Friday 8 July 2011

Travel Tales: Gone Greek

It was early May. After a dreary winter of breaking down, usually on the MZ 125, I had amassed the improbable sum of three hundred quid and with it I was going to finish the rusty ex-cop BMW R80 once and for all, point the bars south and chuck my watch into the Brighouse canal. Pause. Man looks out of window, observes that the weather seems unchanged since November of the previous year. Man reflects on the feasibility of once again riding south on an unfinished heap of rust and hope - last year I made it to the south of Peterborough before both the alternator and brake hose expired.

The master plan went something like this: rechrome forks, fit new seals and brake hose, secondhand bottom yoke, ditto alternator......and there's no money left to go away on. Brilliant, man rides bike to Brighouse chippy for the summer thrash. Light bulb appears over pointy head and idea is born. Go away somewhere hot, that has possibility of women with nipples like Cornettos and hire bike to tour small Greek island on, unwrapping Cornetos all the way!

The most I can get off work is ten days so the possibility of riding to Greece and back in that time was a non-starter. Far better to fly and ride, so to speak. Aside from motorways, most roads are so basic in Greece that any conventional tourer would be goosed in the first rubble strewn 100 metres - riding bikes in Greece is about lightweight trailies, not overweight FJ1200s.

I'd been to Greece before. It's cheap, hot and fairly laid back (often in ditches) regarding helmets, MOTs and so forth. My last trip was to the mainland in 1989 when I hired a Honda CG125. I decided to give one of the smaller islands a go, so discussed my plight with Spotted Dick from Lunn Polly (why are all travel agents now aged 17 with faces like mushroom and pineapple pizza?). I paid for my flight only, £130, direct from soggy Manchester to the exotic Isle of Kefalonia, to the left of Athens in the Ionian Sea. The flight was uneventful aside from the Jeremy Beadle in-flight entertainment - give me the port engine on fire any time!

The flight from Manchester takes three and a bit hours and lands at the amusingly titled Kefalonia International Airport - no radar, no terminal just a prefab with some bored cops sporting shiny Uzi's. The airport's quite close to the main town on the island, Argostoli. The cops ride a mixture of Moto Guzzis and GT750s, on such a small island I guess they don't have to ride too fast to catch you as it's only 39 miles long and 16 miles wide. The coastal strip is quite narrow, no more than a mile or two of flat country inland then it's sharp ascents (and sharper descents) in the hills.

The hills look formidable but are in fact only about 4000 feet high, very similar to the Lake District setting, without the lakes, if you see what I mean. If you haven't already got one, a map of the island will show you all you need to know - these maps are as basic as the Greek road building. They often mark future roads before they are built. Accordingly, it's a trail bike paradise with hundreds of small tracks criss-crossing the island.

I'd done a bit of homework on bike hire, it's essential to shop around otherwise you get landed with shiny but gutless and overpriced crap. Petrol prices vary around £3 a gallon, hence the search for a cheap to fuel but nippy to ride trail bike. Argostoli's the best place for bike hire, with a wide range of machines.

After an hour of surveying likely candidates amongst a sea of step-thrus, restricted TS125s and unrestricted but very pricey DTR125s I found the gem I was searching for. A neat Yam XT250, panels intact, mine for only £45 for seven days unlimited mileage. Most of the locals understand English so a bit of bargaining will save hard cash for the ouzo later. DTR125s can be anything from £50 for three days with mileage limits plus a bond of up to £70, so check before you hire. The tank is always just on reserve when you hire anywhere in Greece so fill up straight away.

You must flash your DL in front of the hirer who should issue you with a small piece of pink paper which will be your cover note/hire receipt. It's worth asking for a collision damage waiver, it costs about £3 more but covers you (allegedly) for anything from a scratch to a total write off. Don't forget at this stage to get the hirer's phone number in the event of total breakdown, puncture or prang - all of the hirers have pick-up trucks.

I planned to do a round trip of Kefalonia, taking in Argostoli, then ferry to Lixourion and riding north to Assos, Fiskardo and down the eastern shoreline to Sami, on to Poros until I reached Scala in the extreme south before heading west to Pessada and ending up at Argostoli again. I'd estimated a round trip of about 150 miles, give or take the odd detour. At the pace I intended 30 miles of green lane and lumpy tarmac would be enough in a day.

This seemed to me a better bet than thrashing through Spain and France, just to turn round again after three days and thrash all the way back. I picked up a free map showing filling stations but in the event had no problems finding fuel. The XT did about 45mpg, which under the circumstances was very good.

Accommodation is the easy bit at this time of year. Just ride to the first sizeable town/village and look for the sign saying rooms or if you are unlucky domatio in Greek. Always ask to see the room first, although it's unlikely that the owner will put you up with his nubile olive skinned niece, it's worth making sure you are not bunking down with his hired help, unless that is you feel the need to share a room with a Greek navvy. Village rooms are very basic so you will need a lightweight sleeping bag and possibly mosquito repellent. There's usually a taverna nearby - night riding isn't recommended as the locals have only a vague grasp of the need to maintain brake lights and indicators.

Unless you want to tempt fate and Greek patience do not pitch your tent other than in a registered campsite. The penalty's immediate arrest, imprisonment and possible deportation. The Greeks are determined not to allow the vagrancy issue to recur as it did in the early seventies with hundreds of young, penniless Europeans sleeping on the beaches and getting into serious drugs and prostitution. After several hours in the saddle and a hard session at the beach, camping was out for me, especially as I was travelling light and obtaining rooms at £6-9 per night with Nescafe, jam and bread for breakfast.

A major attraction for the biker in the Greek islands and especially Kefalonia is that the roads are so poor few tourists bother with car hire. This includes our dreaded European cousins, Herr Schimt and family in the Audi Quattro. The potholes can be so immense that it's surprising international rallies are not held here. The main roads therefore carry light commercial traffic, the odd hire car and vast tourist buses. For once, being on a bike is a distinct advantage in such situations, as jams are frequent on the tiny roads - with just enough room for the clever git on the lightweight trailie to sneak through.

Private roads are marked (ne isothos) so anything else seems to count as a public highway. If I met any locals I usually got, and gave, a smile and a wave. At one point as I rode along what the map indicated as a well made A-road I turned a corner to find a small three wheeler truck trundling along just in front. A Greek road builder was indolently shovelling warm tarmac into the worst holes. As I attempted to ride alongside he waved me back shouting, 'Is unfinished. You wait!' I rode back to the last beach, thanked god for inventing mammary glands and waited for the heat to die down and the tarmac to settle.

I found that despite the ouzo induction of the previous night, or because of it, I could rise at about 6.30am and ride for a couple of hours before stopping for a cold drink, usually iced coffee, and then on again until about 11.00am. At this point I was never too far from a beach, parked the bike up, unrolled the beach mat and baked gently. The bike proved to be a useful introduction to the sirens of the beach and on two occasions Cornettos were indeed unwrapped and nibbled.

XT250s were usually quite reliable when imported, I've got the same motor in an SR250 custom I'm rebuilding and it looks very solid and simple. The XT I hired was excellent, the main factor in its favour was low down pulling power, just as well given the rock hard state of some of the trails. Unless you're on the best road in Kefalonia, the one that circles the island, I doubt if it's possible to exceed 45mph. Any extra power becomes untractable in such situations. I sometimes ride an RM125 at a local gravel pit - exciting for half an hour, excruciating for any longer.

May's an excellent time to ride in Kefalonia, the season's only just started but the weather's good. In the high season there are too many Italians and Germans. The AA's Essential Greek Islands is a cheap and sufficient guide book. Food and beer are cheap. There were quite a few other Brits on bikes, so it's easy to find a riding companion. My tour of the island was more like a Sunday afternoon ride out - pleasant, uneventful and completely relaxing, though I fell off four times but was saved by padded jeans. I felt sorry for the tourists in flip-flops!

Alan Dalton