The nearby hillsides became, if not less precipitous, more grassy, with little brown huts sprinkled liberally around. We wound our way down a couple of switchbacks in the road and through a beautiful pass lined with pine trees, nearby rocky peaks wreathed in cloud. The road wound along the hillside above a deep valley, a bright blue river snaking through it. We stopped briefly at a supermarket we came across to stock up on supplies.

The road continued to wind through the mountains, affording us some rather spectacular views of misty/snowy peaks. At one point, the road passed by a shallow and crystal-clear lake of brilliant blue. The mountains gradually decreased in size, and very suddenly we were on a motorway, and Noia the navigator was displaying the welcome screen for Germany!

Motorway driving is rarely anything but tedium, and today was no different; we drove until we’d had enough, and on a hunch I pointed Noia towards a green patch on the map that displayed a parking symbol within. Sure enough, we’d found a very pretty forest, interspersed with green fields, and a little parking area for walkers. We pulled up, and took the opportunity to take a walk in the intensely green woods — the stuff of fairy-tales.

For the next day, we’d identified part of a driving tour of the Mosel Valey that sounded promising, to the west and very near to our route. We headed that way, towards the Rhone-side town of Bingen am Rhein, arriving relatively late in the day.

After the success of the last night’s camp, I targeted Noia at a road in a large green patch beside the town, little realising at the time that the road in question was barely a footpath through the woods. So, we turned down this little road that got smaller and smaller, to our consternation, and had a slightly worrisome yet relatively pleasant drive through the woods, feeling a little sheepish as we drove past walkers on the track above. (Katherine: Mike handled this with remarkable poise)

We came out beside a little pub, and decided to pull up in the nearby car-park (also the car park for walkers) for the night. With Katherine’s high hopes for a schnitzel, we visited the pub, but found the restaurant closed. Still, we found a seat in the dimly-lit lounge, various animal heads hanging grotesquely from the walls — all seemed very “German pub”-esque — and had a few beers (Veltins, which the barman recommended and which we enjoyed immensely).

Rather desperate to fill up with water, the next morning we set out along the Rhone hoping to spot a caravan park or similar that we could drop into. Sure enough, Katherine spotted one a little distance down the road, and we negotiated our way under the railway line that ran alongside the river, along the narrow little lane, bordered by bright green rows of vines beside the river, and pulled in. The woman in charge was very friendly and happy for us to use the facilities; she was bustling about on various errands as we filled up, and kept making rather endearing “I’m run off my feet” huffy sighs with lots of exclamations in German, to which I grinned and nodded sympathetically.

While Katherine was filling the tank, she heard a hissing, and realised that the front left tyre was leaking air from the valve — just like what happened to us in Arezzo! Uh-oh. I poked at the valve until the hissing stopped, and we deemed it drivable, for now, as the pressure seemed to be relatively normal still. Hoping to find a tyre service facility like last time, we drove for a little while keeping our eyes open, but the one possibility was shut, whereupon we realised it was Sunday. I checked and topped-up the tire pressure at a petrol station, and we hit the motorway, hoping that it would last us until we could get it fixed.

When we decided to pick a town randomly to visit for lunch, the steering felt suddenly very odd, and sure enough, the tyre was down again. We pulled into a petrol station and decided it was time to put the spare tyre on. It’d been a while and my memory was fuzzy (I work with computers, not cars!), but Nettle’s manual, albeit in German, seemed to have all I needed. Out came the jack, and I wrestled the slipping handle until the wheel was sufficiently off the ground, and started on the wheel nuts (probably should’ve done that the other way around, but oh, well). I remembered something about European threads being the opposite to ours — probably the same phenomenon that makes water swirl the opposite way down drains, I guess — and the manual confirmed that clockwise was the way to undo them, so I laboured away, trying everything I could think of to loosen them. No luck, and I was scratching my head wondering what to do next, when a friendly German voice behind us announced the arrival of our saviours for the day. He was a mechanic, amazingly, and his wife spoke English, so we were in excellent hands — apparently, as she told Katherine, he rescues people like this quite frequently. Our benefactors took command, and I held my foot on the brake while he undid the nuts — anti-clockwise, of course — by jumping on the spanner’s handle. Within a couple of minutes, the new wheel was on, and we were good to go. We thanked them profusely. How lucky we are. (Katherine: We had a giggle at Mike’s masculinity taking a bit of a hit, especially given the super buffness of the mechanic in question. He still gets man points for getting the wheel off the ground though. I had an “I’ve watched too much Dexter moment” when I quietly wondered to myself if this guy has a “dark passenger” which he satiates by going around playing the good samaritan but actually sabotaging vehicles and sending their startled drivers to an untimely – and untraceable – death). We went and had a couple of schnitzels at a nearby pub. We were amused in the pub to see a race on the TV, and then realised that it was happening just around the corner, at the Nürburgring. Cool! We felt unreasonably chuffed at having had beer and chicken schnitzel in Germany. Our German experience is complete – at least this time around. (Katherine again: obviously our tire didn’t fall off sending us to an untimely startled death. Sorry for my uncharitable thoughts good Samaritan German guy).

So, with a fair bit of time lost, we decided to just hit the autobahn again, and skip the driving tour this time — how exciting, the prospect of having a “next time”! We crossed over the border into the Netherlands, to our surprise, as we don’t tend to do much map-gazing lately — navigation is more Noia’s realm now, as she’s been so great, we trust her to get us where we want to go. Within a few hours, we passed into Belgium. Belgium!

We headed into the city of Hasselt, where a friend, Kris, lives, who I’d met a year or so before through a WordPress theme I wrote. We’d arranged to pay a visit, so we found a park at a spot Kris had recommended, in the car park of a sports oval already populated with a few campers, reassuringly, and set out on foot to find him.

About twenty minutes later, we set out on foot the right way, as I sheepishly realised I’d directed us in precisely the wrong direction… twice. We walked along a busy, noisy road (Ah yes… This is why we’re not big city fans!), then towards the quieter town’s centre. We made our way under the train station and found Kris’s street on the other side, with lots of imposing brick houses lining the road. We greeted Kris (I experimented on him with some Dutch — “goede middag”), and he invited us in for a moment before we all ventured out into the evening. Kris took us on a walk around the inner streets of the town, and showed us a few of the sights (greeted a few very punk-band-esque friends of his that we encountered along the way), then we dropped in on the local Irish pub briefly — quite funny hearing Irish accents here. We asked for a recommendation from the bartender for a Belgium beer to try and ended up with an interesting beverage that tasted a bit like honey… and beer. We wandered through Hasselt (via the best veggie burger I think I’ve ever had), through the city’s impressive park, while we talked companionably. I was amazed with the depth of Kris’s knowledge of his town, and the amount of awareness and involvement he has in its community and local politics — a local council member in the making, there.

We decided to spend the night in Hasselt, and spent the next morning with a couple of errands — laundry, a little shopping; Katherine was excited to find a well-stocked art supplies shop and basically moved in for a while.

Then we hit the road again, and headed onwards; we left Belgium and entered France, finally ending up in Dunkerque. We stayed the night at the huge and rather fancy municipal caravan park, in preparation for our departure on the ferry the next day, to Dover. Quite fun to be speaking French again.

Our unexpected detour resulted in some excitement as we were waved by another officer right into the town’s narrow, pedestrian-filled streets. We cruised slowly down a main street lined with cafés and boutiques; shoppers threw us surprised/bemused looks as we drove along, close enough to do some window shopping, maybe grab a cappuccino.

Things got a little tight as we drove through the piazza and down another little street past parked cars — this guy’s expression was classic:

Apart from some harmless scraping of our driver’s side step on a step as we passed, we escaped unscathed and drove on into the town of Arezzo. We found ourselves a sosta to stay in, and walked up the steps into the town via a park overlooking the surrounding countryside. We were in Arezzo primarily to visit the Duomo (partly to exercise our new-found HDR tools!), so that was our first stop, right beside the park.

It was an imposing old building, looming over the square, and its interior was lovely, and immense. We took lots of photos, Katherine’s shoulder acting as a tripod because it was so dark inside.

We ventured outside again and walked through the town’s little, steep cobbled streets. We were reminded by a sign that this was the town in which a lot of one of our favourite films, La Vita e Bella, was filmed — I can’t say I recognised anything in particular though.

We came across some stalls selling salami, cheese, and a variety of herbs and spices. It turns out we managed to stumble upon a food festival, and found lots of stalls dotted around the town, each with a different theme – here, meat and cheese, there gelato and chocolate, and in the main piazza more salami, bread, and a couple of makeshift restaurants. We mused afterwards on the homogeneity of the food and had it been a food festival in Australia there would have been Middle Eastern cuisine, Indian, African, European, Asian and of course the more traditional mother-land type fare.

So, we got ourselves some gelati (Katherine picked well with a strawberry and white chocolate blend and cinnamon chocolate), took them back to the park and sat on the grass in the sun watching the world go by as the cathedral bells rang. We laughed at a toddler who had already mastered the Italian tradition of wild hand-gestures while talking.

We stayed the night in Arezzo, and prepared to head off the next morning. Stopping at a service station to check the tyre pressures, I realised that the front-right tyre valve was leaking air, hissing wildly when I gently pushed the valve to one side. Uh-oh! The service station had a garage, so I poked my head around the corner and stuttered out in Italian that I had a problem with the tyre. The guy apologetically said they couldn’t help, but directed us around the corner to a tyre specialist. Miraculously, I actually understood the directions and could find the place he was referring to in Google Maps, but the guy there couldn’t help us either. He pointed us onwards to another garage, pointing it out to me on my iPhone’s map. We found the place, and I looked up and stumbled through an Italian translation of our problem. A helpful and very friendly mechanic from Bangladesh waved us in, jacked up Nettle, whipped off her tyre and replaced the valve within about five minutes, and five Euros later, cheerfully waved us onwards.

Sorted!

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.

So, suffice to say our departure from Paris was less than comfortable, and after a couple of false starts and an awkward attempt in French to request access to a locked outside bathroom at a petrol station (Non, non, non, c’est fermer!), we found a public bathroom to empty at; the less said about that experience, the better.

Able to breathe again, we continued on down the motorway. We stopped for lunch at a little town along the way, all narrow lanes with very old-looking buildings, surrounded by farmland. After lunch, once the shops had re-opened, we walked down to the boulangerie (bakery) to get a baguette and same bread, and had a very satisfying French language encounter with the lovely woman working the counter.

Onwards, regretfully taking the toll roads as we were in a hurry, and the alternative non-toll route would’ve been nearly double the time, an extra 7 hours driving over a couple of days, and not feasible. We slept the night in a quite lovely aire just off the motorway, and pressed onwards the next day.

Stopped in a lay-by with a petrol station, restaurant and supermarket, and I made a rather elaborate dal for lunch that turned out to be awesome. We stopped at a McDonalds to work through our separate to-do lists using their wifi (from Nettle, parked outside), each of which was very, very long. Four exhausting hours later, we were hungry and very ready to stop for the night, but we had to drive for quite a while before we found anywhere to park — a rather charmless petrol station/diner lay-by, but it didn’t matter!

Another day, another novel bathroom experience — the toilets in the rest stops here are just trays with two slightly raised treads to squat on. Unfortunately, however, the moment one attempts said squat, the flush sensor at the back of the stall is triggered and water (in the best case scenario) splashes over your feet — unless you jump out of the way first. I had repeated this careful lowering followed by a leap out of the way of the torrent several times before I gave up. There must be some trick to it, but I don’t know what it is!

We filled up with water (a rather frustrating bit of communication to determine whether the petrol station’s tap had drinkable water), did some hand-washing of laundry, then headed onwards. A few hours later, with the scenery getting ever-prettier, we caught a flash of blue through the trees beside the motorway — it was a turquoise-coloured lake, Lac d’Aiguebelette in the Massif region. We left the motorway and took a closer look on foot. When the sun shone, the blue of the lake was breathtaking.

A little further down the motorway, we started seeing mountains on the horizon, then we were in the Alps! Breathtakingly enormous mountains, often with beautiful little villages tucked into the sides, or perched atop outcrops.

Then before we know it, while passing through a long tunnel that, incidentally, cost us about $70 to in tolls to pass through, we passed a tiny blue sign with a ring of stars on it and the word “Italia” — we were in Italy!

Things got rapidly less attractive, unfortunately, as we headed through Torino, and after many hours of hoping to find somewhere to stop for the night, we settled for another car park in a service area beside the motorway.

The next day, we drove on, fuelled up, and then caught our first view of the coast, from a part of the motorway high on the mountains above the sea, crossing a high bridge and moving on into towns packed to the gills with ochre-coloured high-rise apartments. Quite spectacular, in an icky way. The motorway wove through this landscape, sweeping over and under other lesser roads, like a huge roller-coaster.

Finally, Nigel told us to take an exit, and we passed through the final toll booth (about AU$270 of tolls all up!) and onto extremely windy roads switchbacking down steep mountainsides above azure sea, into villages of B&Bs, ramshackle buildings, bicycles, grape vines and decrepit farm machinery. We had arrived.

The Ring started out a little underwhelming, after some of the sights we’d seen already in this rather spectacular part of the world. We briefly stopped in a town called Cahersiveen, which was creepily quiet and empty, with lots of shops closed down. Not finding anywhere we felt like having lunch, we moved on and stopped in Waterville, apparently once home to Charlie Chaplin’s parents. We splurged on $40 worth of fish and chips, which were very satisfying, which was a relief given the significant financial outlay. While not as desolate-looking as Cahersiveen, we still found Waterville oddly empty, and it was bizzare to see a ‘fun fair’ set up beside the road, one or two rides dejectedly spewing diesel fumes while being ridden by one or two people. Weird.

With the day getting well away from us, we decided it was time to go on the hunt for a place to stop for the night. I picked an arbitrary road and drove for a little while; We found an absolutely fantastic place to park, a spot on the side of the tiny road on a cliff-ette beside the water, strewn with colourful wildflowers and with a view over the surrounding mountains.

We watched the sun go down, a contained explosion of orange peeking through the dense cloud layer, above the distant mountains.

On our second day, the Ring of Kerry picked right up. The road wound up above our waterside overnight spot to reveal a great view over the area:

Further along, the stunning views kept coming.

We stopped by the road for lunch (our tried and true staple of toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches, done in the frying pan), and continued into Killarney National Park.

Along with the beauty of the landscape, the number of tourists grew, leading to the frustrating inevitability that whenever we wanted to pull over to take a closer look at something, any place to stop was taken up by other cars. While trying to turn Nettle around after failing to find a park at one such place, I casually drove her into a rock fence, putting a dent in her back left side, which left me quite mortified and distressed. Damn!!

Anyway, we drove on and made one quick stopover to take a peek at Lough Leane:

We found a parking area with room for us to stop in, and went on a couple-hour walk along a track we found, which led to the quite pretty Torc waterfall. Lots of loud tourists and sandflies, though!

We pulled into a nicer car park around the corner and parked up for the night. Bulmers cider, chocolate, pasta and Alias.

Next day, we visited the town of Killarney, which turned out to be a bit cheesy and touristy for our liking. So, our ferry booking approaching, it was time to start heading eastwards, leaving Kerry.

The beginning of the walk, starting at the visitor centre, felt a bit like being with a tour group — a very crowded pathway. The view was beautiful, though, over the surrounding bog, which was nicer than it sounds. Glossy luminescent red-and-green grass waving in the breeze, dotted with wildflowers, and with mountains in the background dropping into the sea. We broke away from the worst of the throngs once the walk departed from the ‘easy’ version, changing rapidly from boardwalks and gravel pathways to ad-hoc steps made out of haphazardly-placed rocks, ascending the steep mountainside in vertiginous switchbacks. The breeze increased to a crisp, strong wind, sometimes threatening to take one’s balance. Man, no way the public liability lawyers would allow this sort of thing in Australia. Brilliant!

We turned a corner, and the wind dropped away to nothing. A few tens of meters further and we were on the top ridge of the mountain, along which we walked with 360° views of the surrounding area. The mountains ahead of us had an amazing crinkly texture, deep fractal ravines in the otherwise smooth surface, through which creeks ran.

The track descended the other side of the mountain, and wound around through the bog (I just love saying that word — it works best pronounced “borg”) back to the visitor centre.

Some time spent futzing around trying to find a place to fill up our water; a quest we gave up on as evening progressed. We found ourselves a quite brilliant wildcamp spot, right on the bay with a splendid view of a nearby mountain.

The following day, we had a late start and drove out just before lunchtime. After ducking into the visitor centre again and asking for suggestions for walks we could do, we plotted out a route covering some of the driving tour around the area.

One promising-looking walk circumnavigated a lake nearby, so we drove down a likely-looking side road, which got narrower and narrower, and terminated at a highly un-promising-looking gate. Time to turn around, but where? We tried to do a six-point turn at the gate — there was a driveway nearby that gave a little width — with Katherine at the back window letting me know how close to the fence we were. There just wasn’t room, though, so I decided to just reverse back along the road as far as was necessary to find a place to turn around.

About 20 metres reversing and, as usual, we saw two cars coming our way, thwarting the manoeuvre. Every time! Once they pulled up and realised our predicament, I got out and went over to discuss tactics. They made the universal apologetic shrug and told me they were French and didn’t understand, so I mustered up my meagre French and told them we were trying to back out. Then, a third car came up the road, a local wanting to get in her driveway. Brilliant.

I don’t quite know how we all did it, but like those puzzle games where you have to move cars and trucks around to make space for a car to exit, somehow we made it out.

So, on with the driving tour, which was satisfyingly pretty, the road weaving through the grassy hills, past a few loughs bordered with copses of pine trees. Still looking for water, I did a quick Google search to see if anyone had any suggestions for topping up in the area. Quite luckily, I stumbled upon a council press release which declared that the local water was not safe to drink after a cryptosporidium outbreak. Just missed the Letterfrack-belly there.

So, driving tour complete we ended up back in the place we wild-camped the night before. Wanting a change of scenery, we pressed onwards, as the road quickly narrowed and started steeply up a hill. Nettle’s engine did it’s worrying running-out-of-juice thing, and we barely made it up. A few minutes later, while passing another car, the engine stalled completely — even the power steering stopped working, and I was left hauling the steering wheel around to avoid the oncoming car. The engine started again immediately, but we were quite shaken and worried, and pulled over in a convenient place beside a nearby lake for the night. Whew.

The next day, Nettle coughed to life and we limped at an excruciatingly slow speed out of the Connemara area. Within 20 minutes, she was her old self again and we sped off, bound for Galway.