered by the beach. We'd begun to wear long sleeves. I watched a
fisherman thwack the tentacles of a small octopus again and again, against the surface of a rock. It seemed a merciless
way to kill this helpless creature, but I realized later that the octopus was already dead, slit between the eyes.
I learned that the thwacking was simply to tenderize the tentacles, that the hard surface of the rock was ideal for
this. It was clean too, washed over every day with the salty water of the tides.
Most of our day was spent in Thessaloniki. It was easy here to while away a few hours. Firstly there was the appealing
layout of the streets, then the waterfront paralía, the White Tower, the Byzantine churches, the icons and incense, the
cafés and shops with syrupy cakes. Then too there was a quest for more memorabilia.
Some small items were just about affordable with our depleted funds. In those days,
before IKEA and worldwide markets of today, there was still something unique about
bringing home say a simple kilim rug from Afghanistan or hand-woven, textile bag
from Greece.
In the late afternoon, we set our sights again for the Yugoslav border, Skopje and,
with no little regret, our journey back to the North.
| Memorabilia Corner Postcard from Kavalla |
