Our decision to remain stationary until Mike’s new app is up and running and out in the big wide world led us to the intriguing prospect of finding the cheapest CL in the UK in a region with strong internet coverage. What fun! We had no idea where we would end up for the next few months – just lots of little dots on a map – it was like a lottery!

Mike spent a while trawling through the Caravan Club site, looking in ever-expanding circles for a suitable place to relocate to.  They were all rather expensive for our liking, so he embarked on a massive project to write some software to drag the entire several-thousand-site CL database from the Club’s website, and make it easily searchable for price (which isn’t searchable on their site).  Several days later, he had a spreadsheet of the sites across the UK that were within our price range, and proceeded to call through the list to confirm the prices, which are invariably inaccurate.

After a rather silly number of hours of work, he’d narrowed our choice down to 4 sites around England’s south-west. The winning CL turned out to be Langarth Farm just outside of Truro in Cornwall. Looks like we’re going to spend a few months in Cornwall then! At first I was a bit under-whelmed at the prospect, despite having wanted to tour Cornwall for quite some time. Before we changed our plans we were going to travel up the east coast of the UK to Scotland and then go back down the west coast. I’ve been pining for Scotland for months now and it looked like I’d have to wait a few more months yet. As the aforementioned friend pointed out, there is something rather funny about feeling let down at the prospect of spending a few months in Cornwall!

During our trundle over to Cornwall we picked up our new (to us) vintage bikes that we’d bought on eBay! Mike’s is a surprisingly shiny blue beast circa 1960s called “Apollo” and mine, also blue, circa 1970s named “Way” short for “Wayfarer”. We’d been looking for these bad boys for a long time and we’re absolutely thrilled with our new purchases.

Mine was in Plymouth which, from our brief drive through looked like a lovely little city.

We made our way to Langarth Farm down ever-narrowing roads, pleased with the promisingly scenic drive on the approach. As we drove we thought about cycling along these very roads with anticipation. Langarth Farm turned out to have many other features of benefit to an extended stay that we hadn’t even thought to check for – grocery store and fish and chip shop in walking distance, small city with everything we could ever need – namely Indian and Thai food – in cycling distance; there’s even an honesty stall down the road selling eggs, potatoes and leeks!

Our days leading up to meeting up with friends in Bath were spent quietly working away, Mike on his new iPhone app and me in my new marketing role as well as my own projects, albeit to a lesser extent as previously. I’m hoping the next app will do well enough so we can hire someone to do the marketing next time and I can get back to my art and creative biz. In the meantime, I don’t mind the work and I’m learning a lot which I’ll be able to put to good use in my own online biz when the time comes.

We also spent our days going for bicycle rides on our new vintage steeds and marvelling at our friends doing this across continents! The hills (and slight inclines indiscernible to the human eye) of Cornwall defeat me every time and I end up taking my bike for a walk half the time, which Mike kindly documented.

The scenery we cycle through is quintessentially English – gnarled trees, bright purple flowers growing along the side of the road, and of course everything is very, very green. This is an achingly pretty country. It reminds us of Mike’s pretty hometown but on steroids. On one of our rides I commented to Mike how I used to think it very funny that the English settlers in Australia found the landscape depressingly barren and wholly uninviting and that they would try to re-create English gardens around their outback homes – how silly, I thought! Looking at this beautifully lush landscape now I completely understand why they pined for the beauty of their abundant colourful flowers and gentle leafy green woods. The area I grew up in in Australia is characterised by dry scrub, the plants are hardy, tough looking things and the trees are tall, straight and skinny with sparse leaves – and forget about flowers. I can see how this may have proven a slightly depressing state of affairs to our English ancestors.

We missed the lambs at Wootton, and the antics of the local pheasant, Monsieur Squark-and-Flap, but the void was somewhat filled by a rather enthusiastic rooster who I realised sounds just like someone over-excitedly yelling “WOOOOO-HOOOO!”. So, we dubbed him Party Rooster. Every day’s a party for that guy – he loves a good time.

Punctuating the uneventfulness of our quiet days spent in Cornwall, the only other things of note are that our boiler miraculously fixed itself and we now have a functioning shower again – reaffirming our “If it aint broke don’t fix it; if it is broke, don’t fix it – it’ll fix itself” policy; Mike sent his passport and Australian drivers license off to the DVLA with baited breath hoping they send us back a British license and preferably don’t lose his passport in the process as we hear they are prone to do, and we finally got around to “spring” cleaning Nettle. Huh. I didn’t know our skylight was white. And what happened to our windowsill terrarium?

The drive there was delightful — kinda like driving through a painting, along roads lined with bright green grass, new flowers and trees, amongst rolling emerald hills, beautiful little hill towns perched on the slopes. It felt very spring-like and warm.

When we arrived at the agriturismo, we were very pleased: It was beautiful, and we were perched right amongst that beautiful scenery. The owners were quite friendly (although our meagre Italian had only the basics of communication covered), and we had 3G. Perfect.

We were originally planning to stay for four days. That turned into five, then into a week, and then about ten days. I worked heaps on Cartographer, my upcoming iPhone app which is coming along very nicely. Katherine started an online drawing course. Oh, and she cut my hair, an exercise that ended up taking all afternoon (we were both a bit sunburnt by the end, by sitting outside!). It’s a big improvement, although there’s a bit more to do — hopefully it’ll get faster! So, another creative skill acquired!

We’ve both been interested in HDR photography, and made the plunge, buying a $100 piece of software for HDR processing called Photomatix. I spent a day or two playing, coming up with some very fun results (some of which were included in the last entry on Chieti). I was reminded of the “bevel” effect of old, applying it to everything until it became extremely tacky. The “painterly”, surrealistic look of the resulting photos appeal greatly to both our aesthetics, but I suspect it probably will go out of fashion sooner or later. Until then though, we’ll enjoy the grunge look, and afterwards will benefit from the more realistic processing that is pure HDR (without the “detail enhancement” that gives it that cool look).

Katherine totally impressed me by drawing up some sketches for Cartographer’s icon which are absolutely brilliant. I don’t get much enjoyment from that process, given that I’m hopeless at drawing and graphic design in general, and just find myself getting frustrated. What Katherine came up with was easily as good or better than a result I would’ve expected from hiring a pro designer, so I was thrilled. What a team!

Our ventures outside Nettle were made interesting by the rambunctious presence of two enormous German shepherds who weren’t aware they were no longer puppies. It really is a little intimidating hearing the galloping of two monsters closing rapidly behind you, then teeth closing ‘playfully’ around your hand!

The night before our planned departure, we dined at the restaurant, where they served home-cooked meals made of entirely organic local produce. We went at the same time as a friendly Swiss-German couple who had arrived for the night in their motorhome. Dinner was delicious, lots of little successive courses — antipasti to start (I even tried the salami — it’s a bit of a big thing around here), then a simple tomato pasta. Our host demonstrated the pasta making process, bringing out a device that looked a bit like one of those many-stringed Indian instruments, that the pasta dough is pressed through with a rolling pin. Then, tasty little pastry-covered tart things with mushroom, followed by stuffed zucchini, I think, with lots of cheese; salad on the side of little slices of beef, then finally a very tasty ice-cream desert with little bits of meringue.

We were all set to go after about ten days — to do the Cascate Della Volpara walk from Umito, then a driving tour around Monti Sibillini — until on the day of our departure, on a whim we checked the weather report and discovered a rather bleak outlook with rain and snow on its way. Oh, dear!

A little agonising later, and we decided to wait it out here. A little sheepishly, I explained to our hosts that we’d be staying a bit longer.

On the morning of our next departure, I happened to stumble across a webcam in a town near where we were headed for the walk, and found it in snow! I was expecting the snow level to be higher, but as it was, we couldn’t risk driving on a slippery road in Nettle! More agonising, and we decided there was nothing for it but to abort our plans and head onwards. The only thing was, we hadn’t done the necessary travel research, so — another night in Penne. I felt quite silly explaining again why we weren’t leaving, but they were very understanding and laughed along with me as I explained in memorised Italian spewed out of Google Translator.

Katherine near killed herself fighting against oddly slow internet and a sluggish laptop, researching our next moves, while I alternated with reading through our Lonely Planet guide and working on Cartographer. So, finally, we finished it all off today and finally made it up the driveway and onwards!

New territory!

Our drive took us along winding roads through spectacularly beautiful landscapes: More emerald hills dotted with villas and olive trees, along roads lined with birch trees (or were they beech? ash?), some of which seemed to think it was autumn and were a lovely golden colour (we hoped it’d catch on).

As evening crept towards us, we started looking out for a place to park for the night, and after not finding anything along our route, turned down a side road, and drove down it for ten or fifteen minutes — we found a few lousy options, but decided to press on in the hopes of finding something better. After another twenty minutes or so, Katherine spotted a sign pointing to a lake — always promising — and we followed it and found a spot by the road overlooking a rather impressive dam wall. We hung around on the couch for a while, resting after the long drive, then Katherine set about cooking dinner while I caught up on some blogging.

It’s good to be on the move again!

They returned later in the day, and I saw Paolo waving and went out to greet him and pay for our stay. His theory, by the way, for those explosions we awoke to the other day — and again, this morning — was that it was an old and now fairly rare religious tradition. The number of explosions means something — three to signify the birth of a baby boy. So, I thanked him for having us and he brought us a bottle of wine!

Finally, the next day we were ready to go. I headed down to the local mini-supermarket hoping to stock up on the awesome aged provolone cheese we discovered there. Outside there were lots of people standing and sitting around, cars stopped by traffic police. No one was moving, so I stopped too and watched as a funeral procession came up the road, a hearse festooned with flowers, marchers behind in purple robes, a man leading with a sceptre, chanting, and the bells of the church ringing.

They passed by, and I moved on; Unfortunately, the supermarket was closed, so I settled for the little shop up the road (passing two horse-and-carts plodding down the main street, holding up traffic). I spoke — mostly, hand-gestured — with the friendly woman who ran the shop, who was curious about where we were from and what we were up to. I explained that we were off to Rome, then north-bound, and she said we must visit Perugia on our way. We love recommendations!

So off we went, down the narrow little main street, feeling much more confident after seeing the big coaches speeding down it. Halfway down the main street, we were startled by three young men galloping at full speed around the corner at us, up the little one-way road. We very nearly collided with one, who swerved to the right to avoid us. Oh-kay.

The first part of the drive was particularly pleasant, winding down the mountainside with views up towards the snowy peaks of the Amalfi coast mountains, and down over woods of skeletal trees and the messy urban sprawl of Naples, Vesuvius squatting in the middle.

We hit the motorway, and there’s not much else to tell — a couple of fruitless attempts to stop to top up our LPG tank, followed by a successful one, during which we had a very satisfying lunch of fresh bread, provolone, harissa and olive oil.

When we were close to our destination, just outside of Rome, I took a wrong turn on the freeway (I went left at a fork, which looked like the right move on the map, but I guess I should’ve gone the other way!), which added on about 30 minutes of driving up, across, and down again along the outskirts of the city. Luckily it was Sunday and traffic wasn’t too hectic.

So eventually we made it back onto the road outbound from Rome and made the turn up the steep street into Castel Gandolfo (we prefer “Castle Gandalf”), perched on the side of the pretty Lake Albano. We found our way down to the lakeside where the area attrezzata was, part of the restaurant “Quadri 2000″ (what a name!).

I found someone to let us into the place — in the process, pulling out my new-found “Potrei parlo con qualcuno…” line I used time and time again trying unsuccessfully to get a hold of an English-speaking customer service person at Wind, our telco who somehow managed to nick our Internet credit with no explanation — but that’s a whole other story.

The place wasn’t quite what we had in mind — a presumably independent review of the place promised ‘great views’ — but it’s fine, and wonderfully located, within 40 minutes on the train from the centre of Rome, right beside this beautiful lake, and with everything we need to stick around a little while.

And, best of all – full 3G reception! After four months, finally, we have broadband again. It’s a heady experience.

– With one caveat. Earlier in the week, our mobile internet provider, Wind, somehow managed to zero out our entire Internet quota, with no explanation, as well as taking the rest of our credit, coming to about $15 AUD. Bastards! We had to fall back to our other time-based account for a few days until our next batch of quota came through. I’d spent hours trying to contact someone who could help, but the support staff were comprehensibly unhelpful.

When we arrived in Castle Gandalf and hooked up our time-based account to start using the broadband here, it wasn’t working! Some digging revealed they’d done it again: All our quota was gone, as well as the remaining €10 credit. Unfortunately, this meant we couldn’t use the 3G, other than very low-volume stuff like email checking.

Wind: 2. Us: 0.

I’d discovered the alluring Apennines, a spectacular-looking mountain range in the region of Abruzzo, north east of our current position in Amalfi — some great-looking national parks with wonderful hikes. I became quite attached to the idea, which sounded so romantic and fun. And then it became clear that there would be no hiking, and the driving would quite possibly be fairly treacherous: It’s still winter! An Italian friend, Andrea, tells me there has recently been snow down to 400m, which is quite spectacular. So, with great regret we’re putting the Apennines off till “next time”. We’ll see other cool stuff.

In the meantime, while I was mucking about in Google Earth, figuring out the regions that may be within the “usually safe from snow” level of 1000m and agonising about passing the mountains by, Katherine pressed on reading about the next region of interest to the north: Rome and Lazio. I eventually gave up and joined her; Rome is certainly going to be our next destination (the clincher was Katherine’s discovery of “Original Language” cinemas, playing the new Alice in Wonderland film in English!).

We were originally thinking we might leave yesterday. Then our friend Nuccio in Sicily warned us to stay put, because there was some interesting weather headed our way. Sure enough, soon afterwards, thunder rang through the valley and it started hailing, then actually snowing! Only a little — within a few minutes it was back to light hail, but we actually had snow, which was very exciting. We were very glad not to be driving.

The hills around us are white, and there are drifts of un-melted hail, even the day after!

So, we were going to leave today. We woke up quite early (for us!), to the sound of sharp booming explosions ringing through the valley. I peered out the window to see the explosions preceded by little bright flashes in the sky and puffs of smoke — not a freaking clue. Are we under attack?

I still haven’t figured out what it was (maybe Paolo here at the caravan park will know). Anyway, Katherine happily got up and jumped in the shower while I rolled over and snoozed, as usual. It was a real struggle dragging myself out of bed! When I did manage it, I pulled up Google Earth and set about planning a driving route, and found myself entirely incapable of making any decisions about routing and whether or not to take the motorway, or just about anything — I felt like a sloth!

We went out into the cold and got some groceries (more of the awesome tasty provolone cheese we found earlier in the week), and I still hadn’t got my brain into gear. We noticed some light hail as we walked back to Nettle, and then decided to stay another day (Katherine said she didn’t trust my foggy brain to operate heavy machinery).

It felt like a very good decision, so we cosied up in Nettle again and set about finding a caravan park to stay in, in Rome. We felt very disinclined to pay €30/night for one of the main caravan parks, then I was thrilled to find some area attrezzatas for €12-15 per night within easy reach of Rome by train! The one that really takes the cake is one we found right on the side of a lake just 40 mins train ride south of Rome, and just a short walk from the train station. Sounds very promising.

So, we feel heaps better about heading off tomorrow with a set destination in mind, and we’re taking the ~€14 tolled route to save a couple of hours driving, so we should make it in one day. Here’s hoping for a clear brain.

Using my brilliant new-found POI database and Google Earth, I found us a caravan park (actually, a hostel, Beata Solitudo, with attached camping facilities) right in the thick of it, about 3km as the crow flies (but 16 switchbacked kilometers as the Nettle drives!) from Amalfi, in a town called San Lazzaro.

Google Earth suggested a drive up through the outskirts of Naples and back down into San Lazzaro, but I didn’t want a bar of it; it was only a tiny bit further taking the coastal road, and it would be infinitely more enjoyable, adventure on the narrow roads notwithstanding.

So off we went, taking the motorway back towards Salerno, then veering off along the road clinging to the steep hillside over Salerno, which sprawled prettily way below us. It was heavily overcast, a decidedly grey day, but something about the cloud cover made the diffuse daylight appear as it was coming from low in the sky, which made it seem like a perpetual early morning, even in the middle of the day.

Our luck stayed with us as we negotiated the few tricky intersections, squinting at the map on my iPhone, and picked the correct route each time — except once, when the map’s blue dot indicting our location wandered slightly off (I think it gets bored sometimes), and told us we were somewhere else. We make a wrong turn, heading towards a pretty-yet-narrow cobbled street on Salerno’s eastern side, but easily did a U-turn (with guidance from a friendly police officer who happened to be beside us) and continued on.

Almost immediately, the road took to the edge of the coast, following the buttress-like spits of land that jut out into the ocean, with the occasional hairpin or bridge over a river valley.

Every turn brought new exclamations from us — such a feast for the eyes. The coastline itself was extremely pretty — craggy cliffs and bits of exposed rock poking out of the lush greenery, precipitous slopes down to blue water (even with an overcast sky), the higher reaches wreathed in cloud. With the addition of the delightful little villages nestled into each valley, often with tiers of vines climbing the steep valley walls, the place was just amazing.

Last time we were here, we’d taken a bus along this road, from Sorrento (to the west) to Amalfi and back. At the time, we’d marvelled at the narrow roads that the big buses barrelled down, honking their horns at each hairpin to let oncoming vehicles know they were there. We’d decided then there was no way we’d be driving the route in Nettle. Ah, but we’ve come so far since then! In fact, it was quite relaxed and thoroughly enjoyable — it was certainly tight driving, and I was swinging the steering wheel around the entire time, often doing my don’t-look-at-the-oncoming-vehicle routine (the way I see it, it’s like throwing a ball — if I focus on what I don’t want to run into, I’ll probably veer that way). At once point while passing a large van, there was a thud as the edge of the right mirror flicked against a bit of a stairwell, but no damage. Piece of cake.

Once we had passed through Amalfi, we took a right turn towards our destination (which was actually quite close, high above us). We continued winding upwards and suddenly we were in an impenetrable fog. Oncoming cars would loom out of nowhere, twin points of their headlights the only warning. It was wonderful and atmospheric; white nothingness off the edge of the road, except the odd skeletal tree poking up. Once, we paused momentarily, staring out over the sea we could only just glimpse below us though the roiling clouds, and when we turned back to the front, we caught a glimpse of a whimsical looking tower poking through the mist before it was enveloped again. Magical. The whole thing reminded me of some of the scenery in Half Life 2, oddly (particularly Ravenholm).

We made a right turn onto a steep little side road, which we barely made it up, tires slipping on the wet surface the whole way, then picked our way though the maze-like villages, skeletal trees looming out of the fog, deep green grass beneath them, and lots of adorable brick cottages with red roofs. It was so damp and green and rural we felt like we were back in beautiful Ireland.

The trusty iPhone led us to the caravan park, and I met the owner who welcomed us in. We had lunch of tasty leftovers, and then I went and spoke with the friendly English-speaking owner about local activities — he gave us a huge amount of information on hikes we could do, which sound absolutely fantastic. Looks like we’ll be walking to Positano from here, a few-hours walk with great views along the coast, apparently. Can’t wait.

For now, though, we’re hanging out in Nettle, heater on against the cold, the wind howling outside, sometimes rocking us from side to side; every now and then, a church bell rings atmospherically, even in the middle of the night. To our chagrin, there’s no 3G here either, but the EDGE is very good, and the laptop has a night ahead of it of gathering new episodes of TV shows we’ve missed!

We love Italy!

All fuelled up (Katherine: …and feeling a little queasy), we headed out to attempt a few items on our to-do list, then realised it was Sunday. Damn!

Desperately in need of some essential groceries, we wandered until we spotted a little deli, and stopped in to pick up a big hunk of provolone cheese and parmesan, some eggs, bread, and a couple of other bits and pieces. The friendly shopkeeper was kind enough to look impressed by my “questo pane” when I asked for some bread. We need to work on our Italian!

Then underneath the railway bridge with “Ti amo” written all over it, something we see everywhere (a very amorous people, the Italians), and a stroll along the foreshore to Nettle.

I’d previously identified an area attrezzata (I forget that term and have to look it up every time), an ‘agriturismo’ called Il Giardino in a little town 45 minutes north east of Salerno, Contursi Terme. I called ahead, then we set off down the motorway, gasping with delight as every turn in the road brought us spectacular new scenery. I was very impressed by the craggy mountains in the distance, wreathed in clouds and dusted with snow (Katherine shrugged – I suspect she may have been thinking wistfully of Mount Etna).

We left the motorway and picked our way carefully along a tiny little country track, bounded by delightful farmland and cottages. Then, we saw the place, pulled into the car park that would be home for the next couple of days, and I jumped out to make our presence known.

The manager/owner sorted us out, and while he was taking down our passport details, an English-speaking relative dropped by to say hello, with a curious twang to his accent — His name was Antonio, and he’d lived for five years in Melbourne — in fact, not so far from our old neighbourhood in Carlton. His accent was very inner Melbourne Italian; he was very friendly, loud and likeable, and gave us his phone number to call should we need anything.

We had ourselves an insanely satisfying lunch of the bread and cheese we’d bought earlier, with some olive oil and the dregs of our balsamic vinegar.

We spent the evening and the following couple of days quietly working on our projects in Nettle. We must seem very strange to outsiders, arriving in a beautiful new place then sitting inside our car all day. We don’t even open our awning and sit outside! Nettle’s just so cosy, and our projects so compelling.

The weather was cold and grey, and very rainy, some nights with wild thunderstorms, and we felt wonderful and cosy, and ecstatic to be in Italy. Unfortunately, after pining for 3G all the time we were in Tunisia, there was only quite poor EDGE reception available, so, no new TV shows for us. Very sad.

After a couple of days, we ventured out. We walked alongside and over a raging river, brown with silt, then up the mossy stairs amongst the pine trees to Contursi Terme, perched atop a hill.

We wandered along the backstreets of the town, and found a little deli to pick up some more supplies (read: cheese). The shopkeepers were delightful and asked us about where we were from and how we liked the place. While they were going through the groceries we’d chosen, they kept saying “You don’t pay for this”, giving us various items for free. They were lovely!

We ended up with quite a lot of groceries, but we’d brought the back-pack and we loaded me up for the rest of our walk through the pretty town.

We were thrilled with the charm of the little town, and kept repeating “Ahh! Italy!” to each other as we walked through the cute little alleys, up a few flights of stairs to the main street. We hadn’t managed to find onions at the last place, and when we found another little supermarket, and asked for ‘cipolle’ (which I’d just looked up on my iPhone), the woman working there actually left the store to bring us some, because they didn’t have any! And then she gave them to us for free. Italians are so lovely!

We walked back down through the main street and back down the hill to Nettle, for a lunch of wine, cheese, bread and olive oil.

We spent another couple of days working, then it was time to move on. Katherine made a new friend as we were working up to leaving, an adorable black kitten who was very friendly (of course, she’s Italian!). She nuzzled and purred and chewed on our fingers for a while as we sat in the middle of the car park and played with her.

After playfully toying with the idea of staying another day to play with the kitten, we decided it was time, said farewell to the Il Giardino folks, and headed off.

There were lots of little birds around us, including a fascinating long-beaked guy that Katherine thought might’ve been a woodpecker, which was later confirmed by my bird-watcher mother (K-bomb strikes again).

One day we discovered long ‘ropes’ of caterpillars, following each other nose-to-tail, reminding me of those rat families who get around together by grabbing each others’ tails in their mouths. They all moved in almost-synchronised jerks (Katherine decided they were pop-locking; I think we’ve been watching too much So You Think You Can Dance).

We watched them for ages, fascinated; as I got close with the camera, I think I might have upset the leader caterpillar (the leaderpillar), who got a little confused and did a U-turn, which confused the guy behind him; the whole thing degenerated into chaos, a big bundle of confused caterpillars. Oops. I broke them. Katherine: “You guys are bird food.“.

We were reassured later when we discovered a tangle that had righted itself, becoming a line once more, snaking across the ground. Where were they all going? As a computer scientist, I’m always fascinated by that group/emergent behaviour, and wondered about what provision was in their natures that allowed them to rescue themselves from a tangle.

A resident cat befriended/took ownership of us, and dropped by for a spot of nuzzling and purring.

The other weird critter thing at that place was a donkey that we never actually saw, but heard every day when there was a drawn out screech/grinding sound, like a huge piece of machinery, or what we’d imagine a dinosaur would sound like! Then the familiar hee-haw followed for a while. It was weird.

The one negative about the place was the toilet/shower block, which was horrendous — we just used Nettle’s facilities. Euch! This was probably a good thing — it means we probably picked the most appropriate caravan park in Tunisia to stay at for the first two months! Yay!

We’ve done a bit of work on our respective projects; As well as ongoing projects, I’ve started a new iPhone application which should be a quick one, but should prove to be extremely useful! I can’t wait to start using it.

We’ve also done some preparation for our re-entrance to Italy (Hooray!). I installed Google Earth and was thrilled to find a bunch of GPS POI (Point Of Interest) databases for caravan parks, aires for servicing Nettle, and very excitingly, our favourite: Area Attrezzatas (actually, I think it might be aree attrezzata), which are those more casual camping facilities that are attached to other businesses, like wineries, farms or restaurants (sometimes they’re just called sosta campers too, which usually refers to just a service facility, not a place to stay overnight). They’re invariably much cheaper, and frequently much nicer than caravan parks. A little data massaging, and I brought them into Google Earth. Now we can find them on the map! This represents quite a coup for us, as we were previously reduced to chancing upon them. I don’t know why I didn’t think to try this before, but it should hopefully make our lives much easier. The other thing I discovered about using Google Earth is that it’s quite a good tool for spotting wild-camps. Brilliant!

We had a big list of things to find — throw rugs to keep us warm while we’re sitting around in Nettle, a laptop stand, keyboard and mouse for Katherine, who has been coveting my awesome workstation setup and the lack of back-pain that goes with it, a bunch of other stuff and second-hand bikes, which we still somehow haven’t managed to come by yet.

We spotted a shopping centre, which turned out to be quite small, but we did find a computer tech shop and nabbed a mouse, then headed onwards towards the medina, which we wanted to wander around for a while.

As we approached we were immediately set upon by someone who spotted us, the rich tourists; I steadfastly ignored him, having had well enough of being polite! Into the crowded cave-like corridors we went, moving at a crawl through the tight press of people — all Tunisians, no tourists that we could spot. A guy who was walking to his stall for the day, remarked to us on the busyness of the place. He worked in a perfumery, making oils and such. He told us that the proper ‘tourist’ medina was further onwards and offered to lead the way. We preferred to wander where we were, but he’d said it wasn’t far and it would’ve been nice to get our bearings a little. We followed a little way, farther than we’d anticipated, until we spotted a corridor lined with rug and blanket stalls and, spotting our opportunity to politely slip away, bid him farewell and headed down to see if we could find any throw-rugs.

No luck, but we continued wandering aimlessly, more-or-less un-harassed. It was a funny place, lots and lots of different goods available, but within each category (jeans, shoes, rugs, kitchen utensils, electronic goods, art supplies…) the goods were all the same, and choice was very limited. So, we didn’t do too well with our list of things to buy while we were still paying in Dinars.

We stopped at a café located off to the side of a covered corridor and had lunch of tasty grilled fish on a tomato sauce with chips on the side. The place was quite atmospheric, a dimly lit tunnel with Tunisians wandering by with their shopping, a bunch of men sitting outside another café nearby smoking sheeshas.

We found ourselves in the ‘touristy’ part of the medina, and entered a world of annoying pushy merchants, all with the same wares — copper-and-glass lanterns, painted pottery jars/urns, ornate hinged boxes, sheeshas (those water pipe things), bird cages, like the one Katherine bought in Medenine, and various leather goods.

The stores looked fascinating, and we would’ve stopped to investigate more, but for the amazingly stupid behaviour of the vendors — they would all stand, blocking the entrance to their shops, and as soon as they saw you looking at anything near their stall (actually, as soon as you were within earshot). they start with the badgering. Where are you from? Come look at my shop. You very beautiful. (to Katherine). One glance at a lamp or a birdcage and they would pounce and wouldn’t let you do anything else but start talking prices. We just wanted to look at stuff!

One vendor, who we naïvely thought may have been just being friendly, brought us tea and talked with us, then it was clear it was a ploy to guilt us into staying and buying something; he would first tell us to take our time looking around, give us a couple of seconds, then be back prodding and nudging, being a complete ass and touching Katherine’s hand. Katherine had originally wanted a closer look at a lamp, and by blocking the exit and keeping on us, we were hard-pressed to find an exit. He asked several times more than we would be willing to pay for a lamp that didn’t really suit us, and it was only by basically forcing our way past him out of the shop that we managed to escape. If that wasn’t enough, he actually scolded us as we walked by later!

Another vendor noticed we were looking at a bird cage, and told us it was five dinars, then once we were inside told us this one was more expensive, because it was better quality. The others were five dinars though.

After a couple of similar experiences, as well as more sleazy behaviour towards Katherine than anyone should ever have to put up with, we had had enough — it was either bail now, or fashion a shiv from whatever’s handy and just get stabby. Katherine actually wanted the bird cage we were looking at, but we were furious with the terrible behaviour of the merchant, and just walked out on him as he shouted decreasing prices after us.

We wonder if they have any idea their behaviour is so offensive as to scare off customers. We were very pleased we had visited the medina at Sfax, which was entirely devoid of such unacceptable behaviour!

We’d had enough of Tunis, and despite having managed almost nothing on our to do list, we headed back to Nettle through the rain, via the supermarket we’d identified earlier.

We’d identified a caravan park relatively close by, the other side of Hammam Lif, to spend the last few days, and headed off down the motorway. A stopover to get fuel while it was still so bafflingly cheap ended with a little concern after the attendant ripped the cover off Nettle’s fuel inlet in the process of filling up, then blithely said “ça va.” (it’s okay), and then asked for payment. Luckily it was just a clip-on thing that had come undone, and I clipped it back on easily while holding the fuel pipe from the other side. Phew!

We found our way to the caravan park, located on the far side of a very weird collection of half-finished buildings and puddle-covered dirt roads. We originally thought it was an under-construction tourist zone or something, but we later found it was a residential area. Tunisia is weird.

The caravan park appeared closed; I wandered around trying to find someone to talk to, but failed, so we just pulled up within the entrance-way, nicely out of the way, and closed up for the night.

I said something to the effect of “Now, what would be good is for there to be a knock at the door and there to be a caravan park attendant to open up for us“. Then, there was a knock at the door and there was a caravan park attendant welcoming us in. After experimentally trying “Now, what would be good is for there to be a suitcase of a few million dollars to appear“, we happily followed the dude in, plugged into the electricity hook-up, and settled in.

Our new German friends Birgit and Deiter had poetically described the amazing view of the stars from out in the desert, and we were keen to see for ourselves. Actually going out into the desert, far enough to get away town lights, was a bit of an expensive exercise, though, so we decided we’d go for the ‘lite’ version, following Birgit and Deiter’s suggestion to stay overnight near the edge of the huge salt lake Chott el-Jérid, away from towns. This way, we also get to stay in our own bed! (I suspect we’re more than a little wimpy)

So, making sure the sky was a perfectly clear blue, we set off in the afternoon — actually a little later than we’d intended, but we don’t seem to be able to do anything in a timely fashion these days! We drove about 60 ks through very pleasant golden late-afternoon light, through towns both grotty and littered, and towns almost pretty, with dense thickets of palm trees.

The road straightened out, in anticipation of the run over the lake, and we took a side road we thought was likely the one Birgit and Deiter had pointed out to us on the map. Sure enough, it led us to a collection of sandy-coloured rocks protruding from the sand, and a hard patch off the road for us to park on for the night.

It was quiet and well off the main road — well, quiet until Arabic pop music started wafting over to us from a village nearby. Still, it was far enough from any big towns that the stars were great — a bit like standing in a real-life planetarium, I thought, then couldn’t decide whether I felt silly thinking it.

It was our first ‘voluntary’ wild-camp since that awful La Goulette incident, and it felt fine. It was kinda nice to have the whole place to ourselves. Still, I couldn’t help imagining scenarios as I waited for sleep; being woken early to a knock outside and escaping the clutching hands of mad whiskey-seeking locals!

No such drama, we awoke and had breakfast; while I was washing the dishes, a guy came up and indicated that he wanted a word. Katherine muttered something to the effect of “here we go again”, and I took my reluctant time to engage and open the window. Then we felt bad — he was a friendly local who worked at a café buried in the rocks nearby and merely wanted to make its presence known to us. We thanked him and bid him a good day, feeling sheepish.

So, we set off in good spirits, excited about seeing the salt lake.

The road started out surrounded by plains dotted with salt bush, then become fairly unbroken sand. Patches of white appeared on the sand, becoming more common until the road was surrounded by salt as far as the eye could see. We passed many other motorhomers; we all flashed our lights and waved to each other, a familiar custom. Many were pulled over by the road for a better look, and we followed suit. There were lots of ramshackle “cafés”/souvenir stalls by the road, each with an accompanying collection of odd bits and pieces assembled on the salt on the opposite side of the road: Coloured salt piles, makeshift camels made of bits of wood, old boats.

The lake itself was cool — a very alien landscape, enhanced by quite cool-looking clouds overhead, and an interestingly striated mountain range in the distance.

We drove a little further and pulled over again when we saw that the salt was even denser and whiter here — awesome. We scrambled down the edge of the road and crunched our way out into the sparkling white.

So, with shoes filled with a combination of Saharan sand and Chott el-Jérid salt, we pressed onwards, north towards Gafsa, a town with a conveniently located and promising-sounding caravan park. As always, we nodded, waved and smiled at everyone we passed, all of whom stared at us as we drove by, and most of whom smiled warmly and waved too.

We had a distressing experience when we were passing through one town close to Gafsa; I saw a puppy running across the road a fair way in front of us, running past a bag or something left on the road. As we got closer, driving cautiously, aware of foolish puppies, my stomach lurched when I realised the thing on the road wasn’t a bag, but an injured puppy, clearly only just hit. The pup’s mother was rushing around and barking angrily — we were impressed by her bravery when she took on Nettle, racing at her as we passed; there was a thump when she butted against the side. As we got closer, the injured puppy turned its head towards us and yelped — there was no blood, but clearly he/she had a broken leg.

We came to a stop and fretted about what to do. We couldn’t get out safely — the puppy’s mother was in full battle mode, and there was no way we would’ve been able to get close, even if we had known what to do. If we’d been in Australia I would’ve googled the nearest vet and called, but google doesn’t work like that here. I noticed some locals looking over and, desperately hoping they or someone else would have the resources to help the pup, we regretfully inched carefully past the distressed family and drove on, feeling terrible. We drove past another dog family, puppies running around just beside the road and shook our heads. We see so many dead dogs and cats beside the road here (in Sicily, too), and wondered if it was a pet control issue, or a driver education issue.

Another 20 minutes and we arrived at the caravan park, tacked onto an odd tourist park place, with a restaurant/café, an enclosure with chickens inside, and old cars placed artfully in various places.

I filled up our freshwater tank and said farewell to our friend who showed us around the other day, and who suggested a petrol station towards Medenine for emptying our grey water tank. We drove out and proceeded to get many, many blank looks while trying to explain that we were looking for somewhere to empty our grey water. We descended into absurdity for half an hour before we gave it up as a lost cause and decided to drive on towards Douz.

Our drive took us up through a rather spectacular mountain range with some great views over the surrounding lowlands; the horizontal marks on the lower hills made the surrounding countryside look like a topological map of itself. We passed through some ancient villages, clinging to the hillsides and after passing through the town of Matmata, down onto the plains again.

The low scrubby countryside became increasingly sandy and we had to pull over to take some pictures of the awesome ripple patterns in the sand.

Just a little further down the road, we passed these guys:

We pulled over for lunch just outside of Douz, just to hang around in the tranquil desert for a while before we hit the town. We were surprised by a knock at the door — I opened it to reveal a very strange young man staring up blankly. He murmured something incomprehensible, which turned out to be a request for cigarettes, then whiskey when I announced that we didn’t smoke. When I told him all we drank was water, coffee and tea, he stood in silence for a long moment, not responding when I asked how I could help — very odd. Then, after a minute or two he asked for water (we obliged), and wandered off into the desert.

Our strange new friend returned a few minutes later, to stand once again staring up at me for a while. He invited me over to see his donkey when I gestured towards it and asked if it was his, and I shrugged and joined him. Katherine rolled her eyes in exasperation that I would follow a weird stranger who asks for whiskey into the desert, and proceeded to regularly cast nervous glances outside to see if he’d stabbed me yet. Instead, he indicated a desire to exchange phone numbers, which we did (that will be an interesting phone conversation…), before he wandered off once more.

So, we drove on into Douz, and found the Douz Camping Club by guesswork, among a quite pretty stand of palm trees.

I asked if they had a place to empty grey water, and managed to be understood on the second attempt (phew!), only to be told there were no such facilities and to just let it out on the road outside! That was a long way to transport 100 litres of grey water for no reason…I guess Tunisia has a different attitude towards waste disposal!

We met a very lovely German couple, Birgit and Dieter, who remarked that we had been following them — apparently, they had stayed a night in Hammamet while we were there too, and were in fact the ones who were parked right behind us when the place was completely full!

So, we settled in amongst the palm trees, planning a “day off” tomorrow.

There were lots of little stands by the road with piles of plastic containers filled with something-or-other, funny men standing beside them waving at us frantically. Turns out they were selling fuel — Katherine spotted a car pulled over, being filled up with a pipe. We found out later that the fuel is brought from Libya, where it’s dramatically cheaper, and sold here by the road!

We were racing the clock a little, wanting to drive the 100km to Gabès and be safely tucked into a caravan park before dark — and we wanted to have the following day ‘off’ to do things like blogging, without having to muck about finding somewhere to stay. It was dusk by the time we arrived on the outskirts of Gabès, but we made it! Katherine navigated us to the place, Fella Parc, while I concentrated on not running into anything. We weren’t sure we’d found the caravan park when we did — the sign was broken and it was kinda dark; we wandered around and decided it must be it, so we poked our heads into the restaurant and found a guy who led us to the camping pitches, amidst a construction zone.

We settled in, and there was a knock at the door later by the manager who’d come out to greet us and point out the facilities, somewhat excitedly — it was a new ‘parc ecologie’, he told me proudly after pointing out the big cage for some poor future inhabitant. Right.

We stayed two nights, I did some blogging and lots of catching up on reading others’ blogs, which I thoroughly enjoyed, particularly Katherine’s blog; kinda nice doing something that isn’t programming for a change. While we were still in bed in the morning, the manager or someone knocked on the door — a little over-keen still, I think — and I managed to make myself understood that they should come back later. The manager dude eagerly showed me around, then somehow roped me into typing up some English translation of the website when he found out I was a programmer. Then he was on my case every time I saw him later about putting up an advertisement with an Australian motorhoming club! He wouldn’t let up! Just… weird and uncomfortable.

In return for the typing, he invited us to lunch at the restaurant, with what I originally thought he meant was his family (ma famille), which would’ve been interesting, but I think he actually said “your wife” (ta/votre femme), so it was just Katherine and I — eh, that works too, we’re not particularly social people. Lunch was fun, some Tunisian soup, a frittata-like slice thing, and lots of tasty, cinnamon-y couscous. Plus wine, ah, red wine, it’s been so long!

We set off with some relief from Gabès, headed for Medenine. The scenery got very deserty and interesting. There were more 4WD roadworks, and some hilarious bad-truck-driver shenanigans — big truck overtaking another big truck on a crest of a hill with zero-visibility of oncoming traffic, always a recipe for awesomeness. And, there was a whole lot of empty space.

We arrived in Medenine, had a little trouble finding our destination, but made it after asking someone; we were there to have a look at the Medenine ksar, a Berber construction: A series of mud-brick granaries built all together making a continuous collection of cave-like alcoves. It was all a bit disappointing — probably, a Google image search would’ve been sufficient to see what there was to see — and the aforementioned alcoves were chock full of pushy souvenir vendors. Still, Katherine managed to score some bits that she genuinely liked, so not a total loss! The town itself was fairly unpleasant, so we were happy to drive out again soon after.

We were hoping to make it all the way to Tataouine and stay there for the night, but we know of no caravan parks anywhere near it, and we remain a little skittish about wildcamping still. We decided to stay in a caravan park/hotel in the little nearby village of Metameur, Hotel les Gorfas.

We had read that the place was converted from a ksar, but when we got there we realised we’d done a lot better than we’d imagined: The place was beautiful, the mud-brick hut things all piled up on top of each other whimsically. It was a vastly more awesome ksar than the one we’d actually come to the area to see. It was also very peaceful and quiet, something we hadn’t really had yet in Tunisia.

What was even cooler was the reception we had. A young man and older woman, both incredibly sweet, showed us in and pointed us to the facilities, then the adorable older woman offered us some mint tea and showed us around the impressive ksar.

Then, just after we thought we might take a walk through the village, a friendly guy around our age said hello to us and took us on a tour through the village!

He showed us several ancient Berber residences, part of the ksar, and pointed out the house (now abandoned) where his grandmother once lived.

He introduced us to someone who I assume was a family member (we spoke in French, and most of it’s guesswork for us!), in a yard with two frolicking horses. He was working on a stall, and discovered a scorpion in the process, picking it up in his hand, then offered it to me. Jibbley-jibbley a real live scorpion in my hand, but not killing me apparently cos here I am still alive. Also I may be overstating things slightly.

He pointed out the village graveyard, and the area where some of his family members are buried, and he asked if Katherine and I come from the same village, which hurt my head a little trying to think of our home towns as villages.

Then he showed us how the Tunisian scarves are worn:

Awesome! This place and its people are the greatest!

Here’s an interactive version of the map:

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.

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.