March 10, 2014
Maybe A Little Confusing: Circling Lindos And back To Rhodes (City).
The birdsong this morning is more big squawking birds, not the usual chirping. And there's a kid goat bleating somewhere near. Seems to have become separated from mamma goat. All in all a peaceful place to wake. I wish I had muesli though, instead of breakfasting on a pot of yogurt by itself, plus cake and coke again. The goats come along and check me out while taking down the tent and packing all on the bike, then seeing I'm no threat, file by one behind the other. I leave the ground as found and push away back to the road for my first day turned out wearing shorts, a bit of a misjudgement as being on a hilltop, the first couple of kilometres downhill, give my legs a real chill.
The road continues hilly with beaches of long curving bays on the left and at some point I past Lindos, a flat roof-topped and whitewashed holiday village below the road towards the coast. I was expecting a sizable town, so didn't know this is Lindos, not seeing the usual village-name roadside-sign and begin to think the eleven kilometres to Lindos on the sign I passed earlier, is an extremely long eleven kilometres; or at least, it could be the hills and wind. It really is no morning to be riding in shorts as there's a cold crosswind with dark rain cloud ahead. Meanwhile, struggling in the wind, I'm aware of a crunching breaking sensation inside my bottom-bracket. The bearings have at last gone after being ridden the whole way from Tallinn. When the bottom-bracket is replaced this time, it'll be the third bottom-bracket I've gotten through on this tour.
A steep descent followed by a sharp ascent takes the road away from the coastal headlands. Then it becomes somewhat confusing at a tee-junction, seeing a sign pointing left for Rhodes 50 Km, when Lindos is forty-nine kilometres from Rhodes and I haven't, so I think at this stage, reached Lindos yet. And onward having taken the right turn, something is surely amiss as the sun is on my right now, when it should be on the left this time of morning as I cycle west. Next I climb a hill which looks familiar and over the summit pass a whitewashed holiday village below on the left, again, realising it is the same village passed earlier. This time I see the sign, Lindos at the entrance to the village and know now that the main route goes around in a circle. Cycling by for the second time, I intend going on to find some kind of road across the island, but then the rain come on and the sky ahead is black, while behind me the sky is clear, so the best coarse of action, I decide, is to return to Rhodes.
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Reaching Rhodes just before five after a chilling crosswind blew through me all day, I enter the ticket office just as they are closing. Inside I discover its the wrong ferry company, but the young woman directs me to the ferry office for the Athens ferry which is closed when I get there. The security guard at the port gate tells me the next sailing is tomorrow at five-thirty. I return back out of town, stopping at a Lidl on the way, to buy muesli, until I come to a turnoff along a track cross waist ground leading out to above the shore, where I find a level spot to camp hidden by bushes.
Today's ride: 75 km (47 miles)
Total: 11,944 km (7,417 miles)
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