Day 41 (Greece): Thessaloniki - spot near a tower on the coast

today’s distance: 145km
total distance: 3257km
riding time: 7h

Plato and Curtis were to set out early at 7am, but for some reason that didn’t pan out. This delayed my departure and so I left Thessaloniki at 9am only. Out of the city, part of which involved an uphill on an Autobahnesque type of road due to me misreading the signage or faulty signage. The other direction pointed towards a highway, so I wasn’t going to take it. Oh well, took the next exit and the riding for the next miles was simply great. Mostly aided by a tailwind, I covered the next miles along two lakes, hills all around. This by the way is what my hand looks like, big tan line I would say, from wearing long sleeves so far.

I met a Swiss biker with this dog in a box on front of the bike. He has been on the road for about two years and was heading to Thessaloniki.

Through a gorge I arrived at the ocean, eventually hitting a strong headwind. I meant to buy some stuff for the night, but the town that was to come up never did. I needed water and could do the rest with what was in my bags. Big dog in front of a hut. A grumpy Greek comes out seeing that his dog was running my way. I asked for some water, he seemed unwilling. He took off with my bottles, then asked me into his yard. Then I saw what had happened. The hut was next to a river and the house had been under water almost to where the roof is. No water for sure. Then he took his cooler out and gave me three bottles, indicating that he would be back in Kavala tomorrow. I thanked him and moved on, not really wanting to pedal much longer. I saw a German license plate VW bus off to the side of the road and a Turkish older man telling me that he needed help. I told him that I would see what I could do and saw a little food place on the right hand side. Turned out that they couldn’t help. Eventually the police comes by and I tell them about the situation. They move away. A few minutes later I go back to the guy and he said it’s all taken care of, the police had been there and he was being towed soon. Back to the trailer and downhill from there to a great campsite by the beach …