Stoupa 2019

 Stoupa Early June

Joined Terry for the first week of June in Stoupa 3 links. It was good to be back visiting familiar and new places.

At home, about to set off for the airport.

Terry picked me up from Kalamata airport and then straight to ...

... the Pende Adelphia, the 5 Brothers for a Mythos 2 links.

Next morning we took our customary walk around the block

where we found these tree climbing rabbits.

Later we set out for an excursion in the car but first ... well just what is he recovering from its hiding place in the tree?

Seems a bent stick is what you need.

but what for?

a real dipstick for the screenwash reservoir!

Plenty of other Little Old Manish behavior to be found on our walk above Kardemeli.

Very effective sunscreens in a place and season where rain is not expected.

An old pallet makes a very effective gate but fixing it can be a problem, easily solved with a stick and some binder twine.

Our excursion took us to Pighadia 2 links , a place we had visited in 2014 that I was keen to return to.

View into the gorge below the three bridges.

The donkey tracks [Kalderima] on the other side of the valley.

Monastery at Pighadia.

Stairway to heaven, Health and Safety Executive approved.

The top of the walk at Pighadia.

On our way down, we saw this flower.

Roger doesn't have a photo of one of those, says Terry.

wall lizard.

Stop for greek coffee on the way home.

Next day to Kalamata market, there is always something to see and buy there.

Seems the new wing got dented even before they could paint it.

We take Marraketi for lunch at Elies 2 links, 'the olives', in Kardamyli 2 links.

At my favourite swimming place, the rocks at Trachila.

Someone has installed new steps.

When we come here in the autumn, this hillside is a blaze of colour.

After our swim off to lunch at another favourite restaurant, Yanis at Pigi.

We call it 'the restaurant at the end of the universe' for so it is, kilometers down a dead end road past Trachila. That looks like gavros and green beans.

Yanis wages a constant war with the local cats, or at least his wife does. She appears with a trigger bottle of water and sprays them ... to no avail. But what you see here is pure genious I think, the used skewers are put as pungi stakes into the flower beds to stop the cats crapping there. Also to no avail.

Terry always saves our left over bread for the poultry in the chicken run up the road

They are usually very pleased to see him.

Not so many this time

Next day we had to take Roger up to Pighadia again.

To see the new found plant

Biarum Tenuifolium, or 'arum'

Views across the valley at the kalderima.

Then I saw this busy dung beetle on the path, doing what dung beetles do.

Evening meal in Έλλης, Elli's 2 links in Agios Nikolaos 3 links

Our next excursion was to a place new to me in the hills above Thalamasi, 'The Lakkas'. There are two Lakkas, or flat places one above the other and nestled in the hills. They are perfectly flat and apparently caused by precipitation of Saharan sand over millenia filling the valley bottoms.

A rough track leads up to them past a goat farm.

One walks through lightly wooded spaces ...

... and emerge onto the lower Lakka.

then more woodland

and slope

before emerging onto the higher Lakka

A good place to stop for lunch and to fly Roger's drone.

And so we are caught out sitting down on the job.

There were not many wild flowers here, cattle had only recently been taken off the mountain and the altitude is over 1000m.

Protected from the cattle by the rocks.

The gate to the upper Lakka, to control the cattle.

More flora in evidence as we lost altitude.

Even this high up someone had decided it was worth the effort to terrace the mountainside.

We decided to have our evening meal at the fish restaurant ΤΟ Λιμανι, To Limani 2 links at the other end of the quay from Έλλης in Agios Nikolaos 3 links

Horta

My favourite, red mullet

Gavros

By the side of the harbour.

Roger has a great collection of cacti at his house.