Tuesday 25th June 2019

We’re back on the road at last. After 8 nights at Ionion Beach, and one mostly on an aircraft we finally have new credit cards, driving licence, and a new phone. ‘Normal’ service is resumed 🙂

The plan to collect the cards etc was, on paper, pretty straightforward. Board flight in Kalamata at 20:30 Saturday, land Heathrow 22:30 local time. Jenny would pick us up and we’d sofa surf before boarding flight back to Greece at 08:30 on Sunday. I’d arranged parking right next to the airport. What could possibly go wrong? 🙂

What went wrong was the flight was delayed by airspace restrictions over Europe and didn’t arrive until 21:20. We boarded around 22:00 and were promptly informed we couldn’t leave because of the airspace restrictions!

We waited and the Captain tried to find a route that avoided the restrictions. Route found, he had to add more fuel. Fuel loaded, he informed us that because we were now so late we wouldn’t be landing at Heathrow, unless he could get dispensation, but Gatwick.

The prospect for us was now landing at Gatwick at 01:30 and needing to check in at Heathrow at 07:30!

We finally left Kalamata at 23:30 local time.

After takeoff the Cabin Service Manager made the announcement “Welcome on board for tonights flight to somewhere in London” which lightened the mood in the cabin 🙂

An hour or so into the flight the Captain announced that dispensation had been granted for us to land at Heathrow and we landed there at 01:20 local. Jenny had very kindly stayed up to collect us 🙂

Highlight of the flight was the superb views over London.

After about 3 hours sleep we were dropped back to the airport and were soon on the way back to Greece. Thanks so much to Jenny & Paul for the hospitality and taxi rides 🙂

Today we moved 300 odd kilometres north to Enjoy Lichnos Camping.

Towing Kilometres – Today: 322 Cumulative: 32,661

The route took us over the magnificent Charilaos Trikoupis Bridge near Patras, where we were charged over €20 for the privilege!!

On arrival at the site, down a very steep and winding road, we were rather disappointed. The pitches are rather small and closely spaced. The facilities are fine particularly the beach side bar/restaurant.

The beach is excellent and we were soon cooling ourselves in the Ionion Sea 🙂

Later we had a very enjoyable meal overlooking the cove as the Sun went down.