We’re headed up to Bath to visit some old friends of Katherine who are over from Australia for a few months of travel; we’ll see a couple of the sights with them while they’re here, and then get back to work!

Nettle remembered how to go splendidly, and we set off down the little country lane we’re so used to riding our bikes down while Noia the GPS navigator was getting her act together. The novelty was back (not that it ever truly disappears!) and it was great fun to be driving this enormous vehicle around. We drove up amongst gently rolling green hills with a patchwork of fields in many shades of green, and followed Noia’s directions towards our first destination: Tintagel (which we learned was “tin-TAA-gel”, not “TIN-tah-ghel”, and most certainly not “tin-taggle”), which was recommended to us by our good friends Tara and Tyler.

On our way there, we narrowly avoided getting stuck down an ever-narrowing road, but were luckily turned back by a friendly local, with assistance turning around from another local, who let us into her field to turn.

We made it there, parked in a sloping grassy field marked out as a car park, and wandered down a little pathway heading across some fields and signposted towards the cliffs and the castle, and requesting care as there were badger homes nearby that wanted protecting. There was a mother with her somewhat obnoxious-seeming ten-ish year old boy who was complaining loudly about something-or-other, and we shook our heads judgementally about “UK children”. Get off my lawn, you kids.

Tintagel is, as the informational signage at the site proudly proclaims, the legendary site of King Arthur’s birth. Legendary is the key word here of course — it’s only because a monk named Geoffrey of Monmouth decided to make Tintagel the birthplace of Arthur while reinventing the story that it’s considered as such! The power of the story…

A short documentary playing at the entrance explained the several different forms the King Arthur legend has taken throughout the years, and how it had been “reinvented” periodically to suit the era.

We walked through the churchyard of an old church and towards the cliffs, getting our first proper glimpse of the coastline, and gasped — it was beautiful, and completely reminiscent of the Causeway Coast in Ireland! Bright green fields descending to a smoothly-rounded coast edge, crinkled in parts, and a rocky edge meeting the startlingly blue sea. The vision was completed by dramatically swirling white clouds across the blue sky. The path led along the cliffs, sided by tall grasses dotted with colourful flowers in yellow and purple.

We drew alongside the outcrop of land that Tintagel castle once stood on, rising precipitously from the blue water with jagged, rocky cliffs, and squatting roundly like a bar of soap. A bridge connected it to the mainland, with a zig-zagging path that led up and around the low ruins. After approaching the start of the bridge and noticing the hefty admission price, we balked and did an about-face, choosing to wander the surrounding coastline instead of going for a close-up look at the ruins. It was all very beautiful and what we now think of as “Ireland-esque”.

Bellies rumbling, we took the hedge-lined path teeming with butterflies towards the village, for a couple of pasties and tea/scones in (of course) King Arthur’s Bistro, beside King Arthur’s Bookshop and King Arthur’s Car Park. That guy has it all.

Hunger nicely satiated, we ambled up the street past some very charming rickety old stone cottages and the old post office, roof bulging and dipping whimsically along its length. Back to Nettle, grinning at the enthusiastic collie sprinting around the field, tongue lolling, we set off again towards Exmoor National Park.

After a brief stop-in at a supermarket to stock up on supplies (no flour-and-water pancakes for us, no!) we turned onto the lovely little country road that led to our destination through more patchwork fields, bordered by hedges full of those great purple flowers — the view out the window looked like a painting, perfectly aesthetically arranged. I jumped out and hung off Nettle’s roof to snap a few pictures, then we arrived at the CL that would be home for the next day while we did a little exploring of the national park.

This is a beautiful country!

We were there to see the Good Friday procession, apparently the most ancient procession tradition in Italy. Every year, local men and children wear spooky-looking white hoods (Yes, I know what they look like…) and bearing torches, accompany floats carried by solemn-looking bearers through the town. The floats represented various stations of the cross — lances, rooster and a severed hand, Christ on the cross, the body of Christ, a mourning Mary — none of which I really understood with my lack of religious education, but Katherine filled in some blanks later on. Particularly promising-sounding was the orchestra and choir that accompanied the procession, who performed Miserere, apparently the work of a local composer, Selecchy (1708-1788).

We found the piazza at the front of the cathedral and milled around with a few hundred others — seemingly almost all locals, we didn’t see any other obvious foreigners there. Participants were all dressed up and chatting, adjusting hoods and shaking their glow-sticks to life (Glow sticks! How could they!).

As the sky began to darken and the cathedral’s bells rang, people shuffled around to face the cathedral’s entrance; those participating were lined up in parish groups. Down the steps came the first station of the cross, borne by men in gold and black — an angel, presumably, although neither of us knew the significance. This was met by the first group who marched onwards, as the next float came down, four or five pikes sticking up.

The procession continued, winding around the piazza and leading down a small side street as we gathered and watched them go. Almost everyone in the crowd around us crossed themselves as the float carrying the body of Christ went past! Finally, the musicians followed, violins, flutes and a variety of brass instruments, and the choir.

There was a sermon in Italian, broadcast through speakers being borne along with the procession, and the orchestra and choir started — quite moving, and impressive with the acoustics of the square.

We followed the crowd down a different street to meet the procession there, and heard another run through of the speech, and another Miserere. We waited at the side of the torch-lined street, noticing others doing the same, for the procession to come back around so we could get a better look. Half an hour or more passed, watching kids race around each other making gzzzsh gun noises at each other, then an amusing scene with a little girl standing and pointing at another girl holding an ice-cream, getting increasingly upset in her envy as the ice-cream bearer returned her gaze nonchalantly. This is where we learn about not always getting what we want!

Police motorcycles cleared the road, and the first of the procession arrived, two rows passing beside us, with the floats in the middle. Kinda creepy, with those masks!

The trailing orchestra reached us, and started up as they walked past.

Those voices belting out right beside us was quite a thing to behold — quite powerful and moving! We shared an impressed glance as they came to an end, then as the crowd dispersed, set off on the walk back home.

That was absolutely awesome! The whole thing felt authentic and genuine, no touristy stuff here, just a fine tradition that we were fortunate enough to get to witness.

We stopped in blissful quiet on the verge a few metres off the side of the road, switched on the boiler so we could have hot showers, treated ourselves to the use of our gas-guzzling heater, and I pulled out the laptop for a little programming, resting my feet against the warm heater while the water heated up and Katherine had the first shower. Warm, filling porridge for breakfast, then, feeling refreshed, warm, clean and good to go, we hit the road again, heading for Dougga, site of some promising-sounding ruins.

Almost immediately, we were struck by the change in the landscape around us — the first leg of our drive took us though some pine-covered mountainous terrain that for some reason reminded us strongly of Ireland! Only, instead of bog as far as the eye can see, there was scrubby ground-cover on dry dirt and rock. Looks similar from a distance.

I pulled over for a moment to take a picture, and a village youngster came over to say hello and (of course) ask for a dinar.

The scenery became greener and greener, and soon we were driving through gentle rolling green hills, a blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds completing the scene — a real sight for sore eyes, especially given that it was one which contained no garbage. We were reminded of the French countryside, then English farmland, the greens a very pretty bright emerald shade.

We gaped at a Roman arch we passed, sitting casually by the side of the road.

We stopped just outside of Dougga for lunch, by the road surrounded by grassy plains, then headed to the ruins along a little back-street that led up through the town, past chickens and tractors. We crested a hill and were struck by the intense green of a large field in the sun — we could be in Ireland! Except for the Roman city atop a neighbouring hill, behind an olive orchard.

We pulled up in the car park, put on all our warm gear and headed out into the biting wind.

This ancient town is probably the most impressive ruins we’ve seen — the detail that remains is amazing, and for the most part it’s quite easy to imagine it how it was at its peak in 2-4 AD. We walked along paved roads — a little buckled now in places, but still remarkably intact — passed by very solid-looking high stone walls, wandered in awe around the semicircle of a huge theatre, crossed an immaculate square with a still-visible engraved circle naming the twelve winds, beside an immense temple. We admired stone blocks engraved with carefully lettered text, and thought the font looked quite familiar — hey, that looks like Times New Roman.

We laughed at the sociably arranged latrines in a bath house, mere holes in a semi-circular bench, placed close enough that the users would probably all but have their thighs touching!

We were surprised to be told by our guidebook that the ruins were inhabited until the early 1950′s, when the inhabitants were shuffled out to ‘Nouvelle Dougga’, the new town.

As we wandered the crumbling city of light grey stone, in some places we felt a little like we were walking around the city of Rohan from Lord of the Rings, streets built in tiers into the hillside. The way the city soared above the surrounding emerald plains probably contributed to the impression, too.

We were quite awed, despite being almost chilled to the bone in that nasty wind. We would’ve liked to wander a little longer, but time had run out on us, and the hypothermia probably wouldn’t have held off much longer anyway. We headed back to Nettle, put the heater on full blast, and hit the road, having decided to make the drive to Tunis rather than face another wild-camp.

The drive was, again, very enjoyable as we passed through some really very pretty scenery, enhanced further by that magic late afternoon glow. We spotted the poignant/macabre scene of a stork and her offspring nesting atop a power pylon with the corpse of a prior hatchling fluttering in the breeze, caught on a piece of nest.

Our first glimpse of Tunis as we topped a rise was startling — the sprawl of the city as far as the eye could see was something we weren’t used to, having travelled for the most part through little villages.

Our dusk drive through the capital was very silly — large intersections where, truly, anything goes, and traffic flow is dictated solely by the patience of the drivers involved (‘give way as long as you can be bothered doing so’); traffic lights that no one pays any heed to; impatient drivers edging into the oncoming traffic, pushing others off to the right of the road in the process; pedestrians so oblivious of traffic that I first had to rev the engine to alert the three girls that I was there and trundling along behind them, then had to repeat the process to avoid clocking another guy over the back of the head with my mirror, the footpath devoid of any foot traffic just beside him. It was all fairly relaxed though, and the various impressive feats of insanity we observed mere entertainment as we crawled along through the traffic.

We were a bit disappointed when we arrived at our destination — a car park that Birgit and Dieter had suggested to us — having pictured something like the basic-but-secure car park-cum-caravan park in Palermo, walled in with a gate. Instead, it was a wide open shopping centre car park, beside a park; not particularly well-lit, and the guy that met us as we drove in said we could only stay a night, instead of the flexibility we were expecting. Still, it was a place to stop, and we closed up for the night, hoping for no whiskey-seekers.

Along the way, and for our drive afterwards, we were amazed by our treatment as we drove through little towns — everywhere, people waved or gave us the thumbs up. In one town in particular, everyone was in on it, jumping around and waving as we drove by!

We found a park at the tourist centre, and were immediately set upon independently by two men who apparently worked in souvenir shops within the centre. The first wanted to show us some trinkets to buy; we sent him off. The second was after the same, but first asked us for — you guessed it — whiskey. As always, they persisted for way beyond the time that would be considered polite and acceptable, and we felt quite furious by the time I saw the second man off. We swallowed our irritation (Katherine: “I didn’t swallow my irritation. I let it rage, baby.“) and reminded ourselves that we’ll be back in Italy in just a few days.

We had a quick snack, toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches again — so good to have cheese again! — and walked through the tourist centre (doing our best to ignore one of the irritating vendors), to get tickets to visit the site.

Katherine remarked on the unfortunate fact that she felt like she wanted to race through the ruins as quickly as possible so we could get back to Nettle, our comfort zone (and keep Nettle safe from any store vendors that thought they might have a go at break-and-entry, as unlikely as that would be).

Italy definitely can’t come soon enough, for us! We puzzled over what would lead so many men to ask foreigners for whiskey — it’s happened to us about eight times, representing a good proportion of the places we’ve stopped. I was kinda hoping it’d become a bit of an in-joke and be funny, but it’s just irritating. I wondered whether it might be a cultural thing — an artefact of the still-present Berber culture’s hospitality that makes it appropriate here for strangers to ask for such things; but it’s alcohol — there’s nothing acceptable about that! Particularly so in Tunisian culture, where it’s forbidden (therein lying part of the answer, I suspect). I suppose every society has its problematic individuals. We just seem to be meeting all of them, one by one.

Anyway, talking about the issue made it more intellectual than emotional and irritating, and we soon forgot it in the splendour of the ancient Roman town.

We were amazed at the preserved details, particularly the intricate mosaics in the bathhouses, including one large room with a completely intact mosaic floor. The temples, for which Sufetula is most well-known, are very impressive, towering above the surrounding rubble.

We pretended to each other that we were shocked and offended at the affectionate antics of a young local couple who were flirting with each other around the temple — a shameful display of public affection! We, on the other hand, as usual, would keep an eye out for onlookers and steal a hug or kiss before someone noticed (shows of public affection being considered rude here). It’ll be nice to hold hands in public again in Italy! Always feels weird just walking side by side.

We returned to Nettle and pondered our next move — we’d heard tell of a hotel nearby that lets motorhomers stay in the car park for a whopping 18 dinars (about $16 AUD or something like €9 EUR, off the top of my head). We thought we’d have a look, and laughed when the guy at reception told us 25 dinars! For a car park! We scoffed and drove onwards, keeping an eye out for a wild-camp suitably away from any towns and whiskey-seekers.

We drove for a long way and didn’t find any places that looked particularly appealing. We ended up settling for pulling over by the edge of a smaller quiet side road. We had waved to a girl leading a donkey in the nearby village as we did a U-turn, and after we pulled over, a louage (minibus taxi-like thing) pulled up and she hopped out — Just to say hello! At least, we thought it was her — kinda difficult to tell, given that she was all wrapped up in a shawl earlier. She was very sweet — as Katherine remarked, outgoing enough to come out to say hi, but too shy to actually say anything when she got here! I attempted a little conversation in French, but her French was worse than mine (hooray! I’m better at French than someone!), and she ended up saying a shy good-bye and leaving again in the louage!

So we settled in, at a rather large slant which, strangely, always makes it hard for me to walk around in Nettle, and Katherine made dinner while I post-processed photos.

A less pleasant interchange happened next, when there was a tap at the door — What the crap? Even out here? — I opened the window and peered out. There was a 14 or 15 year old boy, very timid with presumably very little French, who was asking for…something. Katherine picked up “l’eau” (water), and I repeated it as a question — you want water? He nodded, then said something about medicine. Medicine? For what? What kind of medicine? (In French, where we could). Blank look. Katherine wondered if he had a headache or something and was after Panadol — I prompted in broken French, medicine for the head? Yes, he nodded, medicine for the head. Um.

About five or ten minutes of prompting later, with me carefully repeating details and asking for confirmation, doing hand gestures, going around in circles, and suffering many long uncomfortable silences, he managed to change his story and communicate a very confusing and contradictory tale about needing 10 dinars to go home. No, not in a taxi or a louage, in a car. His friends’ car. Why was his friend asking for 10 dinars? Why didn’t he have the money already? Oh, it was a louage? Your friend is the louage driver? Why not pay him when you arrive at home? It went on and on, with me getting more frustrated and almost shouting at the guy in my appalling French. I suggested getting the driver to come here so we could pay him, I suggested hitch-hiking; he wanted 10 dinars so he could go home. 10 dinars. To go home. Who knows what that thing at the start had been, about water/medicine…

About twenty minutes had gone by, and Katherine had dinner ready and going cold on the table. We had only a 20 dinar note. Our choices were to close the window and have an audience for the rest of the night (or have a break-in attempt like at La Goulette!), to just drive off to escape with dinner sliding around the table, or to just give him the 20 dinar note and hope that we were doing a good deed and not just getting conned. Another item for our “Rascals” expense category!

Oh well. I guess we saved 5 dinars by wild-camping instead of staying at the hotel. It’s funny how the money never matters — $17 means very little to us, really — but there’s something about the experience of being separated from money when we feel like we’re being had that’s very uncomfortable. Hopefully he was legit, just a little slow and bad at communicating. Katherine remarked on how similar his manner was to the strange guy we met outside of Douz — the same long silences, just standing there staring at me, the same timid manner.

Just a few more days till Italy and being left alone!

For a silly end to a silly day, just as we were falling off to sleep around 11:30, a car pulled up outside and there was yet another knock at the door (we’re going to have to install one of those deli ticket serving systems out there , I think). We swore, jumped out of bed, threw our clothes on, put the bed up, put some stray dishes onto the floor where they wouldn’t cause trouble if we had to leave quickly, then I grabbed the keys, put them in the ignition and gingerly opened the window. This time, it was better than we’d expected — it was the friendly National Guard.

They kindly told us they didn’t think our last-ditch-effort wildcamp was safe (then the other guy disagreed and said no, there was no danger!), checked our passports, and then suggested we stay in the town. I explained the difficulty we had finding somewhere else to stop, and our aversion to staying in towns (whiskey, whiskey, whiskey), and they laughed and said we should tell any whiskey-seekers that we have friends in the National Guard (or something to that effect); pas du whiskey!. They suggested they lead us back into the closest town and drop us off outside the police station to stay there for the night. We agreed, they apologetically bid us good night, and we drove on into town to be deposited at our worst wildcamp ever: Right beside the busy main road amidst a louage stop! Loud trucks, motorbikes, passing right by our ears, yet we managed to fall off to sleep fairly quickly and slept well.

A little detour through Medanine due to a road closure, through one of the many “road blocks” with a big STOP sign and a couple of police standing around — I always slow right down at these and look over at the police, and they invariably smile and wave us though, along with everyone else. By “Stop”, of course, they mean “Whatever, it’s all good!”

As we headed away from Medanine the wind was getting quite strong, conveniently counteracting the gentle rightwards steering drift that Nettle has had since bumping into a couple of kerbs on some of Italy’s insanely narrow streets (we’re thinking we’ll get her aligned again once we’re in France!).

The countryside became very desert-like and the sand became so fine that it was pouring across the road, driven by the wind, looking like tendrils of mist. It was quite hypnotic, streaming along in front of us as I fought the steering wheel against the wind. We thought sympathetically of Tara and Tyler riding through this.

We arrived in Tataouine after about 45 minutes; I was a little surprised to find it quite a big, modern-looking town, not quite the sandy collection of huts-filled-with-techno-junk than George Lucas would have you believe. That guy makes terrible documentaries.

We drove on, headed for Ksar Ouled Soltane south of Tatouine, another ksar (the Berber mud-brick huts/storage facilities that look so cool) which sounded promising. The drive there was fascinating, getting ever-more deserty. We passed through a few towns, men, women and children waving cheerfully as we drove past.

We parked by the road and hopped out to wander around the Ksar, which was indeed impressive. There were lots of whimsical little alcoves and organic-looking stairways.

We met a friendly local who attended the site, ran a little mini-café inside one of the little rooms (ghorfas) and made and sold watercolor paintings. We chatted for a little while (he spoke English), and we bought one of his paintings that we liked.

We drove onwards, to the ancient village of Chenini, a Berber hilltop village perched high above the surrounding landscape. When we entered the new village, we were flagged down by several young guys making somewhat inscrutable gestures. After a little incomprehension, it become clear they were offering tours. We conferred and then agreed, and we welcomed aboard a youngster who would accompany us to the old village.

After winding our way along the mountain with some amazing views, we stopped first at a cool ancient mosque that kinda looked like a miniature of itself, all organic and handmade-looking. We were invited inside for a look around, and our guide explained many very interesting things, in French, that we made the appropriate noises in response to but understood not a word of. Oh, well. The mosque was awesome though, as was the view from the hillside behind it.

Back to Nettle and happy she hadn’t been blown off the cliff yet, we drove back around the corner to the village proper, parked, and struggled on foot up the road, battling the grit-filled wind that became a gale at the top of the hill, making it hard to stand.

Our guide flitted us around, us fighting the wind the whole time, popping in and out of some abandoned cave-like rooms with tiny little doorways; he took us into the home of a very old woman with tattoos over her face (we are kicking ourselves that we didn’t take her picture), again, like a cave — funny to see a stove and fridge there.

At this point we would’ve loved to just roam around the village at our own pace, and afterwards we really regretted accepting a tour, but instead we headed back to Nettle for the last part of the tour.

As Katherine was getting back into Nettle, the wind caught the door with enormous force and slammed it right into the side of her head — Shit! I jumped out and found her crouched over in pain. Very luckily, she swiftly recovered and was fine — a bit of a lump, but okay. Writing about it makes me realise how poorly I handled the incident — I should’ve had her sit down and just be still for a while, at least, followed by close monitoring. I need to brush up on my first aid. This time, anyway, everything was fine. We now have a healthy caution of the door on windy days!

Shortly after, we drove on down the road a little, following our guide’s directions — a copse of palms, with a well, the significance of which was lost on us due to the language barrier.

So alas, we’d run out of time — it was time to start heading back to Metameur before it got dark. We feel like we sorta wasted the opportunity to see Chenini, and if we had a second chance would avoid the tour. Damn. We drove back through the amazing countryside, and settled in for the night back at the ksar in Metameur.

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!

We inched our way through the city traffic, weaving around pedestrians and motorbikes (not the other way around, of course), and with minimal pain found a spacious manned car park. We were here to visit the medina, the ancient marketplace, which we’ve read is one of the most ‘real’ and un-touristy, where others tend to be packed full of pushy souvenir vendors.

Sure enough, it was brilliant — no hassling whatsoever. We just wandered around amongst the locals, with a friendly “salut” or an “aslama” here and there.

We met a guy working a stall when he asked where we were from as we passed by — we paused to answer, and we just kinda kept talking; His name was Baha, and he spoke English, which was refreshing. He got a neighbouring vendor to watch his store and took us around the corner (we lagged behind a little, cautiously) to where his brother was selling drums and some other freaky-looking traditional instruments.

He surprised us by not asking us to buy anything, and instead took us for a coffee, which was great — he told us he lived in Tataouine (you know, where Anakin Skywalker lived), and travelled in to work sometimes. As always, there was a bit of a communication barrier, but we got by. He showed us how our names were written in Arabic:

And he wrote down his address in Tataouine for us, in case we needed him! We’d read about the persistence of the hospitable Berber culture in Tunisia, and I think it’s definitely apparent.

We’d just said farewell to Baha, and were wandering through some back-alleys taking pictures of some excitingly grungey-looking doors, when two young women paused to puzzle over what we were doing, and one jokingly posed for me in front of a door:

They surprised us by speaking to us in excellent English. They gave us funny looks and asked us why the hell we were taking pictures of grotty doors, and what on earth we were doing in Tunisia of all places. Classic!

They were art students at the Sfax art university, Sirine and Amal, and after checking what our plans were, they invited us to have coffee with them at a café/studio they were headed to.

It was absolutely brilliant to be able to meet some Tunisian women finally — we were a little frustrated at talking with just guys, not having a woman’s perspective at all; in fact, just the day before Katherine had voiced that frustration, so it was great timing! Plus speaking in English helped massively — we really aren’t at the point where we can understand very much at all. We just tend to make up for ourselves the other person’s side of the conversation, which can have interesting results. They said it was nice to speak English for a while.

So, we joined them at the café, an artist’s haunt, with a room upstairs for painting and milling about creatively — Sirine negotiated for us to head upstairs briefly to say hi to their friends (I admit, at this point I was remembering the art scam that got Kevin Rose and Glenn McElhose in China, but once again, all was well!). They spoke for a moment in Arabic, and when I observantly noted “that isn’t English!”, they explained that they were commenting on my beauty. It’s the hair, you see. I nodded modestly and agreed that I was quite the looker.

So, we four grabbed a table downstairs and spoke for ages about a variety of topics — life in Tunisia for women, and in Australia, and marriage; Sirine was, I suspect, a tad baffled at our opinions towards marriage — “but you love each other, why not just get married?” — We explained how marriage has much less weight in Australia, for various reasons, and that with us two it was just something we didn’t see as necessary; We know we’re going to spend the rest of our lives loving each other, and that was enough, at least for now! Of course, that’s a very big contrast to here in Tunisia, where you’re not even really allowed to even go out at night as a woman until you’re married. It’s actually illegal to live together here unless you’re married! Luckily, there’s a little lenience towards tourists. It sounds a bit like one remains with a child’s restrictions until the ring is on your finger! Sirine mused that she’s probably quite fortunate — her family sound quite tolerant and moderate!

We spoke about family life and obligations, the art university and it’s modern and moderate nature, and their chosen specialities — ceramics for Amal, and sculpture for Sirine. They told us that teaching art was a very good career, and well paid.

We also spoke about being a traveller in Tunisia, and they warned us about being too trusting, like when meeting someone who offers to take you somewhere. We gave them a look — “well, not us!”. I think they should make the evil-doers wear a badge or something. Sirine said something disparaging about my manly strength compared to the big strong dangerous local men. I think she probably had a point. Maybe I could defeat them with my mighty brain? It’s an interesting conundrum, though. Do you play it safe all the time and never have any new experiences, or do you take chances and risk your safety? Maybe we just need to learn how to improvise a shiv from nearby objects.

Sirine was engaged to a Tunisian man — from Sfax — living in Paris, and was happy to be getting out of Tunisia. She told us that she always knew she wanted to marry a foreigner (I guess this way she keeps the family happy and gets to marry someone who’s living overseas and is all Frenchified!). She actually suggested that we come and attend her wedding in Sfax in August, which was very touching, although we couldn’t have made it. We’re totally going to catch up in Paris though.

So, Amal and Sirine gave us their full names to look them up on Facebook (man, that thing is so international!), and we’re going to stay in touch. It was just brilliant to meet them, both to talk about how they lived and just to hang out with cool people in our age group! We wished each other well and parted ways.

We wandered our way back to Nettle, who was still there and still in one piece — awesome — then had a quick lunch and headed out of Sfax. People here drive…differently to people in other places.

We hit the motorway and drove south, stopping to fill our LPG tank at one of the few-and-far-between petrol stations that actually sell LPG; then off the freeway and into the town of El Jem, home of a World Heritage-listed colosseum, little brother to the one in Rome.

El Jem itself was a bit confronting — dirty, busy. Everywhere in Tunisia, everyone looks at us; we do kinda draw attention to ourselves, what with being inside a freaking awesome motorhome. I can’t speak for Katherine, but with my new-found paranoia and agoraphobia, everyone looked like they were scowling! We found a busy car park just a short walk from the colosseum and settled down for a quick snack; almost instantly an odd twitchy guy came up and peered in the window. Katherine opened it and said hi; he said something unintelligible (to us, anyway). He went away after Katherine said we speak only English. We saw him later, when we returned briefly to Nettle for extra cash, peering in through the windows. Freaked. Me. Out.

So, it felt like a real struggle to leave Nettle there as we walked to the thing. We both kept looking back to see if she was still there.

The colosseum itself was pretty impressive — it was pretty much all-access; we wandered around in the dark tunnels underneath, up the different levels. As we walked in, the call to prayer started, making it all feel very atmospheric. There were parts that looked a little too un-eroded, and we realised there were builders rebuilding/augmenting it. I’m not sure whether I approve or disapprove! Good view over the town from the upper levels — a sightly different view to that from the one in Rome! A tour group of Chinese tourists were wandering through; we said hello to one couple and they ‘Ni-how‘-d back, which was kinda funny to hear in Tunisia. There was graffiti scratched into the stone from 1894. That is freaking brilliant!

We walked back to Nettle, having a hooray-she’s-still-there moment (we kinda get that every time we come back to her), followed by a little oh-dear moment when we thought that our satellite dish had come un-stowed and was flapping around in the breeze — I’d joked about us forgetting to put away the sail earlier when we were driving into the hardcore headwind. Nah, it was just a satellite dish on a cabin thing behind Nettle. Besides, who’d build a satellite dish attachment that faced into the wind when you were driving?

Also: Yay, not broken into, so we drove off happily unscathed. Somehow I kinda missed the freeway we’d come in on, which wasn’t on our paper map, or on Google Maps on my iPhone, so we ended up on the plain old secondary road ambling through each town. Man, these little towns are pretty gross — no offence to their residents. Garbage strewn all over the countryside — it’s quite a thing to behold.

Our initial Plan A was to wild-camp somewhere out of town and out of the way. We chickened out, though. We’d both spent the day so far feeling very tense and nervous — desperately in need of some positive experiences to get our confidence back — so we decided we’d drive the 100-120km or so to Bir Ali Bin Halifah, a little town about 60km west of Sfax. It was a seriously long drive, and I was exhausted by the time we arrived, to find…well…nothing. There was no camp-site, and the petrol station guys knew of nothing of the sort nearby. I guess I mis-interpreted that campsite listing.

So, with evening rapidly approaching, we had no choice but to wild-camp. We drove wearily back the way we came, keeping a keen eye out for somewhere, anywhere to stop. Then I spotted a repeater tower (one of those big towers with satellite dishes on it) with some compacted dirt around it, and pulled in. A security dude came out of the hut and we waved, and I jumped out and told him we desperately needed a place to spend the night and was it cool if we stayed. I don’t think he spoke much French (he kept saying bonjour, though), but I did some miming and he was fine with it. We brought him tea and biscuits as thanks.

So, we had our very own security guard! Awesome. Plus the radiation coming from the high-tension power lines running into the tower station thing would probably fry anyone that came close. That and two guard dogs, who were probably mutated by the radiation and probably shot lasers out of their eyes. Sorted. We settled in as evening turned to night, surrounded by a billion miles of red dirt/sand and olive trees.

Our first foray out into the world was a day trip, out to Kerkouane near the tip of Cap Bon. Kerkouane is apparently the world’s most well-preserved Carthaginian city, abandoned in 3 BC during the Punic Wars.

The drive out there was quite lengthy, and ran through many small towns with tricky, crowded narrow streets, with every man and his donkey wandering over them — footpaths are for wimps and tourists, donchaknow? We are constantly amused by the way the locals drive and act on the roads — it’s every man for himself, for sure, even if you’re a pedestrian!

We saw lots of horse-drawn carts ambling along the soft edges of the road, and fields and fields of fennel — they love the fennel, here!

We arrived outside the entrance to Kerkouane, and had lunch in Nettle in the car park while we watched a Buffy episode (of course). We wandered around the site, fascinated — it really is quite amazing: Although the walls are sheared down to waist-height, it’s quite easy to make out the layout of all of the houses. Red baths are still there in the bathrooms, the drains, indoor wells…Plaques around the site explained a few things here and there, including describing the layouts of a few houses, kitchens, dining rooms, bedrooms, private worship altars. Awesome. People actually lived here 2000 years ago, within these walls. They probably didn’t watch Buffy though. Maybe the Simpsons.

We pondered our next move for a while, feeling silly about just retracing our steps back to Hammamet for the night, but decided to stick with it, as it made the most sense logistically. Long drive back to Hammamet for our last night — the manager laughed when he saw us again, and when I grinned and asked him if it was cool if we stayed one more night, he said we can stay ‘tout de l’année‘ – all year!

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.

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.

We were destined for Pompeii, and the drive took us well past dusk — it was dark by the time we drove through the immense urban sprawl and found the caravan park that Jen and Annie had discovered for us, down a rather unlikely-seeming street in the back-waters of the town (Note: further movements around said town revealed that the entire suburban region would appear to be back-water. Eww!).

So, Timmy and I jumped out and scouted for a place to park amongst the trees, performed Nettle’s ablutions, and we settled in. Another enormous electrical storm during the night, which in my mostly-asleep state I worried might be Vesuvius. Was there an early warning system in place? Could we escape in Nettle?

The next morning — magma free — the team cooked up a feast of scrambled eggs, fried cherry tomatoes and mushrooms and coffee, and all fuelled up, we donned our wet weather gear and headed out to the ruins of ancient Pompeii, which happened to be right beside the caravan park. Not having personally done much reading about Pompeii in advance, I was surprised to find an entire city, not just a few ruins.

We found ourselves wandering down cobbled streets, now distorted and irregular, lined by residences with intricate tiled floors and faded frescoes on the walls. Vesuvius squatted in the background, a constant, gloating presence (okay, that was a little fanciful). Columns, pocked and free-standing, marked the locations where temples stood; unfortunately the informational booklet was not particularly forthcoming on how and why the locals worshipped, or many other details of the lives of the people that lived here. I just kept picturing that Doctor Who episode set here to fill in the gaps (I’m not proud).

Graffiti scratched into the wall of a temple carried the date 1808, which was an interesting — even the tourist graffiti is ancient. Plaster casts of bodies found at the site were displayed, strewn carelessly amongst dusty shelves of jars and other paraphernalia. These sent a shiver down my spine; the most disturbing being a dog, all twisted up like it was writhing in pain.

We returned to Nettle, to discover that we had been infested by the local ants, who were moving enthusiastically into a gap just beneath the windscreen. Spent some time mopping the buggers up, and wiping their trails off with soapy water, then discovered that the electricity wasn’t working, which made us a little skittish after some other Australians stopped by to say hi, and told us their fridge had stopped working on gas (which is quite a setback) — they had us pondering our reliance on our equipment! Anyway, after checking the pillar we were plugged into, checking with the neighbours and trying another pillar, we eventually discovered that the safety switch had been tripped (ants again?). That’s an easy fix, at least.

So, with our new insect companions we set off again the following day, for Sorrento on the Amalfi coast — an exciting prospect that had us anticipating days of lazing on the beach by turquoise water. The start of the drive there took us through some pretty nasty areas: Derelict buildings, pot-holed roads, rubbish and dirty water. Things picked up somewhat as we approached Sorrento, taking a road that ran high above the coast, with views over the water towards Vesuvius and the suburban sprawl climbing its sides, perhaps a little unwisely.

The roads got progressively narrower, until we were edging along past other cars, trucks and coaches going in the opposite direction — quite a tight squeeze in parts. We arrived intact though, at the caravan park just outside of Sorrento. We have a very pleasant view out of the front windows of Nettle, down over the bay, though the caravan park’s many olive trees.

We have a “beach”, where some rocks meet the sea, and Timmy and I took a quick dip before joining the others sitting on the rocks above with a bottle or two of wine.

For the following day, Jen and Annie had booked us passage over to the popular island of Capri, apparently the holiday-home of the rich and famous. We met the boat down on the ‘beach’ early in the morning, and were shuttled the short distance to the island, with one boat changeover along the way (where we all hopped over the side of the boat into the other one). Timmy, ever the people-magnet, made friends with a German passenger beside us.

Capri’s water was a stunning bright aqua, luminescent in the sunlight. We had a coffee at a nearby café with a very friendly and helpful waiter who gave us a map and suggested a path that led from the marina into the town along the coast. The track meandered along the shore for a short distance, then switchbacked up a steep slope bordered by cliffs, to the town.

The town of Capri was full of people and designer clothes shops. We grabbed a quick snack, shared some of it with a dog who decided to be our temporary friend, and wandered for a while. Tourist shops, cactuses and narrow laneways navigated by teensy little trucks. On our way back to the marina we stopped at a stall for lemon granitas, which were about the best thing we had ever tasted. I vaguely remember someone (perhaps my Spain-dwelling friend Hayden?) proclaiming the joys of granita, and now I can see why.

We had a brief swim at the packed beach by the marina, then it was time to get back on the boat. Some healthy competition for the seats at the back in the open, but we managed to claim some for Katherine and Annie, who didn’t quite have their sea-legs yet. Timmy, Jen and I made do with nearby seats inside until the boat’s captain, who had taken a liking to us, ushered us up the front onto the bow, against the cabin windows, along with a lone-travelling French tourist. Quite the upgrade. So, we had a very good view on the way back, although we got quite damp!

Day two in Sorrento — our last day with the trio! — we caught the bus along the Amalfi coast. I thought the roads were a little hairy in Sorrento — they are quite ridiculous further along the coast! We watched cars creeping past the bus with millimetres to spare on either side, tucking in their mirrors. The buses honk their horns (which make an amusing two-tone ‘doo-dee-doo-dee’ sound) around every corner to warn oncoming traffic, as they hurtle along with a sheer drop down to the sea on one side. Freakin’ insane.

Anyway, along with Andee, a friendly American living in Florence who we met on the bus, we hopped off the coach of consternation at Positano, a delightful town that clings to a rocky gorge, sloping down to a small black pebbly beach. It was very…vertical, and we certainly got our exercise wandering around the town, up and down steep but quite charming staircases.

We found a restaurant and had lunch there; Katherine ordered what sounded like a fairly innocuous lunch of fish, but which turned out to be a little challenging for we squeamish almost-vegetarians: Baby octopus, little whole fish, unshelled prawns. Some food-swapping and all was well; I surprised myself by giving the baby octopus a go. Euuarch.

We jumped back on the next bus that passed by, and continued along the coast towards Amalfi. It quickly grew dark and the nightly electrical storm began to flash and rumble out to sea. Very quickly, rain was streaming down the windows, and great rivers of water were running along the road, making everything dark black or glittering white in the lights. It was really quite a thing, watching impressive forked lightning over the ocean.

We stayed on the bus as it reached Amalfi and turned around for the trek back to Sorrento, and chatted with Andee until it was time to part ways — we got off together and walked back to our respective caravan parks.

We had a surprisingly good meal at the caravan park’s restaurant, and called it a night.

All too soon, our two weeks with Timmy, Jen and Annie were up. In this record, I haven’t managed to represent the experience of travelling with these three — the small moments are so hard to capture, but they are so vital! A better group of people to spend time with one would never find. Travelling together has been a real highlight of our trip so far, and we have enjoyed their company immeasurably.

Having become very close as a group, and used to each other’s company, it was quite a sad farewell — we will miss them sorely. So, we saw them off at the bus stop, a quite emotional affair, then headed back to Nettle. We are sad, but there’s also a sense of anticipation as we set about re-thinking our lifestyle for the second time. It’s slow travel time: Time to make this into a sustainable lifestyle.