Never pick a fight with a mountain. There’ll only be one winner. It took me around 4000km to realise this, and that effin’ and jeffin’ doesn’t get you up an ascent. Pick your gear, spin your pedals, get your head up and look around. The view gets better the further you climb, enjoy it.

I didn’t expect the Athamanika mountains to be so impressive. Greece is so well reknowned for it’s coastline people don’t talk about the ridiculously beautiful mountain range inland, and how much of it there is. Equally, I’m guilty of not researching the ride well enough. Sure, I knew there were mountains, but that’s about it. At the minute I still employ the ‘battering ram’ approach to cycle touring, where I look at a map, find A to B, say something like ‘Ooh, mountains, let’s go’ and start biking, whereas others are more tactical, research stuff, look at elevation and assess different routes before setting off. I’ll probably learn one day.

On the way up, following some rivers.

Leant up against the most unused bus stop in Greece.

Athamanika was the first range where I adequately paced, hydrated and fed myself, sure I was knackered by the end of the day, but I felt much better for it. I managed to find a dried out stream to camp by about 1200 metres up, leaving the tent in the bag and staring at the stars before I fell asleep.

The view from the camp.

Obviously I woke up to piss-it-down rain. Lesson learned. Probably.

Next day I carried on climbing for an hour or so before people started asking ‘Yannis Pass? Trikala?’ before responding with a sharp exhale of breath as I replied ‘Yup’ with a nod. At this point I didn’t know whether this was a good sign or a bad sign. It turned out to be both, as I got dealt some awesome views at the pass, some long tunnels, big landslides, and a typically mountainous thunderstorm out of nowhere chasing me all the way down.

The view from the top.

…and the way down.

…through some tunnels.

Then that was it. Completely flat. All the way to Trikala. I bagged a cheap hotel here to dry out for the night and was treated to a sight that tickled me as I wandered through the centre, when a flash bit of rain hit and everybody bolted for cover. It was like someone shot a gun into the air. I’ve never seen so many people run for cover, they should try out an English summer for size.

The sunset from a roadside camp.

I was camping with this little fella.

The next couple of days were pretty ordinary as I hit the coast and headed for Thessaloniki. There was a bit before Katerini when a couple of traffic police pulled me over and warned me about the road ahead, apparently there was no real alternative but head back so they asked where I was going.

‘Vietnam.’

As least I got them laughing. They told me I could carry on but it was my own responsibility, fine by me. He held out his hand, so I grabbed it, and gave it a firm handshake, smiled and cycled off down the danger road. Except, his hand felt a bit weird. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, he went for a fist bump and I shook it. The thing is, I shook his fist bump so convincingly HE probably felt stupid, and if HE keeps a blog of HIS working day, which HE probably doesn’t, HE’s probably written about how much of a plonker HE felt. I mean, trying to fist bump a handshake, what was he thinking.

Anyway, that left me giggling for the next two days.

Greece introduced me to two things I hate — gypsy kids, and stray dogs. Every day I was in Greece I was chased at least once. The worst is when you’re halfway up a hill, and a pack of them stream out of a bush and give chase, barking and snapping at your heels. Every cycle tourer has a different technique to fend them off. Alex Duaurin has a stick on his panniers (his ‘sword’) to twat them with. Paul Ferguson squirts his water bottle at them. Some people keep a few rocks in their bar bag to chuck at them. I just tend to shout ‘OI, OI, OI!’ as I bike off, kind of like a bobby chasing a robber in a Carry On film. Either way, it changes your perception of Man’s Best Friend, from here on out, they’re a mangey pain in the ass… until I get back to somewhere they look after them properly.

From Thessaloniki it was East along the last, surprisingly long stretch of Greece all the way to Turkey. I met some new riding partners along the way one morning; Christof, a slender, extremely tanned Berliner, who looked like Dustin Hoffman in Bladerunner, and Pierre and Cyril, two French lads who just had crates strapped to the back of their bikes, which creaked with every pedal stroke. One things for sure, the French people I’ve met have by far been the most resourceful on this trip. If you told me I had to ride a couple of thousand kilometres on a knackered bike with a box instead of panniers I’m not sure whether I’d laugh or swear at you. Probably both. Twice.

Just before I met Christof, Pierre and Cyril.

We carried on east, sticking to the coast. Riding with Christof was an interesting experience. He’s a teacher who got made redundant from his Catholic school due to a new, more religious regime who didn’t like his agnostic beliefs and deemed him surplus to requirements. Taking this break as an opportunity, he twisted his wife’s arm into allowing him to take a few months to cycle down through Europe, along towards Turkey on some routes he hitch-hiked as a twenty-something year old, then down towards the southern coast, including the Syrian border towards Iran, where he’d ride for a couple of weeks before flying back to Berlin on the promise he’d return in time for his little daughter’s birthday. I told him he was crazy, aiming towards a warzone, considering the recent developments in Turkey, including full on war on the Syrian border, but I suppose we’re as bad as each other, heading for Istanbul a week after bombings on various embassies.

Christof and the French lads, on their ramshackle steeds.

It was another couple of days of relatively uninteresting riding along this forgotten stretch of Greece, including Kavala, Xanthi and Alexandroupolis, but luckily there was four of us, we could stop, chat, eat and drink to break up the riding. Christof tried to prepare the French lads and I by arming us with some Turkish words and numbers, as he’d been to Turkey so many times he’d picked up a fair bit himself over the years. I think I managed to nail; please, thank you and the numbers one to five. Let’s hope they come in handy.

Towards the border.