Mt. Olympus

 

Wednesday 15^th May Itea to Panteleimonas.

Today was a travelling day as we had decided to visit Mt Olympus before heading to Corfu. It was about 260km with much of it on good quality mountain roads. We eventually decided to stop about 30km short at the beach resort of Panteleimonas. During the drive we stopped for bread and milk and Jacqui bought a pair of shorts and vest at Intersport. This has now completed her trip wardrobe. About time too.

Thursday 16^th May Mt Olympus.

This morning we drove the short distance to Litoharo where we picked up the mountain road to the Olympus National Park. A 14km drive took us on a windy course through roads lined with wild flowers and dense forest beyond. The forest was not only conifers; the slopes were supporting many large deciduous trees such as beech. At the end of the drive we reached Prionia which is a base for the sharper climb to the Spilious Agapitos refuge. Priona had a WC, water, one restaurant and a large car park. We locked the van carefully and set off for the refuge with our water and lunch. It was raining slightly when we set off so we dressed accordingly but it soon stopped and we needed to strip down to T shirt and shorts. The climb was fairly rough and reasonably steep. When we stopped for lunch, after 2 hours, Jacqui started to wonder if would make the refuge before we needed to return to ensure we were down the mountain before dark especially as she was starting to get tired. We agreed to continue until 2.30pm but we made our destination by 2.00pm. it had taken 3 ¼ hours which wasn’t bad as it was marked as a 3 hour trail and we had stopped for lunch. At the refuge we bought a very welcome Snickers bar, mint tea with sugar and coffee. We needed the energy. It was another 3 hour climb to the summit but that would have involved an overnight stay at the refuge. Also the conditions weren’t good as there was a lot of cloud, neither did we have the right equipment as we were now in and above the snow line and there was quite a bit of snow up to the peak. As we were about to head down Jacqui realised she had lost her glasses (not sun glasses). She looked all over the refuge and in the rucksack. We decided that she must have dropped them on the way up as Mike remembered her having them when we stopped for lunch. The one place we thought it could be was when we first reached the snow. Jacqui had dodged Mike’s snow ball and then had lent down to wash her face in the snow. The answer was yes as on the way down there they were lying at the edge of the snow  drift. Jacqui was relieved. We walked down the mountain much quicker in 2 hours but were tired on arriving back at the van. We both decided to take the short drive to the coast for a night stop but it was not to be. We picked up water in a village but could not find a suitable place to park. We ended up doing another hour's drive around the back of the mountain. We eventually pulled off the main road and found a lovely spot  near a river and stayed there for the night.