Three months sounded like such a long time, but on the ground, it’s actually very short! So, our time was up and we had to disappear ourselves for a while. This was always going to be Morocco — French-speaking (good for us to practice!), motorhome-friendly and warm during the winter. Then, when plans changed and we were headed to Italy, it was going to be Croatia. Finally, after we decided Croatia may be on the challenging side for now — not being especially motorhome-friendly, or at least so we’ve been told, plus the cold factor, and the distance from Sicily — we cast around for other ideas.

It turns out, Tunisia is surprisingly close to Sicily — a comparatively short ferry ride away — and it’s French-speaking, has a nice warm winter, some nice sights to see, and is quite modern. Quite a change in plans, but it fit perfectly.

So, Katherine had done the hard work of finding and booking us a ferry trip there from Palermo.

We took the quite pleasant inland motorway route from Linguaglossa — southwards, then cutting inland across the middle and up to Palermo in the north-west. We stayed in the ‘caravan park’ (glorified car park, really) in the city’s outer limits for a couple of days, setting ourselves up; mostly, downloading stuff to watch, using up the last of our 3G account, and further researching Tunisia. We also replaced our water pump, which was on the weary side — this was a €12 revelation, and suddenly we had awesome pressure for showers again.

So the time came to catch the ferry — we drove carefully through nutty Palermo traffic to the docks, parked, and lined up with a bunch of very middle-eastern looking folks until one of them kindly indicated we were in the wrong line entirely. Corrected, we found a door with a man behind a screen and give him some pieces of paper; he gave us some different pieces of paper and pointed to the other door, with another man. We lined up again and eventually got to the police-y dude, who didn’t like our fancy-shmancy printed-out online tickets but gave us some stamps or something on stuff anyway, after a little conferring. Then waved us off…Uh, okay…

We wandered back to Nettle, obviously looking quite lost, because a fellow traveller pointed us in the right direction — a queue of vehicles lined up along the dock. Almost every vehicle (banged up utes, most of them) were stacked high (I mean seriously stacked high) with…well, just about anything. Mostly whitegoods, bicycles, mattresses, that sort of thing. The undersides of many of the cars were all but scraping along the ground. And yeah, that is a kitchen sink in the photo. Two of them, actually.

So, we settled down to wait in the queue of bizarrely-adorned vehicles until a deep rumble signified the arrival of the ferry. A very, very long time later, we started inching forward and into the ferry’s belly: Absolute freaking chaos. Because having a system is for wimps! Somehow we made it on board in one piece and were ushered into something vaguely resembling a row of vehicles.

We would’ve loved to have spent the journey in Nettle, but ’tis not the Done Thing, apparently, so up we went onto the main deck, and found a table at which to sit for the 12 hour ride. Pretty much the moment the ferry pulled into the dock, a dense fog rolled in, and the ferry was forced to go at a crawl for the first five hours or so.

We were joined by an older couple, a Sicilian man and a Tunisian woman who lived together in Sicily. We got “chatting” with her, in French — it started out fairly well, Katherine and I working together to augment each other’s understanding as best we could. Then our table-mate started using more and more Italian (possibly led to believe that we spoke better Italian than French, as we kept accidentally using Italian words instead of French ones), until she was completely incomprehensible. We tried to remind her that we had almost no Italian, and we could understand French better, but to no avail…Eventually the conversation lapsed and we settled down to reading and passing the time.

We noticed the occupants of the ferry were 99.9% males, which we found bizarre until we realised they were contract workers in Sicily, returning home. Some folks had mats out on the floor, preying at the appropriate times, which was all very exciting and foreign.

We arrived in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, at about midnight and very slowly inched our way down to the car deck and hopped back into Nettle — Aah, home again. A quite long wait while chaos again reigned on the car deck: The every-man-for-himself system was in action, which always works well.

What followed, once we exited the ferry, defies sanity, and I’d rather not recall it in too much detail. It took us three hours to get out of the port: There was the surprise of finding out that the visa situation was entirely different to that which our prior research had turned up — I still don’t entirely understand how it works, honestly — and there was our first encounter with the Arabic sense of humour, when, returning to the visa office with payment for the visas, we were stopped at the door by an officer who, when I explained why we were there (in French, of course), gestured that he couldn’t hear me. Over, and over he repeated it after each re-phrasing of mine, until he grinned and let us through.

Then, there was the strange mute man who escorted me through the Nettle-importing paperwork, gesturing frantically the whole time and getting more and more worked up, dragging me from office to office, some several times, collecting a bit of paperwork here, a stamp there, a nothing-at-all over there… It was entirely baffling. During the whole process, our passports were demanded about five to ten times. Then he asked for a tip, and because we had almost no change, only massive notes from the currency transfer, I had little to give him — He kept grunting and holding out his hand, then when I bid him goodnight, he came up to the drivers-side window and made “sad face” at me until I drove off! Freaky.

So, eventually we made it out, driving through the port’s gates hearts-in-mouth lest someone else come by to take us through further hours of bureaucracy. Exhausted, we parked in a brightly-lit truck stop just outside the docks and fell into bed.

Let us never speak of it again.

After the long drive down, we hopped out amidst swarms of mosquitoes and walked into the park. It was quite beautiful, all reeds/rushes and eucalyptus. Almost immediately we spotted a falcon or something in the trees nearby; an American couple were being shown around by a tour guide — we greeted them briefly.

Nuccio led us to a couple of bird hides to peer out onto the lake; at the second, we caught up with the trio we’d met earlier — they’d spotted a large flock of flamingoes out on the lake! The tour guide had set up a telescope and, friendly fellow that he was, offered us its use, which was absolutely fantastic.

Next, Nuccio led us on a big walk along the low-scrubby coastline, past an old Arabic tuna factory and some ancient Greek tombs cut into the rock right on the coast (so they could watch over Greece!), and past a Norman castle. That’s three cultures right there.

Nuccio led us to a pretty beach, surrounded by two out-jutting arms of rock; we had lunch sitting up on the rocks in the sun, then headed back.

Just before we arrived back at the car, Nuccio spotted an acquaintance — that man knows everyone.

On the way back to Linguaglossa, we stopped in at a picturesque town called Noto; Nuccio timed it perfectly, as the sandstone-coloured buildings were a burning orange/red colour in the light of the setting sun. We walked down the main street, lined with spectacularly pretty old buildings.

On the way back to the car — another acquaintance of Nuccio’s. Insane.

On our prior outings at night, Nuccio had pointed out a tiny red speck on Etna’s side: Some volcanic activity in the main crater, but as Nuccio put it, “just a candle”. This time was different as we drove back in the night — Nuccio excitedly drew our attention to it: More than a speck, there was a distinct red glowing area. “Explosions!”

Nuccio swung off the freeway and drove us up through the towns at Etna’s feet to get a better view; we got out and stared for a while, listening out for the booms of the explosions. No booms, but we were still impressed – that’s an active volcano up there!

Earlier, Nuccio had told us about how it was during 2001: There had been constant earthquakes, so much so that it was almost impossible to stand. The whole sky was lit up with glowing lava, and plumes shot out of the volcano. The lava came within 3 km of Linguaglossa. From our peaceful vantage-point, it all sounded pretty damn cool, and I was thinking I would’ve loved to have seen it.

So, that was it for our Sicilian adventure: Our three months was up, and it was time to disappear for three months while our Schengen visa renewed itself. We were quite sad to leave: Sicily was starting to feel like a real home away from home.

Nuccio told us about some trips that the alpine club take annually, and suggested perhaps a visit — inter-Europe flights can be as little as €20-30 — and we jumped at the idea. So, we may well be back in 2010!

Seeya, Mount Etna!

There were lots of stalls with free samples, and ones selling discounted goods — we grabbed some Sicilian liqueur straight away, coffee and hazelnut. There were Sicilian cakes, biscuits, cheeses, olives, wine — we sampled some wine, and I asked if we could buy any bottles; they weren’t actually selling any, but they give us two bottles anyway! Amazing.

So, we wandered the expo sampling stuff and buying some goodies, then wandered the shopping centre for a little while, Nuccio acting as a go-between while I tried to find a camera battery and printer. We partook of the free pasta back at the expo when the time came, then headed back home.

For the following couple of days, Nuccio who had so generously given us his valuable time had to work some shifts, both at the hospital and in an ambulance, so we had the days to ourselves. We decided to do a trip around Etna, and see what there was to see. Nuccio had recommended a few places to see, so with those in mind, we set off towards Randazzo on Etna’s north-west side.

In need of a place to empty Nettle’s grey water, we were keeping an eye out for a petrol station or something. Then Katherine struck gold and spotted a ‘sosta camper’ sign along the road. We did a U-turn and pulled in, and were struck by the beauty of the place — golden vineyards beside us, with olive groves behind them, and the autumn colours of Etna’s forested flank, with Etna’s snow-covered and steaming peak in the distance. Typical that we only find the place now — it would’ve been the perfect place to stay for a while, aside from the GPRS-only mobile Internet coverage — but it may have been worth it! If we ever come back with Nettle, we’ll visit again — the place is Azienda Agrituristica in Passopisciaro.

I explained to the friendly woman who came out to greet us that we couldn’t stay, although we would’ve loved to, but could we please service our camper here (I have to say, I was pretty pleased that I managed to string together my meagre Italian into a sentence like that). She happily agreed, and showed me where the facilities were.

We mourned our lost opportunity a little, then moved on, with Nettle all emptied and filled where appropriate.

Our first stop was the ancient stone town of Randazzo. We found a park by a magnificent church, had lunch, then wandered the streets, like stepping back in time. We came across a scared lost kitten running all over the road, and tried to usher it off to the side, with little success. Poor little guy.

We came across a friendly-looking old guy who caught our attention and brought us around the corner to an ancient laneway, the start of a marked historical trail, then asked us for some money ‘per mangiare‘ (for food) — we complied cheerily and set off following the markers through the town.

There were lots of interesting nooks and crannies, abandoned churches, gardens, a skeletal yet productively-fruiting orange tree, a great town to explore.

We had a merry time leaving the town, as we realised the nice wide road we came in on was one-way, and the only way out was…Well, twice we very nearly ended in catastrophe, inching between cars with quite literally mere millimetres to spare; several times I had to reverse an inch and carefully guide the mirrors around neighbouring parked cars, as cars built up behind us. If those guys had parked just a fraction further into the road, I don’t know what any of us would’ve done! We have got to stop getting ourselves into these situations!

Anyway, we made it, a little breathlessly, and drove on out of Randazzo. We drove around the periphery of Mount Etna, through the town of Bronte and its odd landscape of old lava, tufts of organic life poking haphazardly through. We didn’t get a photograph of it (damnit!), but one section was covered with an entirely skeletal orchard of perhaps citrus trees sticking out of the rock. Like something out of a Tim Burton film.

Feeling a little adventurous, we veered away from the main road that led more-or-less towards the coast, where we were ultimately aiming for, and took the scenic route, climbing Etna’s lowlands.

We drove through pretty autumnal woods for a time, before we started descending through the now-familiar town of Nicolosi, and towards the coast. A very long suburban drive later, we arrived at Aci Castello, one of Nuccio’s recommended towns, and hopped out to take a look around. The Norman castle that sat high atop a rocky outcrop sticking into the sea was kinda cool, although we only walked up the walkway aside the outcrop, rather than pay to go in. The water around it was the most starting shade of turquoise, even in the dusk light — we stared at it for a while as evening began to settle in.

It was getting on, and we were on the weary side; we toyed with staying put for the night where we were parked on the foreshore, but thought better of it; we were going to visit the baroque town of Acireale, but we were a little touristed out. So, we decided to copy some other motorhomers we had seen/read about and park overnight in the car park at Etnapolis, where we wanted to stock up on some supplies. The drive there was a little traumatic — some inaccuracies in Nigel the GPS navigator’s map led us into yet another tight squeeze, which Nettle handled splendidly, then we hit peak hour traffic on the outskirts of the city of Catania. Yeech!

We survived, and pulled up in a well-lit area to settle in. This turned out to be a false start, as the horrendous pop music blaring out of speakers across the car park didn’t seem to be letting up as evening progressed; we moved to the other side of the shopping centre where it was quieter and closed up for the night.

We spent the next day shopping — or rather, Katherine did, as I stayed put in Nettle working on software, for the most part. Some art supplies for Katherine, some new clothes for me, and some groceries. Then we made our way back to Linguaglossa and parked up for the night in ‘our’ spot by the park.

We stopped in town (possibly Francavilla di Sicilia?) and took a look at the ‘weighing-in’ process; Nuccio informed us that no less than 25 cars had been totalled the night before, or at least damaged beyond recovery for the next race. One of the famous drivers (don’t ask me who!) Nuccio was looking out for had ended up upside-down, apparently (but otherwise unscathed). Heh.

A pilot (the car-driving kind) friend of Nuccio’s was going to compete in this race. Nuccio told us that he had skipped out at the last minute, to help some other competitors with repairs to their vehicle! Nuccio laughed and told us about a prior race when, distracted with helping a friend, Nuccio’s pilot friend missed a race he was supposed to be driving in; his father took the wheel instead!

We arrived at the place Nuccio and Salvadore had chosen for watching the rally, parking at the side of a small road that ran along the side of a deep green valley scored with erosion, somewhere between the towns of Borgo Schisina and Borgo Piano Torre. We could drive no further, the road being half-collapsed down the steep hillside, perhaps during the big storms that hit Messina. Nuccio herded us carefully around the chasm and we walked down the road to where it intersected with the road along which the rally was to be held, joining a crowd of others, and even a motorhome and several food vendors.

Nuccio indicated a house up on a neighbouring hill side: Mussolini had had it built. When the builders were putting in the plumbing, it became obvious that, actually…there was no water available nearby. The house was abandoned, never finished. When asked why they didn’t, you know, have the forethought to check for water first, Nuccio shook his head sadly, “Why we lost the war…”.

So, we had a good time enjoying the ambience, and admiring the odd drift and well-taken corner (remembering our days on Project Gotham Racing on the XBox 360); we watched the sun go down over the mountains, staining the horizon bright red for a while as Etna smoked/steamed away to the south:

When it was all over, and the cold night had set in, Nuccio had found a fellow spectator who had agreed to drive us back up to the car — “the most important thing is to ask”, said Nuccio when we were impressed with the gesture.

We spent a little down-time back at Nettle while Nuccio went home and we prepared to go out to “eat fish” — this was something we were anticipating nervously, a very, very well-respected fish restaurant that served incredibly fresh fare; there was no menu — one just sits down and they bring you whatever’s fresh. Being a little seafood-phobic, it was going to expand our horizons a little, but we were determined to make the most of it.

Nuccio arrived soon after, with his girlfriend Graziella, who was lovely — Nuccio had to be our go-between again, as we had no Italian, and Graziella had only a little English. Man, I wish we could just upload new languages into our heads.

We drove down to the coast again (I’m surprised we haven’t worn grooves in that road…), and took the freeway.

Along the way, we got talking about attitudes towards southern Italians from northern Italians, and were surprised to hear that apparently there’s a good deal of animosity in the north towards the south. I’m unsure what kind of portion of the northern population think this way, but apparently the north views people from the south as “of mixed blood”, less pure than the more “european” northerners, due to the south’s cultural mix. We were told it was hard for Sicilians to find work in the north, as they are frequently turned away. This is all a bit baffling — we’re certainly yet to met any kinder people than the Sicilians. We’re looking forward to finding out more from the other side when we visit northern Italy.

Nuccio drove up the windy road to our destination, an exquisite hillside coastal town, Forza D’agro’. The restaurant was “Osteria Agostiniana”, and sure enough, we walked in, greeted the waiter, and sat down, and that was that.

Each dish was brilliantly constructed, and delicious. Neither of us were sure about the cold, squishy oysters, or the fiddley little prawns, legs and all, that we just couldn’t manage to effectively unwrap. The rest was brilliant, even the octopus tentacle chunks (although they too were a little scary). A cook/kitchenhand walked past into the kitchen carrying a basket of fresh broccoli, and two dishes later, it turned up on our plates. The dishes just kept coming and coming, at an insane pace — We’d fasted all day, but we were still more stuffed than we’d ever been by the end of the second course, and the main course hadn’t even arrived. Nuccio was merciful, though (and, he admitted, full to bursting himself), and we told the waiter that that was enough.

Then began the drinking — the waiter brought a bunch of bottles of liqueurs out and plonked them on the table. Nuccio told us about each one, and poured a full shot-glass each of each one in turn — there was pistachio liqueur, grappa, chocolate, limoncello, some icky dark stuff made by monks (“Naughty monks”, Katherine observed), and lemon cream. Wow.

I’d never been so full in my life…I think my stomach’s stretched.

After we’d recovered a little, we strolled through the town. Nuccio showed us a few ancient churches, including one featured in The Godfather (where the Godfather’s son gets married when he’s in Sicily). A neighbourhood cat joined us for a while, and caused much amusement when it started making noises that sounded just like a frog. I tried to record the frog-cat, but it got shy, unfortunately.

So, we drove back to Linguaglossa, said goodnight to Nuccio and Graziella, and settled into Nettle, parked by the park in Linguaglossa.

Rather than re-visit the unpleasant caravan park we’d stayed at the other day, we found a wild-camp by the beach just down the road from it, and stayed there for the night, running off the leisure battery.

The following day, we visited the picturesque town of Taormina, overlooking the sea between Sicily and the Italian mainland.

We walked up the winding road to the town, and made our way through the narrow cobbled streets — stopping to talk to a friendly English-speaking local for a moment, initially for directions, then speaking more generally — to the old Greek theatre that sits overlooking Mount Etna and the coast to the south. It was built to take advantage of the views, so that the players stood in front of the impressive vista; when the Romans appeared, they decided views weren’t for them, and bricked the theatre in to make it more suited to the gladiatorial entertainment of which they were so fond. Later, a Spanish family took over the site and turned part of it into a residence. Everyone’s had a go. Now, it crumbles gracefully, underneath the tacky scaffolding and makeshift chipboard stage and seats that are there for no reason we could see.

We wandered around the town a little more, stopped for gelato, said farewell to our new friend, and hiked back down the hill.

We met up with Nuccio and Carmelo back in Linguaglossa, and drove with them once again to Taormina (we were getting to know that stretch of road quite well!). Nuccio squeezed his car right up against the edge of the road and we hopped out and walked a little way up the road to the town, being passed by a few contestant cars, to Nuccio’s great glee. On the way, Nuccio stopped and spoke to an organiser briefly — he’d negotiated to get us a souvenir, one of the official rally stickers to go on the side of the cars!

He pointed out some guys sitting by a rubbish skip on the outside of a particularly tight corner, and recounted last year’s rally, when a car lost control around the corner and went careening into the skip, throwing the guys sitting atop it into the air. He shook his head and indicated all of the people standing in the worst possible places — “like foxes, on the road”.

We scrambled up a hillside overlooking the corner, and settled in as the safety car made its way up the road, signalling its closure and the imminent start of the rally. Nuccio nodded to and euro-air-kissed half the people up on the embankment with us — other regulars. Then, the first engine growl started and the rally had begun.

The first few cars zoomed by impressively, and we ooh’d and aah’d along with everyone else. The best parts were when the drivers drifted around the corners, tyres squealing, or better yet, when the drivers messed up the corner altogether and spun out.

There were much fewer cars that last year, Nuccio explained, as they postponed the rally a month, out of respect to those killed in Messina due to the huge storms causing flooding and landslides. So, many contestants had returned to their home countries.

Not being quite the rally buffs that one probably needs to be to get the most out of a rally like this, one car started looking much like the next, but we enjoyed the ambiance, watching the sun go down, and watching a small whale that appeared off shore for a while.

After the rally, we drove back to Linguaglossa, and with a hankering for pizza, we asked Nuccio whether he could recommend anywhere. Amazingly, he proceeded to drive us about ten minutes out of town to point out his favourite pizza restaurant to us and make sure it was open, then took us back to Nettle and told us to ask after someone he knew there, and to tell them we know Nuccio.

We co-ordinated with Nuccio to catch up again for the next rally — this time at a venue inland and to the north west — and took off in Nettle to visit the restaurant. It was called “Sharamanika”, about ten minutes down the road towards Randazzo from Linguaglossa and they had the best pizza we’ve ever had, by several orders of magnitude. The pizzas were at least a foot and a half in diameter; there was a pesto pizza, with parmesan and spinach, an eggplant and tomato/cheese pizza, and…My mouth is watering just thinking about it. We’ll definitely be back to Sicily, is all I’m saying.

So, we ate our fill, and quite a bit more, then made our way back to Linguaglossa. Earlier, Carmelo had extremely generously offered his driveway/front yard as a quiet place to stay the night in Nettle, and we took him up on the offer — when we awoke, the view was breathtaking:

We had had an issue with a leaking window seal, and while we were wandering through Linguaglossa with some time to spare, I popped my head into an auto supplies shop, pulled out my translator app, typed in a question asking to see if they could recommend anything, and showed the guy behind the counter the Italian version. He took us out to his car to do some pointing — a seal like this? Like this? — but in vain, as I wasn’t able to see any similarities with the motorhome window. So, amazingly, he drove us to Nettle, took a look at the window, wrote down his prescription and drove us to a completely different shop with instructions to buy black silicon. He waved and drove off, leaving us dumbfounded at his kindness. Man, Sicilians are the greatest people ever!

So, we bought silicon and a silicon gun from the friendly shop assistant in the other shop, then made our way back to our beach-side wildcamp spot in San Marco for the night. Later in the evening, Nuccio called and reported that there were some explosions happening on Etna — we wandered around to try to get a vantage point, but didn’t have any luck — we were in the wrong place for it. Next time?

We drove north-west through some beautiful scenery, and by some amazing ancient towns perched on hillsides, buildings almost sitting atop one another. We headed into one, edging along the narrow cobbled roads by very old stone buildings and stopped for a quick espresso.

Our first destination was by an ancient bridge on the beautiful bright blue Alcantara river. Only one arch of the original bridge remains, the rest having been destroyed in WW2 (by the Americans, of course — interesting being in a country that was originally on the other side!). The remaining bridge segment was built of hand-hewn chunks of lava in an Arabic style — an example of the influence of Arabic culture here.

Nuccio and Carmelo took us on a walk upriver a little, Nuccio translating into English for Carmelo, pointing out plants along the way and explaining how they were used — an aniseed-like plant that was in the sausages we had the other day; a plant that makes a good cold remedy when brewed as tea.

The river itself runs down a bed of lava: A long time ago, lava from an eruption ran all the way down the old river bed to the sea. The river has once again claimed its course, and has eaten down into the lava leaving some impressive formations.

We drove on for a while, and stopped by some run-down looking residential buildings. Nuccio pointed out an abandoned, empty lot, fenced off, with some rubble, and explained one of the more surprising issues the locals face, and one which answered a question we’d pondered for a while.

They way I understand it, the Italian government have a law that says if anything of ‘historical interest’ is discovered on a property — and around here, you only have to scratch the surface almost anywhere to find something of historical interest, such is the rich history of the place — then the property must immediately be relinquished into the custodianship of ‘the people’ (the Italian government), for the protection of whatever’s there. There’s no compensation to speak of for the now ex-owners: they lose their land and that’s that, even if it’s been in their family for generations.

That’s bad enough, but regulations state that before any alteration or development is begun on a property, the property must be first inspected for historical significance. Given the huge risk involved to a property owner — the loss of their property without any kind of compensation — of course, the result is just that no one alters or develops.

Renovations, building, and maintenance are all included in this law, so even if you want to repaint the door, you have to go through this process. During the earthquakes that came with Mount Etna’s 2001 eruption, Nuccio’s mother’s ancient house was damaged and in danger of collapsing. With the house in danger, and without time to go through the bureaucratic process, she quickly organised some local builders to reinforce sections of the house. Just a couple of days later, the police appeared and demanded that the ‘illegal’ reinforcements be removed. With no other choice, she complied, and the house was destroyed soon after in the next earthquake.

The less-extreme effects of this law are apparent everywhere — run-down buildings, desperately in need of painting or reinforcement, derelict blocks of land, abandoned buildings. Because renovation or maintenance comes with the fairly high likelihood of losing one’s property, no one does it, and so historical buildings fall into disrepair and many towns have a poverty-stricken look. Remarkable.

Nuccio and Carmelo led us down a path that led by olive groves and past many enormous cactus plants. They explained that the cactus leaves make a good haemorrhoid remedy; Apparently, quite frequently Nuccio will write a prescription, and his patients will laugh and say no thanks, they have their own remedy.

Carmelo pointed out a plant called ‘Bagolaro’, an Arabic tree highly valued by the locals for its ability to break up lava. After a lava flow claims some land, one sprinkles Bagolaro seeds over the lava, waits for a surprisingly short time (I can’t quite remember if it was a couple of years, or even just six months — but not long), and the fast-growing plant will put out roots through the lava and break it apart, eventually making the land usable again.

We were continually amazed and impressed by their knowledge — traditional expertise the like of which we just don’t have in Australia unless you’re Aboriginal.

Carmelo spotted a tree that bore large red fruit that he thought we should try, and Nuccio hurtled into the bushes to pluck a couple for us — ‘royal fruit’, which were very juicy and sweet.

They led us back to the Alcantara river, a different stretch where the river has widened out, broken up by a series of falls and rapids, and bordered by greenery.

On the way down, Nuccio was telling us about an incident towards the end of WW2; the finer details escape me, but the crux of it was, German soldiers in the area had demanded to be fed by the impoverished locals. Embattled, the locals barely had enough food to feed themselves, and when they were not sufficiently forthcoming for the Germans, the Germans started massacring men, women and children. The things people do during war…

So, we crossed a footbridge over the opaque and startlingly blue water and rock-hopped our way upriver a little. Carmelo’s wife had considerately made some delightful cake that morning, and he had brought some along — so, we sat on the rocks and ate cake, while Nuccio pointed out a chasm in the side of the riverbank, down which water flowed to no-one-knows-where.

On the walk back up, Carmelo spotted some fruiting cactus by the path, and cut some fruit off for us to try — mildly sweet and with a texture a little like honeydew or less-juicy watermelon.

They took us next to the Alcantara ‘throat’, a gorge through which the river ran, lined with a strange rock formation that reminded us strongly of the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland, and was probably formed via a similar process. Unfortunately the throat was closed since some earthquakes rendered it unstable, but with a little scrambling up rocks aided by Nuccio, we were able to get a look in. Were it still open, it would be a great place to swim during the warmer months.

With time getting away from us, and with Nuccio needing to start a shift at the hospital soon, we headed off. On they way, they pointed out a number of impressive ancient churches, several in the Spanish style, and even Arabic-esque designs. One was actually built into a cave in the side of a cliff.

The number of different cultures that have had their impact on Sicily are very apparent — everyone who was anyone has invaded this place at one time or another: The Greeks, the Romans, the Carthaginians, the Arabs, the Normans, the Spanish…

There was still time to take a quick driving tour through Giardini Naxos on the coast, through — that would be the influence of the Greeks, this time — and past Isola Bella (“Beautiful Island”, of course).

There was a car rally coming up later in the week (the Taormina-Messina rally), and Nuccio invited us to join him — we delightedly agreed, and made plans to catch up then.

We were met with quite open, grassy terrain, dotted with autumnal birch trees, and the bald grey hills of ex-craters poking out. And the faint smell of sulphur (not, as it turned out, Nettle’s grey water tank).

We were following the track around one such hill and heard an incomprehensible call coming from atop the hill; We spotted a man walking along the slope, and figured he was calling his dog. Then he called again — “op-lop!” — Oh, it was directed at us! We stopped and greeted him. Clearly a photography enthusiast, he told us there was a great view from up the hill, and a rainbow was out.

It was tempting, but we ended up talking instead — he lived locally, and the hiking club he was a member of were having a gathering up at a refuge hut on the mountain; he was on his way there, and amazingly, invited us along. Thrilled, we accepted, and walked with him onwards. His name was Nuccio, and Mount Etna was his passion: He came up the mountain regularly, hiking and exploring the ever-changing landscape, and was a volunteer ‘tourist rescuer’ when visitors got themselves into trouble, a regular occurrence given the changeability of the weather up there. When he wasn’t involved in volcano-related activities, he worked as a doctor.

He told us he was exploring the area before the club gathering to see if there were any changes after some tremors and explosions that had happened the night before — a fact we found a tad frustrating, given that we had spent the night on the volcano and had seen and felt nothing! We were in the wrong place to witness it, apparently, but maybe next time.

So Nuccio led us up to the hut, making sure at each point we were familiar with the way back (caution no doubt born of experience with people getting lost). Along the way he pointed out trees with fishbone-like scars on their trunks; the sap, he told us, used to be harvested from the trees by making diagonal cuts in the trunk. It was a good asthma remedy, apparently.

The club were gathering to celebrate St Martin’s day, an event he described as being associated here with the ‘last summer’, the final day of fair weather for the year.

We arrived at the hut, and Nuccio co-ordinated to have us join the festivities. That sorted, he settled into his tour guide role, and took us along with five or six others on a walk around. He showed us a mysterious tube of solidified lava, and revealed that it was what was left over when a tree was swallowed by a lava flow, and then rotted away to nothing after the lava cooled. He took us to an ancient river bed, at least a million years old apparently, which was interesting given that it lay on the side of a very active volcano for all of those years.

We met up with another group who were also out walking, and some introductions were made. Then, Nuccio led us on up a hillside slippery with scree, and pointed out the rainbow that was behind us, and the lava fields beyond it where the 2001 eruption destroyed the Piano Provenzana ski resort; we could just see a speck which Nuccio told us was the roof of what was once a hotel, poking out above the lava.

So, well and truly awed with Nuccio’s tour-guide skills, and thrilled to be able to benefit from them, we followed the group back to the hut and joined the larger group there in the dim warmth, smelling pleasantly of wood-smoke, an open fire burning cheerily in the corner fireplace. We milled around — a vast number of the people there had cousins in Melbourne, Sydney, Queensland…this place has some serious links with Australia!

What followed was a feast of epic (or should I say Sicilian?) proportions. Everything, down to the olives, cheese and wine, was home-made/grown/raised; a quite normal practice here, but we were immeasurably impressed, not least because it was all just fantastic. I’m a vegetarian, but I made an exception just this once; it was hard to feel too bad about it, given the down-to-earth nature of the food we were having — it doesn’t get more organic and free-range than that. One of the dishes, tasty crumbed and grilled meat on skewers, was wild pig that is a local pest, and is hunted by the locals!

Nuccio engaged us in a game of gastronomic chicken, bringing more and more food over, plonking it on our plates and racing off before we had a chance to make him stop — or issuing us with dire warnings that our most gracious hosts would be most upset if we were to be seen not to be enjoying the local fare. It all ended up on my plate, of course, so it was with a very, very full belly that I eventually admitted defeat. You win this time, Nuccio!

All up, there was great local red wine, beautiful home-made ciabatta bread, olives, sausages, cheese and unidentifiable pieces of jelly-fatty-meaty-stuff (all yours, Katherine), then steak, wild pig skewers (ad nauseum — but very good), followed by delightful Sicilian marzipan cake, home-grown mandarins, espresso coffee and, of course, grappa. Wow!

Sitting beside us was an adorable toddler, who was ripping off pieces of the tablecloth and playing peek-a-boo with us, holding the paper up in front of his face, then peering out over it. We transcended language.

With the weighty (all meanings of the word applicable) business of eating out of the way, the festivities proper began — there were raucous songs and crazy dancing, and Pino who gave off a playful elder vibe led a wild tale/song/game that Nuccio explained told the story of the discovery of Italy and, apparently, its animals and the sounds they make (at one point, kangaroos were introduced on our behalf, albeit not entirely a factually accurate addition).

Eventually, things wound down and it was time to go home, having been made to feel absolutely welcome. While making our goodbyes, we were presented with the gift of a club-branded beanie/scarf hybrid to remember everyone by, an absolutely lovely gesture. Wow!

And finally, with concern for our well-being (and, I suspect, our digestion!), Nuccio and his friend Carmelo offered us a 4WD ride back to Nettle — there may have been snow coming, and they wanted to make sure we returned safely. These are the most kind, friendly and considerate people ever!

Nuccio had told us that afterwards, he had to go seeking some Americans who had gone out and not returned yet — apparently, no less that 100 people a month get lost, and it’s up to Nuccio, Carmelo and others like them to help find them.

We exchanged telephone numbers, and we were floored when Nuccio proposed an outing a few days later to visit some of the local sights. Thrilled and touched, we immediately agreed, and worked out a place and time to meet, then waved them goodbye as they went off to prepare to find their Americans. (A little later, just as I realised I’d left a jumper behind in all the excitement, a car pulled up by us, and Nuccio jumped out and handed me the jumper; I thanked him profusely, and waved farewell again, as we shook our heads in wonder — a kinder sort we shall never find!)

Rather than face possible snow, we headed downhill towards the town of Linguaglossa, where we had arranged to meet Nuccio and Carmelo a few days later. A little driving back and forth without finding any promising places to stop, and we headed towards the coast where we found a caravan park so we could have a day using our laptops. We hooked up the 3G internet, and settled in for the night.

Newly enthused by thoughts of wonders to come, we had breakfast, checked the camera’s batteries, donned our walking gear, and headed out into the world. While Katherine was busy strapping her boots to her feet, I wandered out and met another wild-camping motorhomer who was parked nearby, who I had briefly greeted the day before. He was a stocky Italian, with an enormous beard, travelling with his dog, and while he didn’t speak any English, we had a brief conversation during which I indicated we were off to walk up the mountain, and he pointed out a better route to the one we previously had in mind (“bella vista!”).

So, we followed the advice of our co-wildcamper and headed off, up the side of the valley through a birch wood, a shock of yellow at the top, silver of trunks in the middle, and orange leaf litter at our feet.

We climbed through deep drifts of ash which proved to be quite a leg workout, and eventually emerged on top of what we can only assume is Mount Zoccolaro, perched above the lava fields.

We got a bit adventurous and followed a faint-looking pathway along the ridge, requiring a little scrambling along the way. We were rewarded with some more amazing views over the valley:

We were just awed by the size of the lava field, particularly given its youth — this, and so much more, was the product of Etna’s 2001 eruption. Absolutely freaking incredible.

We scrabbled our way back along the ridge and back down the hill, having a great time ‘skiing’ down the ashy bits.

When we got back to Nettle, we let our feet recover for a moment, then drove onwards, heading downhill — very slowly and carefully, this time! We stopped briefly in a town to get some diesel, then drove on through the pretty town of Milo, before turning uphill again up Etna’s eastern flank. The scenery here was more wooded than on the south side, with lots of pretty silver-and-yellow birches.

We spotted a likely-looking clearing just off the road, turned in, and settled in for the evening. Etna smoked gently behind us, the long plume brilliantly backlit by the sunset as the chill of alpine evening set in. It was peaceful and absolutely beautiful.

…And cold! By the time we went to bed, it had reached 2°C, something we hadn’t yet experienced since we’ve been with Nettle! Her heater served us well!

Armed with our inscrutable German map, we made a vague plan to spend the next week or so driving around Etna’s flanks, doing some walks along the way. We left the car park at Rifugio Sapienza, and headed onwards. A few minutes later found us weaving our way through more of the rough grey landscape of broken lava, and through patches of birch forest in absolutely stunning orange and golden hues — great, fuzzy swathes of it that left us breathless.

We came across a wide gravel side road that appeared to be the site of the first walk we had in mind, and we turned in and pulled over. It was beautiful — a small silvery wood of bare birch and chestnut trees beside us, and ahead of us, past where the road thinned and turned out of sight and towards Etna’s peak, was a ridge in amazing autumn colours with mist sweeping over it. When the clouds parted, we could get a glimpse of the black and white of Etna’s upper reaches.

Considering ourselves pretty fortunate to be able to spend a night in a place like this, we settled in, admiring the view out the window.

The next day we had some online errands to run. The mobile coverage wasn’t good enough where we were, so we ended up backtracking a little down the mountain towards a spot we had noticed full 3G coverage the day before (one tends to notice these things when living like we do!).

On the way, we had some moments of gut-wrenching terror when, as we descended the switchbacked road, the smell of smoke started to be apparent, and the brakes started to fail. Luckily, there was a convenient place to pull off the road while I jumped out and peered under Nettle’s front left wheel. There was quite a lot of smoke. Fortunately, there happened to be mobile coverage where we were, so we jumped online and I did some googling, visions of expensive tow-trucks, difficult language barriers, and remoteness from mechanics spinning round our heads. It should’ve been obvious really — just brake fade. I read up on guidelines for driving large vehicles down slopes, and followed them religiously from then on. Phew. Queue the exhilaration of having avoided a tragedy!

Our errands ended up taking way longer than expected, so by the time we returned to our beautiful wild-camp, it was too late to start the walk. We did a mini-walk instead, a preview of the larger walk to come, and started down the gravel road.

This took us past some abandoned-looking huts, overgrown fields and moss-covered rock walls with deep drifts of autumn leaves blown up against them, past beautiful birch wood with bare silvery trunks above a thick orange carpet of leaf-litter, and eventually, to the edge of the world, or so it seemed: The huge expanse of lava that is the Valle de Bove, glimpsed through a wood of silver-and-orange.

It took our breath away. As Katherine put it, just when we think we’ve seen the most beautiful place ever, something even more amazing comes along. We were on the ridge we’d spotted from Etna’s upper reaches the day before, feathery reds, golds and oranges meeting the dull grey-brown of the lava flow.

We wandered around through the trees on the top of the ridge, awestruck and delighted, until advancing evening forced us to start back to Nettle with a hearty appetite to explore further the next day.

I’ve been so wrapped up in writing software, the blogging has suffered! Time to catch up:

Last time I wrote, we’d just left Selinunte, and had spent a night wild-camped on a hill overlooking the quite pleasant scenery near the road towards Mount Etna. So, we drove on, and caught our first glimpse of the volcano’s gigantic snowy peak soon after.

We drove on, into the sprawling suburbia south of Etna, stopped at a shopping centre to stock up and do some shopping (Katherine, anyway — I stayed in Nettle and worked on some software). Then on, through peak hour traffic, to Nicolosi, a town that’s a reasonable launching point for visiting Etna, and the only one we could find with camping facilities.

It was getting late, and the caravan park looked closed, so we parked at the edge of a a wide open paved area nearby for the night, and moved in the next day. We had a day inside, then ventured out to find the tourist information office — which turned out to be non-English speaking with only a German-version map. The good news, however, was there was mobile coverage outside the office, unlike at the campsite, so we were able to find out what we needed online.

The next day, we drove up Etna’s flank, perhaps a little nervously, not really knowing whether to expect precipitously steep dirt roads, or an easy, coach-friendly affair. It turned out to be the latter, passing through some quite pleasant wooded residential areas then up into a black lunar landscape of old lava and ash, overlooking the plains below, dotted with smaller volcanic cones (they want to be just like Etna when they grow up), with the sea in the distance.

We passed patches of birch wood, resplendent in bright autumn colours, and pine forest in deep green, then found ourselves in an even weirder landscape of ash and mini-cones, grey with patches of iron orange on one side of the cones as if lit by a sunset we couldn’t see.

We arrived at Rifugio Sapienza, the collection of car parks, tacky souvenir vendors and tour agencies perched on the hillside high above the clouds; we paid our insane parking fee, strapped on our cold gear and pack, paid our insane cable-car fee, and took a ride up.

The cable-car doesn’t go too near to the mouth of the main crater — there’s a tour ‘bus’ (more like a tank!) that goes there, but we were told the weather was too bad for tours. So, with no tours running, we weren’t going to get a look into Etna’s maw. Instead, we set off by ourselves to explore.

We emerged into a freezing black-and-white landscape of ash and snow and a howling wind. Conditions were such that where the wind blew over any bumps in the landscape, the lee side streamed with mist, making it appear like the entire place was smoking: This had us fooled for a while before we realised it wasn’t exciting volcanic action at all.

There was still excitement to be had, though; we wandered to the right of the road a little, following the recommendation of some guys we had met several days ago at the camping area, and who had just happened to have come up Etna at the same time as us; they wore shorts. We were rewarded with jaw-dropping views over the Valle de Bove, apparently an ancient crater that had collapsed, and had only recently been filled with an inconceivably immense lava flow, from the 2001 eruption.

The view was unbelievable.

We had planned to walk from there back down the mountain to Rifugio Sapienza, which is apparently quite a nice walk, but it was absolutely freezing (sub-zero plus wind chill, we were told), so it really was never going to happen.

Instead, we battled our way back to the cable-car station, paid the insane cable car fee, and rode our way back down towards a cup of tea.

A short and picturesque drive inland through pretty, rocky mountains, through a rather sad-looking town amusingly called ‘Purgatoria’, and through another deserted seaside tourist town. We followed GPS co-ordinates to a promising-sounding wildcamp that I had found mentioned on a forum: We ended up on the shore of a rocky, sweeping bay surrounded by mountains lightly dusted with dry grassy scrub: A strangely lunar-esque landscape, but a very beautiful one.

We stopped for lunch and a quick walk, but plagued by a low battery and plaintively beeping inverter, and wishing to have operational laptops, we moved on into the town of San Vito Lo Capo, in search of a caravan park.

Unfortunately, all of the caravan parks in the town were prohibitively expensive, unpleasant or closed, so we retreated for the night back to the wildcamp on the beach. We never cease to be astonished by the cost of occupying a few square metres for the night while occasionally using a few tens of watts of electricity! Went to sleep by the sound of waves — very restful — and our stowed satellite dish creaking in the wind — not so restful!

The following day we thought we’d take a quick peek around San Vito Lo Capo, then move on to greener pastures. In the process we spotted a ‘camper service’ sign and followed it to a quite delightful unofficial-looking camper stop — a little area right on the rocky shoreline to the north of the town, walled in with a fence of palm fronds and dotted with ground cover with little purple flowers. We called a phone number on the locked fence, crossing our fingers, and got through to a fellow who told me ‘diche minute!’.

Sure enough, he appeared ten minutes later and let us in and agreed on €10 per night to stay seven days — much more reasonable! I asked about water and he told us the water there wasn’t actually drinkable. Given that we were completely empty, we ummed and ahhed in our separate languages until he decided upon something, and directed us forward to what turned out to be his house! He ran a hose from a tap somewhere out the back and filled us up with drinking water, much to our astonishment and gratefulness.

So, all set up, we settled into our temporary new home, mere metres from the very blue water of the sea and with a grand view of the bay.

We spent the week there, continuing with our separate projects. The days were sunny and warm, although we spent them indoors! The nights were incredibly wild and stormy. The town’s power flickered on and off all night; quite a thing to see the entire town, visible from our bed facing the sea, completely lose power and disappear into the darkness. Lightning blinded us, rain pounded us and wind almost threatened to roll us over! It felt very cosy to lie in bed and watch it all happen outside.

One evening, keen to get a taste of the local cuisine, we wandered the town and found a delightful Arab-esque restaurant in which to try the particular mix of Arabic and Italian cuisine that is the Sicilian specialty. Katherine had a pistachio-encrusted hunk of her new favourite, pesci spada, and I had an interesting vegetable cous-cous, accompanied by an odd soup concoction that presumably was to be poured onto the cous-cous. The sweet mint tea we had after, topped with pine nuts, was particularly good.

For our final day in San Vito Lo Capo, we decided to venture out into the world, and drove the short, windy and spectacular road to the nearby Zingaro National Park. We strapped on our hiking gear and headed out into what turned out to be one of the most spectacular and beautiful places we’ve been on our journey so far. Neon green lizards sprang from the bright ochre pathway through striking dry coastal scrub, overlooking bright turquoise water met by white pebbled beaches. Quite a feast for the eye. At one point, we found a bush being visited by an indigo-coloured bumblebee! Our path ran along the coast, through a lush valley and up a rocky path that led high above the water and along over a number of hilly promontories. Beautiful.

We walked almost back to Scopello, then made our way back along the highland route, crossing comparatively barren hills with, at the latter part of the trek, amazing views over the coast, the soft form of clouds out to sea being reflected in the still ocean in the late afternoon light. Sunset happened around us as we were approaching the end of our trek, casting brilliant pinks and oranges around us, making the orange-coloured dirt path seem luminescent.

We certainly won’t be forgetting Zingaro any time soon!

With our seven days in San Vito Lo Capo behind us, we deemed it time to move on, and headed out towards the medieval mountain town of Erice, mentioned by our one-time French neighbours in Palermo. The drive there wound through the mountains, then met the suburbs by the coast, and finally switchbacked up the mountain upon which the little ancient town sat. With neither of us able to quite remember the directions our French friends gave us, we drove in and found free out-of-season parking, propped off the road into a very pretty wooded area. Opening the door after parking, the waft of crisp, clean wooded mountain air — leaf litter, grass, trees — caused fond memories of our hills home in Belgrave to spring to mind.

We went for a long walk around the town’s ancient cobbled streets and narrow alleyways; we craved pizza, found a pizzeria, and sat down only to find out pizza was off for the day — too bad; we had some quite tasty alternatives. Then more wandering: Derelict, empty houses, doors with colourful faded paint, bright red leaves of ivy climbing a few walls.

We climbed the tiny winding staircase of the bell tower, poking over the town’s roofs beside the church Chiesa Madre, and found our way back around the town by the amazing Castello di Vinere, a.k.a. the Castle of Venus, built over an ancient temple of a cult notorious for ‘sacred prostitution’ (Any excuse…), and now a hulking shape dotted with moss and hanging precipitously over the edge of the mountain. Behind Castello di Vinere squatted the smaller Pepoli Castle, neatly atop a rocky outcrop, a sheer drop beneath each wall. These builders sure liked to make things hard for themselves.

Back to our peaceful little wooded nook for the night, and after a final morning stroll around town we pressed on.

Regrettably, Nigel was up to his tricks again, and rather than take us around the city of Trapani like a good GPS navigator, he took us straight into its maze of narrow, traffic-clogged and confusing one-way streets before dropping out on us entirely due to poor satellite reception. Great. We ended up pointing the wrong way down a one-way street, no way forward, and the way behind us blocked by a stream of traffic. Much sweating, cursing and careful inching backwards later, we managed to reach the turn-off we had missed and continue onwards.

We drove south, turning east near Masala and driving through one of Sicily’s famous wine regions — unfortunately, it was mostly bare soil or dead vines, as it’s not really the right time of year. Having discovered no place to settle, we pulled over on a grotty road in Salemi, jumped online to do some research for our next move. An hour later, we had a decision, and headed south to Selinunte, home of some heartily impressive Greek ruins. Stopped at the caravan park we had identified, winced at the fee but stayed anyway; very tasty and cheap pizza in the attached restaurant.

A day wandering around the archaeological area (the picnic area could’ve been somewhere in Australia, buried among eucalyptus trees). We sat on a fallen chunk of temple column and read (from the Internet on my iPhone — an interesting contrast of old and new) about the Greek god Dionysus, god of wine, fertility and madness, whose ruined temple we sat upon.

We got quite lost heading towards the Acropolis, and took a long detour through some half-excavated plots. Interesting to see behind the scenes a little.

Thought we’d rest overnight in the empty car park, but got moved on by a grumpy official, and found ourselves a less-expensive, less-official but much prettier caravan stop for the night. The best ones are always the unofficial, cheap ones! Every time!

The following day, after doing some much-needed laundry, we headed out east, bound for Mount Etna national park which sounded quite promising. Very pretty rolling hills; raw earth and vines making a patchwork of colours. Evening crept up on us, and on a whim I took a little road off the highway. It led around a hill and we found a spot by the side of the road with sweeping views over the surrounding countryside, shades of purple in the evening light — beautiful, and very peaceful.

So, next stop: Etna.

It’s been a while since the last update: We’ve had many pleasant distractions, and every time there was the opportunity to do some blogging, something else enticed me away. But, as our time here in Italy draws to a close (already!), it’s time to record them before they fall out of my memory! Read on, and apologies for the silent spell!

Slow travel time! In the wake of Tim, Jen and Annie we spent several extra days in Sorrento, adjusting to being without our new-found family, and doing some software development. A little culture-shock, interestingly.

Having eventually judged it time to get on with things, we unplugged and headed out into the unknown to the south. Our culture shock intensified driving through the rubbish-strewn ghettos of the urban sprawl near Naples, and we were greatly relieved to find the open road later in the day.

Over the next couple of days, we drove south down the coast, stopping to pick up a second SIM card in Salerno to extend our Internet quota and getting into some tight squeezes in Nettle in the process — not helped by some rampant double- and triple-parking.

We had some quite pleasant wild-camps in the area around the Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park; parked above the seaside town of Marina di Casal Velino, high above the sea in a lay-by of a cliffside road near San Giorgio, and by the beach in eerily silent Lenzi, closed down for low season. Hoping to find somewhere to settle for a little while, we took a drive through the mountains of the National Park, quite pleasant and green, but not quite what we were looking for and devoid of any worthy caravan parks that we could find. Some beautiful towns perched atop hills, though.

Onwards we drove, down through increasingly decrepit towns, our moods and comfort levels declining accordingly! All changed for a moment when we drove through a delightful seaside town, Scilla, three- and four-storey houses with orange-tiled roofs clustered around a promontory with a castle perched atop it. Charmed, we tried to find a place to park for the evening and explore the town, but were met with no-camper signs everywhere, and reluctantly moved on.

Eventually we made it to Villa San Giovanni, with Sicily visible just a short hop over the channel. We took a evening stroll along the dirty foreshore, past many groups of men gathered around chatting, and spotted a diver coming out of the water, two or three octopus dangling from his belt! We spent a night parked by the sea, beautiful clear blue water with a white sandy beach completely littered with all kinds of rubbish.

In the morning, we took the ferry over, and arrived in Messina, Sicily, and drove our way along the picturesque winding inland road through forests of eucalyptus. What a familiar sight!

Some minor drama after an unwise turn suggested by Nigel, involving getting ourselves nearly wedged down a tiny little road in a tiny little town and having to reverse for a considerable distance with cars waiting on us. Tense, sweat-inducing stuff.

We made it out alive and unscathed, and drove through the cluttered yet not unattractive suburbs to Milazzo. Milazzo is a quite nice town which is one of the launching points to get to the Aolian Islands, one of which is Stromboli, a tiny island almost entirely occupied by a ‘continuously erupting’ volcano. We spent a few nights at a caravan park on the peninsula to the north-west of the town: We met a lovely Swiss family, Pascal, Vivienne and their children, and shared some swiss beer (and a little vegemite!); saw some amazing lightning and ate some incredible pesci spada (swordfish) from the caravan park’s restaurant, of all places.

With the Stromboli boat tour booked out, we decided to press on, postponing it for our return journey. A quite pleasant drive along the coast, cut short by a road closure, presumably because the road fell into the ocean. We backtracked and found a beautiful wildcamp in an area off the road near San Giorgio-Magaro, looking out over the Tyrrhenian Sea. A wild night of wind, rain and electrical shenanigans, which we somehow survived without being blown off the cliff — as we found out later, however, not everyone was as fortunate: The nearby city of Messina was victim to flooding and landslides that killed at least 20.

We pressed on — or rather, backwards, until we got on the motorway to continue our journey. Once on the motorway, the kilometers passed quickly, and we took the exit to Cefalu, a stunning ancient seaside town, wedged between a tall rocky outcrop and the ocean, with a maze of picturesque little cobbled streets weaving through. We found a park on the promontory, and went for a sunset-lit walk along the beach and through the town. The following day, my birthday, we walked through the town some more — the little alleys smelt pleasantly of the clean laundry hanging from every balcony, drying in the sun, while scooters scooted past us nimbly. We had an astonishingly expensive but pleasant meal of pesci spada and some local fish, in an outdoor restaurant in a piazza by the ancient church (in lieu of the cute little restaurant we saw the night before, with tables wedged into a tiny little alley: Which we were unable to find again), then went for a long swim in the warm waves beside Nettle.

The following day we hopped back on the motorway and headed towards the city of Palermo. The motorway became a highway and skirted the city. In the process, we got a taste of the somewhat chaotic traffic: Intersections where basically anything goes, and one just enters and hopes for the best; formula-one driver wannabes ducking and weaving, and general impatience and pushiness. It’s hard to imagine how it all makes for a sensible system: The resulting need for extreme caution and alertness for neighbouring drivers’ foolishness makes for slow going. Surely a couple of extra traffic lights and a general adherence to a semblance of road rules would lead to smoother progress! Still: It all works, somehow.

Slightly west of Palermo, we began another caravan park search, hoping to find somewhere to be a base while we explored the city. The first caravan park lay on the far side of a little town on the coast, and Nigel decided on a particular route that very nearly led to disaster: We found ourselves heading down the tiniest road we’d seen yet, lined on each side by parked cars, and with no possibility of reversing. We inched along, and found ourselves at a tight T-intersection with another tiny road, parked cars everywhere. We both leaned out the window to check the distance between the cars on either side: Katherine had one or two centimetres, while I had quite literally a millimetre or less. The car’s mirror was touching the side of Nettle as we crept by, not hard enough to scrape or cause any marks, but definitely making contact. Thankfully there were two pot-plants on the far side of the intersection where there were no cars, and a kind gentleman who noticed our plight aided us by directing me forward around the corner. If we’d had a millimetre’s less room, I don’t know what we would have done. Helicopter lift, perhaps?

With one more false start, requiring some cautious reversing out while cars behind hopped out of the way, I decided enough was enough, pulled over, and scouted ahead on foot, to try to find a way through. Once I found the caravan park on foot, I realised it was horrendous and it was all for naught; we continued onwards! One or two unpleasant and expensive caravan parks later, we stopped on a road by the beach instead. Two friendly French motorhomers drove by and parked in a field beside the road, and invited us up. We talked for a while; He told us they were originally from Paris, but now lived in Brittany where they ran a B&B. They had travelled in Croatia, where we were planning to spend the winter, and he recounted the extreme motorhome-unfriendliness there: “No camper” signs everywhere, and insanely expensive caravan parks. At one place, he told us, it was actually cheaper to stay an a nearby B&B, parking their camper outside, rather than stay in the caravan park. Damn! He also told us they’d come from Erice, a town he pointed out on my iPhone’s map, and described a wild-camp there. So, we moved beside them and settled in for the night.

The following day we moved into Palermo proper, to a car park that also catered for campers, with electrical hook-up and a bathroom. Mercifully wide roads and a nice and uneventful journey in.

We got directions from a helpful woman at the car park who spoke a little English, and wandered around Palermo, a very interesting but very dirty town. We found ourselves at one point in what appeared to be the student quarter, with signs in Arabic and an even an Indian restaurant. There were street corners piled to shoulder-height with rotting garbage, and dirty water running across the street — colourful indeed.

We found a little antiques market, wandered some more, and visited the Capuchin Crypt, of the Capuchin Order who had the somewhat macabre tradition of embalming their dead, dressing them up and suspending them from hooks in these catacombs. Creepy stuff: Hundreds of bodies in varying states of decomposition leering down from the walls. It was cold, the air dry but unscented, and very quiet, tourists like us walking around the dusty passageways in silence. This was no sterile tourist display: The bodies were out in the air, hanging just an arms length away from the walkways. Some had skin still hanging off their grinning skulls; the less-decayed ones were the most creepy, as one could still make out a semblance of a lopsided face. Yeech.

Footsore, we started heading back in the direction of a main road where we might find a bus — then, in short order my iPhone’s battery ran out, then Nigel’s battery died, leaving us without any form of map or navigation. It was no good asking anyone else — we tried once, and got a long, entirely unintelligible answer; thanks anyway! By some good guesswork and a bit of luck, we found our way to the bus depot, a fairly safe bet, then found the right bus and made our way back to Nettle.

We spent a few extra days in Nettle at the caravan park while I recovered from a short spell under the weather (I have been quite the sickly one lately!), then anxious to leave the grotty city, we headed onwards.

We drove along the road high above the sea, past the insanely dense sprawl of Castellemare del Golfo, towards Scopello, a promising destination that Katherine had discovered.

We didn’t quite make it, instead finding a delightful ‘parcheggio’ (parking area), grassy and dotted with olive trees, overlooking the sweep of a bay, in a little town called Casa de Franchis on the map. Beautiful mountains made a picturesque backdrop behind our little olive grove, and — jackpot — there was strong 3G reception and electricity hookup points, just what we need to remain for a while. That, with an amazing €2 per night fee had us hopping up and down with excitement!

Unfortunately, our dreams of our new home fell apart a little when we realised the electricity was turned off for low-season, and there wasn’t a soul around who we could talk to about it, although I tried, carrying around a handwritten copy of a Google translation asking after the owner.

We stayed a couple of nights until the power shortage forced us to move on; all wasn’t lost, though, as we found a ‘sosta camper’ just outside of Scopello, with electricity, water, a dump point and a pleasant view, for €10 per day. Not quite our pretty olive grove, but it’d do: We stayed there for a week and I got some good software development done, while Katherine got stuck into some art. For both of us, it was one of the best weeks of our trip yet! The sheer joy of creativity certainly rivals our enjoyment of visiting exciting new places: Combining the two is just brilliant.

So, we spent our days focusing on our respective passions, enjoying the view out the window every now and then, of the startlingly multi-hued blue of the ocean, and the pretty coastline and mountains inland. The sea had amazing patterns of dark and light over it, which would change throughout the day — cloud shadows, we realised later in a ‘duh!’ moment — and patches of green/yellow caused by silt would creep in from the beach when it rained. Beautiful.

The ‘sosta’ owner was quite friendly, and kept popping around to make sure we were happy. The woman at the local grocery store was also very friendly, and we had a little conversation with a lot of hand-waving while a short rainstorm came and went, during which she insisted that we wait it out in her shop. On the walk back to Nettle, in the drizzling rain, another kind soul offered us a ride back!

Scopello itself was surprisingly empty and small — low season, probably! — and after a week we decided it was time for a change of scene — and time to find a place to buy groceries at less than the tourist prices we found in Scopello!

We spent one last wistful night in our ‘olive grove’ in Casa de Franchis, and headed onwards.