1st June 1984 Cycling in Hania with a Kiwi girl

June 1^st Friday. The boat arrived in Chania (Hania, whatever) just after 6am even though it was a twelve hour crossing. So we got off the Crete and got onto Crete and caught a bus to the centre of Chania – the town hall, to be precise, where there was a map of the town. We decided to go to either the Tourist Police or the Foreigners’ office to ask about accommodation (there was no tourist office on the map). So we walked down a few streets but couldn’t find the Tourist Police. Gavin asked someone who said kalamaki? Kolimbari? was the place to go for camping. We got into a taxi and headed west to wherever it was but got out after 4-5 km after seeing a “Hania Camping-->” sign. The road follows the coast and there were quite a few houses (some under construction), tavernas and places with rooms to rent, but we didn’t go into any of them. We walked along a beach back towards the mythical Hania Camping (it was actually closed). The beach was sandy, but the sand covered pebbles; the water was calm and smooth with gentle little waves. We reached a promontory with a few buildings labelled “Officers’ Mess”, a big hole with a cave to the sea and a couple of snack vans parked on the isthmus. Across the bay on the other side were some roofless buildings. We went past these and had a look at some caves on the next point – the floors were damp and sandy with a lot of rubbish in the corners. Gavin gashed his knee on a rock.

   After this little foray, the girls and I went back to the main road and found a supermarket to buy some food. Meanwhile, Gavin was exploring the buildings and found that the inside floors were covered in rubble and rubbish, but there was a kind of patio thing on the first floor that was clear [or second floor, for Americans and others]. Here we had breakfast – cornflakes, peaches, bit of cheese, etc etc.

   Marian and I decided to go back to the supermarket and hire a couple of bikes for the day – 300Dr. each. (The others were too lazy.) My bike was a bit small and the brakes weren’t excellent [they were pretty bad, in fact] but it was great fun riding back to Chania and around the streets looking for the town hall again (for the map). But we came out onto the beach and went east along the road on the waterfront. We came to an old wall which was built by the Venetians for defensive purposes, or just something to do. [The Venetians were there 13^th – 15^th Centuries.]

    

   We rode round and came upon a little quay where there were a whole lot of restaurants and a couple of souvenir shops and a low building with a white dome that looked like a church. Some of the buildings were shoddy, but the place was picturesque nevertheless. We rode across the flagstones slowly; there were two horse and carts for rides with old men.

  We made our way up, looking at one of the souvenir shops streets, and then found ourselves in the park near the bus station where there was another map. We memorized the route to the Foreigners’ Office and went there. But we weren’t immigrants so it wasn’t any help to us. They told us where to go to find the tourist office, down at the quay. So we went down to the quay again and found the tourist office – a low building with a white dome that looked like a church. I enquired about getting to Samaria Gorge, and then we looked around at the prices in the street tavernas and had moussaka for lunch at one of them. The wind was picking up a bit in strength.

   We rode back towards our buildings, passed the turn-off to them and continued as far as Hotel Panorama – it was now too windy and dusty to continue, so we rode back home.

   There is a lot of bamboo in this place; orange rubbish bins on poles line the beaches but aren’t necessarily used; goats are tethered at the roadside; there are leathery squashed rats on the tarmac; and a lot of gum trees – eucalypts!

   We had dinner of baked beans, bread and such in our windy abode. There were some clouds in the sky and the sun was going down. Marion and I returned the bikes, bought some yoghurt for breakfast and walked back. There were hundreds of swallows dashing past. It was still horrifically windy as we went to bed ‘neath the stars – right ‘neath the Big Dipper, in fact.