SMUGGLERS COVE

Camping Elizabeth for peace and quiet ...

I'm not doing nearly enough walking and this was brought home to me when our son arrived for a week's holiday and said that he had not been down to the little cove – which is about a 4 minute drive but a 15 minute walk from our house. We decided to set off early before the sun got too hot and took our swimming things with us. We trudged along farm tracks and past hidden gardens, the odd newbuild house that hadn't been finished (there are LOADS of these in Crete) and small farmsteads high up in the hills and cliff tops on the way. We talked to a herd of goats who were inquisitively looking over the fence and avoided loud barking dogs who, although were just doing their job, sounded too ferocious to be on talking terms with. We also found the donkey who I had heard for two or three months hee-hawing in the distance, but could not work out his location. Eventually after a fair trudge which was uphill nearly all the way we hit the path down from the cliff and took a look over the edge, way down to the cove. The surround-sounds of the sea and the birdsong among the long, dry herbs and grasses made us stop for quite a while, just to enjoy the atmosphere. About 20 or 30 multi-coloured butterflies danced over the bushes and it was like being transported to a different world. Sadly I did not take my camera, so we had to take a memory snap-shot and make do.

Sketch of the Cove from January 2012

At the corner of the bend, I nearly turned tail because there had been large rockfalls all the way down the steep zigzagging path to the foaming sea, but Leo was made of sterner stuff and set off down hill clambering over the huge rocks which had been loosened by the heavy rains of last winter and I gingerly followed him. The beach was a geologist or fossil hunter's paradise. The combinations of tortured volcanic rocks turned up the most amazing piles of stones, some of which looked like liquorice all-sorts. I was fossiking around glumly looking at flotsam and jetsam and wondering if I could pair up all the sad collection of shoes, trainers and flip-flops amongst the driftwood, seaweed and sponges. I am sure that simply taking young people beach-combing early in the year would give them some idea of all the horrible pollution we are causing to our world. It is hard to resist doing a litter pick on many of the small beaches on the coast. After the winter storms, the biggest beach at Panormo is a dump of plastic bowls, water bottles, oil and paint drums, old lilos, shoes and plastic bags before the season starts and the beach is cleaned. Seeing all that debris in such a beauty spot would be a lesson to anyone.

Sunday's visit to Panormo for kayaking!  The beach is now clean and tidy!

However, I digress. Getting down to the village beach was much, much easier than climbing back up. The sea on Tuesday was much too rough to risk swimming and having to walk back in wet clothes. It was the sort of place where you pick up a sense of history – not only for 19^th century yarns like Jamaica Inn, but back in the mists of time when all these rock formations and layers of different lava had flowed, hardened and been twisted and turned by deep, primeval movement of the earth. Taking all this in, Leo kept a few unusual pebbles with circular markings. On a more practical train of thought, I found two pieces of driftwood which I thought could be treated to make a pair of rustic shelves and busied my brain wondering what on earth could be croziered from piles and piles of sea-washed shoes, but without inspiration. Thus burdened, we scrambled back over the fallen rocks and I really puffed like Thomas the Tank Engine getting to the top of the cliff. Leo was in much better shape, thanks to lots of walking and golf but we were relieved to be walking downhill back to the village as the sun got really hot and I began to turn a nasty shade of lobster.

Walking around Margaritas

We have done a lot of tourist trail things with Leo so that he has had the chance to visit places he has not seen before so I will not ramble on again about the pottery village or Camping Elizabeth because Croziers blog has been there before. However, K was bursting with Greek enthusiasm for Zorba dancing and found a Dutch twin at the campsite who shared his razzamatazz!  So much for peace and quiet!

E-viva!