at home...

So far, we`ve been made to feel at home in Vientiane, London, Cambridge, Antwerp, Brussels, Wroclaw, Rome, Florence, Zurich, and most recently, Olten.

Without being asked for anything, our friends old and new have shared more than we could have imagined. It's been a lesson in hospitality - and sometimes they didn't even know we were coming!

For old time's sake and out of friendship, people have made space in their homes, in their busy lives, at times even in their own beds (having, themselves, moved into the living room)! They've invited us into their cities, shared their friends and their pets, cooked for us and let us mess up their kitchens.

There've been great conversations, history and cooking lessons, meals, walks in the park/winderness/ruins, parties and plenty of laughter. It hasn`t stopped at the houses of our friends, either - the hospitality has often extended into the homes of our friends' parents, siblings, and grandparents!

To say thanks is easy, and here it is again - now we look forward to having visitors next time we have a place to call our own home.

Much care and many thanks again,
e & a

Costiera Amalfitana

Riding the Amalfi Coast - what a way to spend a morning!

Sicily

Everywhere we go, we want to stay. Becuase of this, it was always touch-and-go whether we'd make it to Sicily, but when Andy heard the resident Sicilian volcano, Etna, was 'awake', he was decided. He was going to ride the boot-foot in a day to get there, and I was going with him.

The ride was nothing short of spectacular. The highway hugs the mountainous coastline, and as the twinkling lights of Sicily approcahed, we were on the mainland peninsula, riding a series of bridges and tunnels high above the ocean. We arrived on the island late and bedded down for the night.

We decided to take the road through the mountains to reach Etna the next day, which gave us a wonderful snapshot of Sicilian life. As we wound our way up off the plain, the apparant jungle of unplanned and unfinshed infrastructure (Mafia deals gone wrong?) gave way to hillside limewash and terracotta villages.

The locals were only too happy to chat with an Italian-speaking Australian, and Andy spent much of the day banging on with old (and very short) Sicilian men!

We learnt these villages were experiencing a common problem - the young people were moving out, leaving the old people to look after the village, and no-one to pass on the local customs and traditions to. Nevertheless, we dined on fantastic local fare in Frankavilla, where we ended up spending the rest of the afternoon, walking off the local vino, the strength of which took us totally by surprise!

A few more bends and a few more villages down the road, and it was sunset, and we still hadn't reached the mountain! We allowed the locals to talk us into staying in a B and B (something we haven't done since - we prefer the money in our pockets, and also the adventure of the open road).

We arrived on the mountain early, and she graced us by showing her steaming summit from behind the mist for long enough for us to take a deep breath and a photo.

There is something very powerful about this mountain. The villagers living on it's flanks tell us it it is a 'friendly' mountain - giving warning of eruptions, but usually just letting off steam. It erupts regularly, and the peak and flanks are covered in lava flows.

The peak is 3400 m (quite impressive, as it is only kilometres from the sea). At the end of the road, 1700 m, we declined a ride with the rest of the tourists in a 4wd bus to the first craters, a bit over 2000m above sea level. They were totally taking the piss with the price, at 44 euro each, but also with their smugness.

So, on no breakfast to speak of (breakfast in Italy typically consists of a bowl of caffé latte with biscotti floating in it - hardly mountaineering food) and armed with half a bottle of water, we decided to walk a bit of the way up. We made our own path, firstly up a half-buried t-bar track, you know, just to see what those lava flows are like up close...

Anyhow, several hours later, we were still walking up. We're a good team, so took it in turns to get the shits with the whole project and express strongly our desire to bail out down the mountain for some tucker. Which meant we kept going. Steep, beautiful, and unending.

We went to 2473m, as the tour guide we met there told us, to the edge of a large crater. The crater was one of a dozen or so which had last been seriously active in 2002, when they sent enough lava down the hill to erase the Etna North tourism infrastructure. At the time we were there, though, mere whisps of sulfur-tinged steam issued from the vents, creating a steamy addition to the black, moon-like landscape.

It was a powerful expeirence, and one we were happy to have shared. We took in the view while a busload of tourists came and went, before making our own way back to the bike, and to a welcome meal :)

Having reached our destination, we decided not to take too much more time in Sicily, and after another glorious sunset ride (the coastal town of Taromina is definitely worth a visit), caught the night ferry back to the mainland.

Free camping

When it comes to great camping spots, a few come to mind:

• under fir trees by a river, in heavy rain, in the Harz Mountains, famous as they are for their witches,
  
• beside a clear and chilly stream in Wales,
  
• the olive grove, then the beach on Korcula (see below).
  

The list is growing quite extensive, actually.

Then there are the cheeky, more adventurous places. We started in this vein when we visited Bibone, an abandoned beach resort in northern Italy. We arrived at the perfect time, long enough after the summer season for the place to be deserted, but not long enough for the beach umbrellas, set up in reguar formation for miles, to have been packed up. So we opened one on the waters edge, pulled up a couple of deckchairs ... and voila! a perfect campspot.

There was also the market stall in Plitvice National Park, in Croatia. That was fun - rainy night, very wet underfoot and we really wanted to avoid setting up (and wetting) the tent. So we cooked up under a sunshade, then camped up under the roof of a clean, dry shed. It wasn't quite the middle of nowhere, so we set the alarm for early enough to be out of there before the struedel-seller came. Surely we didn't dream it though?! Could that really have been a group of tipsy, giggling ladies going past at, maybe, four o'clock? They must have been real - the big gush of piddle that one of them did behind our abode sounded real enough. Oh well, nothing we wouldn't do ourselves...

Or what about the night near Trogir, again under threatening skies? That night the covered porch of a house under construction, second from the bottom of a dead-end street, seemed perfect. Man, it even had running water and a clothesline! It looked a good spot, and was - we cooked, cleaned up and made ourselves comfortable. Not a cingle house had line-of-sight to us, noone would ever know we had been there.

Except, possibly, the neighbour. They came home to their house at the end of the street very, very late. We awoke but lay silent and still as their car came down the road, stopped while they opened the gate (which, of course, creaked loudly and was interminably slow). We tried not to talk, giggle, or breathe too much as they talked outside. And I have to admit I wished I didn't smell so much when their terriers began yapping about the place. (From subsequent conversation it's clear we both wondered how to shut them up if they came over, with numerous options coming to our minds...)

The neighbours themselves allayed our fears of discovery when they began to argue loudly and vehemently, making far more noise than the little dogs had. They clearly had more to think about than who was making use of their neighbours' porch.

I mean, it's not fear of discovery itself that makes us a little nervous or excited when we camp in odd places. We're careful not to camp anywhere that people would find offensive or otherwise worrying, and we're happy to explain our harmless motives. It's more the idea that, if someone asked us to move on, we'd have to pack everything up, all into the various places on the bike, and have the hassle of finding a new place in the dark.

This didnt stop us though, from setting up camp on the top deck (also a heliport) of the ferry between Sicily and mainland Italy).

Or from making ourselves comfortable in an unused waterfront bar on a peninsula on the Croatian coast.

Or (what a find!) in Aussie bush Italian-style.

Azure

We're crossing the Adriatic Sea on a ferry at the moment, from Dubrovnik in Croatia to Bari in Italy. It was a bit of a hard decision to make, to leave Croatia, but we're on the boat now, more than anything else on the strength of plans we made earlier.

The clear waters, empty beaches and friendly people enchanted us for the last few days, spent on the island of Korcula. It's one of about 1200 island along the Croatian coast, and locals told us we would love any of the islands. Em chose Korcula, and the place provided a very special detour.

A couple of hours by ferry to Vela Luka - big port - from Split, we landed in a landscape of postcard views and timeless character. A large man guided us towards his mate's pizzeria.

Above the town and port rise steep, rocky hills, terraced over the centuries to allow the cultivation of olives. Flat, bright rocks pulled from the earth are stacked to form walls, and in places to build tiny houses or barns. We chose a good, wide terrace, partly shaded by a grand olive tree, and matched by one across the steep little road for parking. Em set up camp, while I went for wine and pasta, fruit and beer.

A special camp, among timeless (and abandoned?) rows of olives showing the agricultural efforts of centuries. We woke late and rose still later, then let the sun touch our skin for languid hours. Breaking camp was left for the afternoon.

There'd been talk of a second night amongst the olives, but the Adriatic had it's way. We motored lazily along the smallest roads we could find, away from little Vela Luka and along the coast of Korcula. Poplat, Novi, Tri Luke - not towns as such but localities, mostly nestled deep in inlets where the azure of the Adriatic faded through turquoise to crystal clarity.

Our coastal track led us to a bay; we had been far above the jewel-laden sea, and had looked longingly at the coasts of half-a-dozen islands. Two or three little houses surrounded the inlet we'd found, and in one of them there was even and elderly couple. We exchanged greetings as the sea enticed us closer.




Alone on the beach, we swam, picknicked, swam again and lay on a seaweed mattress to our hearts' content. Gentle breeze, clear seas, best friends. A long, easy afternoon, but we moved on before our birthday suits burned.

We came to Grscica, where we had coffee and then beer with a bloke who yelled out "G'day" to us. He was from there, but called Australia home like many Croatians whose paths we crossed.

Boats, wooded headlands, sunbleached stone, and an endless sea of clear, clear water and gentle waves. We motored on, stopping, photographing, hanging out. It was dark by the time we reached Pupnatska Luka, another little settlement of a half-dozen people. We wanted to camp on the beach, but also wanted to ask someone's permission and needed local knowledge to find the track to the beach. Another timeless-looking couple showed us the way, teaching us "thankyou" and "good night" in Croatian as they did so. They offered us home-grown oranges and olive oil too, completing both our dinner and breakfast with the gesture.

A short, steep trek through the ruins of a previous village and down to the beach was made longer by the fact that I'd forgotten to refill our stove with petrol. We went back up to the bike together, not only in the name of teamwork but also because it was just a little spooky! We cooked our simple fare, set up our nylon home and slept, content.

The morning brought a swim, then the opportunity to help the people who had been generous to us the night before. Together we landed their boat - Emily carried their outboard motor and I helped pull the boat up high on the beach.



On the ferry to the mainland, a bloke called Dennis assured us we'd be back, and invited us to look him up. It seems longer than a bare few days we were on Korcula, and they are sweet memories ...

Chatka

How sweet is this hut? It is set in the heart of the mountains on the Polish/Czech border, two hour's walk from the nearest road.


We spent an unforgettable weekend here trekking, eating home-grown fare and drinking (skulling, Andrew?) vodka by the fire with Kamila, Lucas (pictured standing, with Kasha between them) and their very fine bunch of friends, who treated us as part of thier crew despite the fact we weren't able to join in thier Polish shanites with the same vigour as they sang them!

It was brilliant, we owe you Poles another visit, hope to see you all in Australia soon!