Kato Gatzea to Athens

Well we were all up with the sparrows today to get on the road to tackle the trip to Athens. We packed up and were out on the road by 7.20am and we were by no means the first!

The drive was absolutely beautiful driving through mountains and valleys and alongside the ocean. The sky was the clearest it has been since we have been here.

Yesterday we drove past the Aliakmon Line which was where the 6th Div and the 2nd New Zealand div first met the Germans in Greece and this morning we passed through the Olympus Line and the Thermopylae Line which was the last line of defence before Athens and the embarkation for Crete and North Africa. It is looking at the line of steep mountains one can see how these formed formidable barriers for an advancing army. We came on a freeway - one can imagine 60 odd years ago the roads would have been entirely different and hard going for loaded trucks.

"George" was introduced to a few tunnels today and some of them were quite long.

We met up with members of the group along the way at the petrol stop. Normally we don't see anyone but there are very few petrol stations along the Greek freeways. Unlike Turkey where they seem to be every few kilometres or so.

There are massive road works being done on the freeways and in places the traffic is reduced from 4 lanes to 2. A toot here and a toot there and they pass you travelling at a rate of knots we being the slowest vehicle on the road averaging 60kms per hour. It appears that some of them are doing well over double that speed.

The traffic in Athens is absolutely horrendous where traffic merges from 5 lanes to 2 and then back to 4 and nobody follows the white lines. We missed our turn off as it was not very well signposted and put our fate in the hands of "Norma" our GPS. She behaved beautifully and got us right to our campsite gate. The campsite is like having a driveway off Adelaide Terrace, only worse (right in the middle of a city). The campsite has very good facilities and is very clean. Tomorrow we will catch a bus into Athens as it goes right past our gate - a much better and braver option than driving.