Monday 22nd June

Monday 22nd June

We woke up to our last full day in Chora Sfakion, with more hard work ahead of us.  We boarded the ferry to Loutro, as we didn’t go there on Friday, and immediately started asking the tourists on the boat questions.  After the 20 minutes journey we bought our tickets for the return to Chora Sfakion, determined to catch the 12:15 ferry back.  We split into 2 groups, one of which started at the far end of Loutro, and the other which started by the ferry.  The taverna and shop owners seemed more willing to answer our questions, in comparison to the other villages we had visited.  One chatted to Celia and Lucy not only about tourism, but about career advice and all aspects of life.  They were also offered a job, possibly the quickest job interview in history!  Although tempted by a life of sun and sea they declined in order to continue the work in hand.  The groups met in a café again with the usual cheeky ice-cream for the girls and a cheeky beer for the boys.  This allowed us a phenomenal view of Loutro, and it was clearly a more relaxing destination for tourists than Chora Sfakion or Agia Roumelli.  We thought this could be due to the fact that it was so isolated and was only accessible by boat and foot.

We caught the ferry with time to spare and headed back to Chora Sfakion to settle down to an afternoon of work.  We sat in the taverna by our hotel and got to work, sharing the notes we had obtained in Loutro. After this and discussing our video, we headed down to the beach for a well deserved break, and managed to get a few shots of us in the sea.  We had a group photograph at 7:50 and were ready to celebrate that we had all passed our first year. The group meal was an emotional experience for some, as the realisation had set in that we were going home tomorrow, to start our summer.  During the group meal many reflected on the trip, with a few of us listening to Ken’s amazing stories of his travels.  At the end we all gave some change towards a tip for the people running the hotel/taverna, and he seemed very chuffed with it when Alan Howard gave him the envelope.  After the meal, and several glasses of the local wine, many headed to the beach for the last time for banter and a few beers.  At 9:30 tomorrow we will be leaving Chora Sfakion and travelling to Chania to look around, then to catch our flight at 6 pm.

Now our trip has come to an end the good times have become a memory that will stay with us forever.  The walks that many had deemed awfully difficult are remembered as being fantastic experiences!  We have all been brought together as a group, and now there will be plenty of people to sit by in lectures.

Congratulations to everyone on their exam results.  We wish everyone a great summer. Goodbye Crete!

Just for a change, we started early, and bought tickets for the ridiculously overpriced ferry (€16 – €2 more than was expected). After a relaxing 50 minute journey, and believing the walk to be a breeze compared to the Ilingas gorge, we took a brief walk through Agia Roumelli, which we could see to be far more tourist orientated compared to the other villages we had visited. We wasted no time in travelling up to the Samaria gorge which we discovered to also be a National Park. We made notes of signs of management strategies that had been implemented, such as the cobbled footpath, multiple bins, toilets and two café’s, which could cash in on the crowds of tourists (the majority of which appeared to have walked down the gorge after being dropped off by coaches at the top). After lunch, we ploughed ahead, feeling refreshed and invigorated. We unknowingly reached our destination of the “iron gates” around 1:30pm …but continued to walk up the gorge. We carried on due to our determination to reach them before Alan Howard et al before asking some locals with a donkey how far we had to go, and then realised we had passed them 2 hours earlier! We had been misled by both an expectation of their prominence and the idea that they were at 300m altitude (in fact, the gorge walls at that point were 300m high and the altitude was only 110m…). By this time, it was 3pm and the panic set in when we realised we had only 2 and a half hours to walk back down the gorge – which had taken us 3. We therefore set off down the gorge at a pace that would make the Marines proud, denying each other of water breaks more than 20 seconds long! This resulted in Lucy attempting to have a drink whilst continuing to walk – meaning she was abruptly soaked but, alas, not rehydrated..

We were much laughed at by the locals when we overtook them, but we even impressed ourselves by the rate at which we had descended the gorge, cutting the journey to an hour and a half. When we passed what we had finally realised was the iron gates, we discovered the epicness of our mistake – it was only a third of the way we had travelled! We arrived back in the village with 45 minutes to spare before the 5:30 ferry – just enough time to buy ice creams for the girls and celebratory straw hats for the boys (or men, as they like to think). The ferry was a welcome relief, as it was a chance to sit down in the shade and rest our tired and dusty feet.

We ended the day with our last group meal at the Taverna above the village beach, finished with watermelon and raki. Cheers! 

We had a shaky start to the day due to recovering from last night’s antics, which included finding “Kenzo’s”, Sfakia’s answer to Dogma! We showed the locals both how to drink their wine and then how to dance with British grace and style. So after a lazy morning spent on the harbour beach, we were suddenly startled from our semi-hungover slumber by people running from the Delphini Taverna, which we had eaten at on Thursday night. At first, Zoe thought they might have stolen something, but we were soon enlightened by smoke billowing from the chimney and flames seen on the awning – which explained the unknown explosion we had heard earlier. After this drama, and with the fire seeming under control, we decided to chill out and so headed to Ilingas beach with some of our fellow geographers – although on arriving we realised we had forgotten Ryan, as the first group who got there thought he was coming later, and the others thought he was already there! (There had been reports that he was last seen leaving the Delphini Taverna with a bottle of Raki and a box of matches… although these are yet unconfirmed by The Daily Star and so shouldn’t yet be taken as fact…) 

We settled down for some serious sunbathing and a dash of swimming & snorkelling along the coast that we had explored yesterday. Some of the boys also made a new friend when an old woman who had swum quite far out returned their ball from bat and ball, which had been thrown by Jamie in a childish rage! We decided to go for a meal at the Ilingas Taverna as a thank you for the information the owner had given us yesterday. Being the mature university students that we are, we used our initiative to create a tower of cans. In other news, a dog looking surprisingly like George Michael was spotted outside the restaurant providing further giggles.

Despite spaghetti bolognaise and pork/lamb chops seeming to be the only dishes available, a good meal was had by all. On our walk back to the hotel, we trekked up the many steps to the church of Saint Anthony, where we could appreciate a view of the whole village. It was the end of another enjoyable day in Chora Sfakion.

Friday 19^th june 2009

On the first day when we could decide our own learning activities, we decided to go against the flow and stay in the village instead of going to Loutro. We set about asking both local people and tourists questions, and attempted to ask people coming of the ferry – however, they were intent on catching their coaches. Despite this, we managed to bargain with a New Zealand couple, so we could ask them questions in return for carrying their bags. Encouraged by our success, we split into two groups – each with a mission of asking locals and tourists on either side of the village. We asked various questions, for example, to tourists, what attracted them to the area and to locals how tourism affects their way of life. When looking for people to interview in the local tavernas, we came across an epically sized man (he really was huge) which was a bit of a shock but he provided some useful information! Soon after, we enjoyed our lunch from the local bakery after finding out about the rivalries within the village from the owner.

Feeling happy with the amount and quality of data we had collected, we set off to Ilingas beach. After dumping our stuff in the shade created by a cave, we swam out to sea and explored several more caves and beaches that we had spotted on the ferry the previous day.

After spending a couple of hours on the beach, we headed to the Ilingas taverna for a refreshing pint for the guys and ice cream for the girls (except for Zoe who wanted to be different and had a lemonade). The real reason for taking a trip to Ilingas was to ask the owner of the taverna about his experiences of the 2000 flood, which put into context its magnitude, as he showed us photographs of the beach before and after the event. We also seized the opportunity to ask the owner about his views on tourism in the local area.

We walked home feeling pleased with our fulfilling day and looking forward to the Local Wine Challenge which is planed for tonight!

After another “early start”, we purchased ferry tickets to Loutro at the harbour office, despite the unwilling ticket attendant, and boarded at 10:30. The 20 minute journey took us along the breathtaking coastline, where we could already see evidence of mass movement and coastal erosion, as well as giving us a clear view of the mountains in the centre of the region. On arrival in Loutro we were surprised to see people unloading fruit and drinks from the ferry to be served in the restaurants and bars, emphasising the seclusion of the village, which has no road access and relies heavily on supplies brought in by the ferry. The first thing we wanted to do was to have a swim in the cool water and a drink in the bar, but unfortunately the geographical features drew us onwards and upwards, (metaphorically and literally.) The walk started well with goat sightings early on and there were many scree slopes and gullies with varied species and amounts of vegetation. Although the path was steep in some places and the drop to the sea was often sheer, the path was well maintained and relatively level – with the main factor compromising our speed being the heat. After passing a small Greek Orthodox church ,which provided welcome shade from the sun as well as an insight into the local culture, we descended to Sweetwater Beach – discovering we were the first to arrive (beating even Alan Howard’s mountain goat pace!) This gave us plenty of time to have lunch and cool down in the sea, although the contrast in temperature of the water made getting in slightly uncomfortable. When we were finally ready to leave after several hours of relaxing, we continued with our trek back to the village – keeping our gaze firmly ahead to avoid the nudists (but it WAS a good show – Jamie) 

The path became a scramble over many rocks which had fallen from the active scree slope above, and at one point it was cut into the rock face itself. We finally reached the road and had to stop for a while to get our breath back – the hardest part was over! On the way back to the village, Jamie spotted a goat on the other side of a flood tunnel that had been built under the road… and so of course also climbed through to see it! He encouraged Celia to do the same, only adding afterwards that the tunnel was “full of goat poo”. We finally got back to the hotel to find that, yet again, we had aced the journey back, although this time we were beaten by Alan Howard! Group 3: 1 – Alan Howard: 1. A good day all round!

 We stopped for lunch at 12pm, after which we got down to work, measuring factors needed for Manning‘s Equation. This would allow us to calculate peak velocity and therefore allow us to measure peak discharge . The factors measured were: slope angle and wetted perimeter – both using a clinometer and tape measure – and width of the river bed, measured with the tape measure. We proceeded to do this for a total of 9 specific sites chosen for their signs of flood evidence such as stripped bark, , striations , deposited boulders and visible distinctions between previous vegetation and new growth.

Our final site at the base of the Gorge was a man made flood relief tunnel built after the 2000 flood to protect the road from future floods. After a long day of collecting data, we walked the 30mins back to the hotel and the whole group headed to the sea for a refreshing swim – the perfect end to our first day.