Olympus Conquered !

So Olympus well and truly conquered ! Up at 5am Greek time (3amUK !) to try to crack into it before the heat of the day, but it was still hot enough to ride the 20km to the base car park in my t-shirt…

By the time I’d cooked breakfast at camp and had the obligatory cup of tea, ridden to car park and changed into my shorts, I actually started the trek at 7.10am. which did make for a relatively cool start. It really is a beautiful walk with the track well signposted through first Birch and then pine forest. On the way up at precisely 6.45 UK time I stopped, said a little prayer and went on my way singing “ he ain’t heavy he’s my brother”.. good job it was early and there was no one else about.. At a little over 2000 mts there is what is described as a “refuge” ! Actually It’s more of a 5 star hostel which apparently sleep 100 ! and you can also use their facilities for cooking or just lounging around for a small fee of just 1.6 euro. What I hadn’t realised is that most people who do the trek inspite of being generally 30 somethings, take two or sometime three days over it… no wonder I can hardly move tonight then is it ?

Whilst it is undoubtedly one the most scenic treks I have ever done it is definitely by far and away the toughest; it was only Sam urging me on that got me to the top So there we sat Sam,Zeus and Me having a right old natter right on the top of Mount Olympus…  But then came the hard bit I had to come down again and some of the scree that I had climbed was by far easier going up that it was coming down. I tell you it wouldn’t have taken much to get me to stay the nigh at the Refuge even though the bike was down below in the car park, so I didn’t even stop!

Just below the refuge is a spring with wonderful ice cold water flowing freely so I drank my fill although I made the mistake of not filling my Camelbak as I’d topped it up on the way up and thought I had plenty. It wasn’t too catastrophic as I only had about 200 mts left to drop when I ran out. I guess I’d drunk about 4.5 litres altogether as It’s a 3 litre camelback I carry and yet I saw many people walking up carrying just 1 half litre bottle ! I can only guess that their skins don’t leak as much as mine does!!!

So I hobbled back into the car park at about 4pm Job Done! One hell of a little walkie !

Tomorrow I move on after 3 days at this noisy, overcrowed camp site... Althoughj I must say that the staff and management are really great and friendly. No idea wher I'm off to although I've heard of a gorge walk that sounds interesting... that is of course if I can walk again in the next few days !

Blog updates may also be a bit sparce as I'll be looking to get back to nature with some nice peaceful wild camps up in the mountains which of course also save 10 to 15 euros per night...