Sardinia

Sardinia

Wednesday 4^th October 66 miles

We slept well and woke to hear a few drops of rain but it was a mixed grey sort of sky. Adrian went off in search of water as we were right out and he found that one of the water taps out in the port along by the little fishing boats was working, so after breakfast, we made our way along there for him to fill the tank.

We left and then the fun started as we came back to the little town of Santa Teresa Gallura and every road we came to had a sign saying no motorhomes or lorries etc. but we found our way into what was the bus station, a place nicely laid out, but not kept up and there was a carpark beyond that but we couldn't see how to get into it. We started walking around the town and initially weren't at all impressed as we'd seen a bank and went to it and our card wouldn't work. So we couldn't get any money and until we had some money we couldn't do anything. As we walked on and got into the old town it had far more character. We found a shop selling maps and Adrian found another bank and this time his card did work so with money and all these 1000s and 1000s of Lira we were able to buy a map and a book about Sardinia. We'd not had one on Corsica and felt that we would have been much better with one. That was difficult as there was only one book in the second shop we tried, in English and that was a bit bashed around. The chap had said he would sell it a bit cheaper but then he couldn't change the enormous note we just got from the bank machine. But he did, quite happily and ran off and changed it with 1000s of notes out of his wallet etc. It wasn't our imagination, people here seemed far friendlier, they wanted to say Bongiorno as we walked in and much more friendly than the Corsican people.
On wandering around we found a supermarket but the lights were off and they said that the lights would be on again soon and then it would be open. The other thing we were looking for was a reflective board to go on the back of the van which you have to have in Italy if you've got bikes so we looked around one one two shops, not knowing how to describe this to ask if they had one but in a garage we did find one and it cost 8000 lira so under three pounds. A very nice young girl in there said she was new and spoke English pretty well and in fact, we returned there to get some diesel afterwards. Adrian had also got a little battery for a pound to go in the alarm in the van as that hadn't always been working properly. Well the shops lights never came on, so we'd had our coffee, in the car park there, Adrian had put this luminous orange and white stripy board on the back of the bikes. And we then set off having great difficulty as so many roads said not for motorhomes. So we went south a short distance and came across another supermarket where we bought a couple bottles of wine, some rice and pasta and not much else. We did receive an email from Simon to say he definitely was going to Canada to work. The no motorhome signs were aggravating us rather, but we did find a place that we could park close to a sandy beach and we walked on there briefly. It reminded us very much of the west coast of Ireland.
We took a little road down to the sea at Vignola and briefly looked at the sea, they'd made a nice little paved area there, but it came on to splatter with rain and again. We'd passed a notice saying no motorhomes and then it said in English unless you were going to the motorhome service area. It all seemed a little incongruous to us and we were not too keen on it. We continued along this road which was straight for most of the time slightly undulating. But then at a time when we came to some bends, we turned down to a road to Isola Rossa and stopped at the panorama of the sea below and had our lunch. Just as we were leaving the sun came out.

Adrian fills the water tank at our overnighter at St Teresa's harbour, Sardinia

We came now on a stunning bit of road around to the remarkable looking village of Castelsardo - a bit like a St. Michael's Mount of pink houses on a conical hill and a castle above it. We were able to park on the side road there. Our trip up into this town had a false start because Adrian realised he had left half the video camera behind on the seat or at least that's what he thought had happened and it had. So we set off again climbing steeply to another crumbling Old Town with narrow streets a church and a cathedral which we peeped into and in lots of the doorways women we're sitting there making their basket work rather reminiscent of Africa and the things actually looked rather similar.
We now continued down the coast a bit and we found several places where you could park beside the sea. We stopped at one and had our afternoon tea and a short walk onto the beach and then we stopped at another for the night.
This was just before Platamona Lido, it would appear, and we walked on the beach. It was another wild beach, like say the Dutch sandy coast or New Zealand's 90 Mile Beach, that sort of wild coast. And we came back had showers in the van and later walked on to the beach again, to see the sun just setting and looking lovely with the misty beach in front of it.

Castelsardo, Sardinia

We came back and I cooked a spaghetti type meal and later just before bedtime, we walked down on to the beach again, to a partly cloudy sky but we saw lots of stars and the moon and it was pleasant.

Sunset at Platamona Lido, Sardinia

Thursday 5^th October 91 miles

When Adrian woke me at 7.30, the sun was just coming up to a beautiful clear day, with blue sky, more what we want. We had a cup of tea and then moved along a bit for Adrian to fill the water tank and then we drove along a bit to Platamona Lido and an area which had seen better days, but the beach was absolutely perfect. We parked there and had our breakfast sitting on a stone seat, using our seatmats from Tom which were useful. The only thing to mar it were a group of stray dogs, who didn’t do us any harm, and just sat watching us and having had breakfast I couldn’t resist having a swim in the wonderful sea. So it was 10 o’clock by the time we left and just along from there we came across our first Nuraghe, which are prehistoric towers and there are many of them on Sardinia. This was right beside the sea and looked beautiful against the blue sky, Just a shame about all the litter that is lying everywhere.

We now headed for Stintino which is the northwest point of Sardinia, looking out onto a peninsula and to the National Park Islands of dell'Asinara. The land on the way there was flat and we had to pass the town of Porto Torres, which had some Roman remains, but we didn’t stop at it as the town was rather large and had a large port and industrial area so we didn’t see them. We stopped for coffee just before Stintino, overlooking a rugged bit of coast. We drove on into Stintino and drove around the place which had a couple of little marinas, but also an old part of the town and parked at what we thought was a bread shop, but it wasn’t, but we found a post office, where after waiting quite a while I managed to get some stamps and eventually found a shop where we bought some rolls. We walked around a little market which had one fruit and vegetable stall and a few stalls with clothes items which could have been almost anywhere some of their basket stuff. We didn’t buy anything! We carried on up to Cabo de Falcone, which was really a glorified holiday village, but we were surprised that there was absolutely no-one about at this time of year and I as all closed up. But the thing there was the most amazing view across the turquoise sea past a little flat island called Piana to the Islands of dell'Asinara, which are a nature reserve. But the difficult thing there was because of the development, there was a pavement all the way along with street lights and nowhere to stop. So we returned to the other side of Stintino and found a pleasant little bay there for our lunch stop.
Having had lunch we felt quite hot, so refreshed ourselves with a swim in the sea. We left and headed southwards and came to Porto Conte a large bay which ended in Capo Caccia and just before there was a panoramic view and we stopped there and looked back and could see Alghero in the distance but the place where you could stop, you could also look in the other direction, out to sea and this was just a sheer drop and a little island called Island Foradada . It was just a great rock plodded there. There was nothing to stop you, or even to show that there might be a danger of the sea way, way below.

Nuraghe (ancient tower) near Porto Torres

Everywhere looked very beautiful with blue water, blue sky and white clouds, green vegetation and white cliffs on the end of a couple of these promontories into this large bay. We now returned around Porto Conte stopping once to view this almost enclosed bay then again at a bit called Rada di Alghero. The other side of a sort of peninsula sticking out into the sea at this point, just by a little town called Fertillia, which jutted out into the sea. We stopped by a nice little bit of beach, had a cup of tea, and were enticed to have another swim. And then we came to Alghero and this was a delightful very large town, but right on the sea, there was even a campsite right on the beach, beautiful beach right before the town, and then past the main bit of town, a very old bit of town. And we were able to park and walk back into it around the narrow streets and we read that this was an area that they were hoping to redevelop

Foradada Rock at Capo Caccia

We ended up with buying an ice cream, mine was limone again Adrian's caramel, which we enjoyed beside the sea in the sunshine before coming back to the Tiv. We started travelling south from Alghero and very soon we found a suitable spot at La Speranza beside the sea and peace and the sun was now shining so we made a cup of tea which we had sitting on the wall there and then forded a little stream which came out from a pond where the ground had started to be made as a car park. It had all the signs of this but had been left to be overgrown, and in walking around across the grand pedestrian bridge we came to a most delightful beach of very fine yellow sand at the foot of the cliff which was a strange, green tufa type rock. This made a nice night stop for us and we sat outside watched the sun going down whilst I wrote a couple of postcards but unfortunately as ever, it didn't make a good sunset, so I didn't get a picture. Adrian did at last cook outside, though it was bit of a rush as it had got dark by then.

A street in Alghero

Friday 6^th October 117 miles

We awoke to blue sky with some clouds. We utilised this large car park which was never finished and just left to rack and ruin, to sit on a bit of circular seating and have our breakfast with this lovely view looking out to sea.

Then after breakfast we walked down to the beach and along in the other direction, past a little cafe on the beach, the only thing along there, which unfortunately was having its sewage emptied at that time so it was a bit pongy, but a beautiful bit of coastline. We read that this was an area they were hoping to open up with this carpark, presumably but it obviously never happened. We started driving down this superb bit of coast towards Bosa and we left the county Sassari that we were in and came in to Nuoro. There are four counties, for want of another word, in Sardinia more or less north, south, east and west, but the Eastern one stretches over and just takes a little bit of the west coast at this point, which had us completely confused when we were looking up the names of places. At this point, there was evidence of a large forest fire the first we'd seen in Sardinia. We stopped for coffee just before Bosa looking out towards the tower and then the sea. A bit further on there was a lot of car parking beside the road and access to a beach. It was quite a little walk across scrubland and which we did and was quite pleasant, but certainly not much beach for the amount of people that must park there perhaps in the summer.

Rosie having breakfast at La Speranza [Doesn't she look happy]

Adrian at La Speranza

We now came down to Bosa a town which is on the side of the river Temo, in fact on either side of it, the Marina bit is on the far side. We found our way into the newer bit of town having gone along the shore beside the river first and getting nowhere. And there we had all the problems of a town, because every road we went down was a one way or you couldn't go into it or whatever. We wanted a supermarket and we did eventually find one after a circuit of the town and in there we purchased quite a few goodies at a reasonable price. We then went down to the marina beside where the river came out rather violently. it was on a little spit and the other side was a beach and there we had a pleasant lunchtime. It was a good large beach there and we could see evidence of new buildings going up, so this bit will obviously be expanded. We now left Bosa and headed up into the hills towards Macomer. We'd thought it would be a good idea to see a bit of the interior of Sardinia, but all I can say about it is it's drab, a grey beige colour we realised we were going to be missing the autumn colour of England. A lot of hillsides or fields were covered with large boulders and there were some sheep in some which were hard to distinguish from the boulders, and also a few cattle in some. We had bought some cheese earlier today called Macomer Cheese. We passed through a couple of insignificant towns, Suni and Sindia and Macomer, well all I could say about it was it was nice to get out, there was not one positive thing I could think to say about it. There were no signposts at all, we wandered around for quite a way and got to an industrial estate and couldn't find our way back or where we were going. We eventually did and we got out on the right road. Then, southwards one of the reasons for coming this particular way, was that Adrian thought that there was somewhere we could empty the loo, up in one of these villages. It was marked at six kilometres along the road number 131, but the problem was there were three bits of road labelled with that number, but we did find our way to this bit of road. At the turn off, it was at a place called Ghilarza, but the emptying place wasn't on the road and so we thought maybe it was in the village of Ghilarza,so we followed towards the village. And then behold we did see a sign to a loo emptying place shown as a symbol of a motorhome with bit coming out the bottom, it was a bit hard to follow the signs to the actual place for doing this but we finally did do so and Adrian did the emptying and filling. We should have been close to Lago Omedeo, shown as a very large lake on the map, but when we looked down, perhaps was dry and there was nothing, a few fields, no grass, it does look a little bit greener up here in the hills in this bit than when we first came into the hills, so maybe they've had more rain or maybe a river or something. We drove through Ghilarza, Adrian spotted a shop that he thought might have sold camping gas, so we parked, and he went to inquire while I made a cup of tea. In fact, he made three trips to this shop as it was closed and the final time it was open, but they didn't have Camping Gas. They directed us to somewhere else, which we found with difficulty and whether that had gas or not, it didn't open until five o'clock. So we decided to leave Ghilarza, but this was easier said than done – we found ourselves going in the wrong direction! But eventually we did manage to get out on the road we wanted to and find our way down to this reservoir - one of the reasons for us coming inland. When we finally got there, there was no water in it as we knew from what we've seen before, but that was a bit further down. There was just a trickle of a river at the bottom, not really a pretty site. We stopped to view the dam, devoid of any water and then started backwards towards the coast and a along a road where there was just nothing and it was pretty nondescript. There was a little clump of tiny white flowers like little snowflakes, all along beside the road .

Adrian near Bosa

I should also have mentioned the cork oaks we'd seen up in the hills, and also that when we were in Ghilarza the number of old women we saw dressed in black. We now came to the old town of Paulilatino which we drove straight through and then carried on and began ascending up to Santu Lussurgiu and St Leonard's Forest, we were pretty high and it was feeling pretty cool 875 metres we'd got to. At one place we stopped where there were lots of little picnic tables set in the hillside, nowhere really to park and it felt pretty chilly. So we continued on our way and began descending, we were going around Mount Ferru, which was an old extinct volcano and at Cuglieri, we went through part of that town and then descended and then a long, long straight road until we came back to the sea, at Santa Caterina di Pittinuri and there, right besides the sea, we found a little place which seems suitable. The sea was pretty rough, so if it gets any higher, we'd be washed away. It wasn't quite a sunset because it didn't quite do that, but the sun did look good over the sea.

Pink flowers the hills near Ghilarza

I cooked to Spanish type omelette for supper and then we sat in the darkness, looking out onto the waves, and listened to the last part of South Africa travels before walking out once more to the sea to stand by the rushing waves and walk along the podgy sand.

The sky at S. Caterina di Pittinuri, Sardinia

Saturday 7^th October 105 miles

Not the sort of morning we wanted to wake to so, grey and overcast, very windy and blowing straight in at us. Almost felt as though the waves we're going to come and get us in our little position there right by the sea. So breakfast of course was inside. We both walked down to these waves and seeing them splashing quite spectacularly against rocks on either side. So we hoped it would brighten up a bit - it wasn't cold just very windy and not very nice. The next little village to there was called S'Archittu named after a natural arch rock rather like London Bridge in Australia, if it had still been there, by the sea and we'd seen a picture of this in the book we'd got, looking lovely in the sunshine people sunbathing on the rocks, and we wanted to see it. Well it took us quite a trek of doing this as there was nothing to indicate where it might be and it was quite hidden from view from the road. After perhaps half an hour or more and several different treks in one direction and then another in the wind walking here and there going across a field where there were signs, a no entry sign and an arrow sign, which we thought was strange, I thought perhaps it was people learning to drive, in fact it seemed to be to a discotheque way up on top of a hill, miles from anything, but that was a fruitless search. Eventually we came back to the little village of S'Archittu and found our way through it - very dead on this Saturday morning, and parked at the end of it by some dustbins and found one little sign by a field which we walked across, and after circumnavigating another couple of fields, there we did find this arch at last. Hopefully I will have a photograph to remember this thing by, because all told, it took us an hour from when we left to getting back.

So we now went south a bit and then across a very flat area to Putzu Iduand eventually right on to Su Pallos,which is what we were looking to last night. This is a sort of area of sand with some large ponds in it and the end bit had some height to it like a little cape. We stopped beside a beach looking back to the coast we'd been up that morning and last night and had a coffee there. Then we drove to the south of this vast, almost flat peninsula, the Sinis Peninsula and without really realising it, we came to a place called Tharros. This was where there was an old Roman town which had begun to be excavated, so we paid a visit to this, which also included a Spanish tower of the 15th century which we visited first, which gave us a good view down over this Roman town and the surrounding area. It was extremely blowy there, I'd even put my fleece on, but while we were looking around the town, the sun came out and actually became rather warm, still windy, The town was perhaps amazing by the size of it so it was good to have visited that.

Adrian's Auntie Vi's photo of London bridge in Oz in 1961

Our photo of London Bridge on the Great Ocean Rd, Oz in 1998

Adrian by S, Architu, Sardinia in 2000

We now returned to the Tiv, it was past lunchtime, because we hadn't expected to have done that it was quite a long walk up to it too. So we thought we'd have lunch, but the car park bit there wasn't very exciting. So we decided to drive, in fact I drove, drove back towards Oristano, but we had to go a long way around the southern part of the peninsula, before we could find anywhere for lunch. We did drive down to Marina de Torre Grande with a big tower, but there didn't seem to be any road along the front, just a little, I was going say Spanish town because we do get a Spanish feel of places around there, Sardinian town, but a bit further on we took another bumpy road and then down to a place with a little pier and it looked a little bit industrial but there was virtually nothing there, it reminded us of Lucinda in Australia. But we parked in front of a large derelict house right beside the sea and sat inside because it was still blowy but the sun was hot. We were looking right back to the end of this peninsula which was called Cabo San Marco, which had Tharros on it and we could see the Spanish tower. We hadn't bought any bread today, we hadn't really seen a bakers today but yesterday we bought some Sardinian bread rather like pitta bread which was round, so we had them for lunch and I found them actually quite tasty. It was called Pontile, where we had lunch, and we'd arrived at about two and left at about three. We drove now through Oristano, and then south, around another of these lakes, this one called the Stagno di Santa Giusta, where we'd seen a nice church, and on driving round there I saw some flamingoes and we were able to stop and walk down a little bank and view them, I attempted photograph on full zoom and maybe even the little church in the background.

Roman pillars at Tharros

Roman town at Tharros

We were now in the area of Arborea and we'd read about this area and we were interested because it said that at one time nobody lived there because of malaria but had been eradicated and was now a very productive area. It had lots of regular roads of rectangular pattern and also drained by lots of channels and this is where a lot of their produce came from farming, we passed some cattle. We went through Arborea, which I think was only built in the 30’s and had some quite grand looking houses. And then we came down to the sea, where we had our cup of tea, we could look back to Oristano and we could also look right across to where we were at the Roman town this morning and we could also see the next bit of coast down which we were not going to get to, Capo Frasca. On our way here we'd also passed some herons in the several ponds and the swampy land reminded us of Cadiz, a very flat area and if the wind hadn't been howling so much, it would have been a nice cycling area. The beach there was covered in those funny tennis ball looking type seed heads or whatever they are and certainly the sea did not look turquoise today, very grey although the sky was blueish. We now drove back to Arborea and then south and after going across a lot of flatland we came to Guspini which was nestled in just as the hills rose very steeply. We wound our way up into the Arburese mountains and then soon after that, we went up more and more to a place called Arbus nestled in these mountains, and then wiggled round and round amongst hills, which were very green with shrubby bushes and very little else, it apparently had been a mining area, but very little evidence of that. We turned off after quite a considerable time to a place by the name of Buggeru - sounds very rude. We came down to the coast and we turned south to this place, hoping to find somewhere to stop, the time now being just gone six, and there was a beautiful sandy beach, the wind didn't seem as strong here as other places. And lo and behold, supplied by the commune of Buggeru, there were some pitches just above beside the sea.

Rosie's flamingos - where's the church?

A German came out of a camper that was there and said he'd asked and it was okay for us to stay there, so it seemed too good to be true. We walked down onto the beach and it really was very beautiful, wonderful sandy beach with beautiful cliff formations, and the sun looking quite beautiful. I took a couple of photos and I was glad I did, because the sun never actually set again, cloud banks always, seem to come up and swallow the sun before it sets

Our free camper spot at Buggerru, Sardinia (streetview 2017)

. We came back up, enjoyed looking out to this wonderful view of the waves crashing below and I got a meal of pork chops and then we sat in the cab afterwards, listening to part of our Namibia Safari adventure earlier this year, and really enjoyed the situation.

Beautiful sky at Buggerru

Sunday 8^th October 73 miles

The wind howled a bit during the night and the waves made quite a noise and it was rather a grey and not enticing morning. We were watching with interest the couple from a German motor home which had pulled in there and the gentleman who seemed to have a bit of trouble with walking had gone down in his dressing gown as German people do. We couldn't think he was going for a swim as neither the day nor the situation of the sea would entice one to do so. After a long time, during which time we'd have breakfast, his wife walked down to meet him and off they went again. We were really were rather puzzled until later we walked down ourselves to the beach and saw that beyond the little restaurant, which is at the bottom of this slope, there were a row of cold showers, maybe that's what he was going for - wouldn't be our idea of fun. So we walked along the beach, underneath where we were parked on a little cliff top, the cliffs that we were on were made of a conglomerate rock looking rather like Christmas pudding, and then just along from that was what would appear to be the limestone rocks again. We'd seen that there was a tap here so Adrian got some water. In the town the little place of Buggeru, which from our books said that it was a former mining town, but it didn't actually say what their mined and we could see evidence of a lot of the mine buildings around, some of which were beginning to be restored and the little village was being a tarted up if you like it had some nice paved areas. What must have been the port was now smart and a marina actually with the waves crashing at the moment. And it was looking a pleasant little place with the sort of eyesore bits of older mining equipment around which needed some more attention, but they obviously were working on it. We now wound up above Buggeru, and we could look down and see how the little town filled in the valley and then it's little harbour beyond it. Adrian was quite taken with this place and it wasn't just a name.

We stopped just there and had our coffee, we could look down to the beach that we stay beside last night and we'd done a total of four and a half miles. We travelled a little further and turned off onto a road recently, modernised, the old road was a little dirt track, which we wouldn't have made so we were glad that this had been done and the road came out to the sea at a place called Masua where the mine, we think lead, was still working, but only partially, there was evidence of a huge plant just before. The views were staggering there and as we came down this narrow road between cliffs we could see this out to sea to what was called Sugar loaf rock with absolute sheer cliffs.

Looking down on Buggeru

Apparently there was a mine that opened right onto the sea on this bit of coast. We walked down there to a delightful little beach and along to a landing stage and we thought that the road along the coast was only there because of the previous mine workings. We left there and returned to the main road and came down to a lovely beach at Fontanamare and sat in the van on a nicely made EEC type posh carpark overlooking the beach to have our lunch and as it was Sunday and no shops being open anywhere again, for lunch we had the Sardinian flatbread bread like pita bread, and the butter, which was from Arborea where we were yesterday - we didn't actually buy it there, that was where the labels said and looked and it tasted more like lard than butter, no flavour at all. Afterwards, after I'd trimmed my hair and stitched a bit on Adrian's binocular case, we walked out but very briefly because the wind was very strong, but it was a beautiful piece of coastline interspersed with the remains of the mining things, one of which interested Adrian because he said it was just like Arkengarthdale in Yorkshire, with the lead mining, sort of long a tunnel with a tower on the top where they smelted the lead.

Sugar loaf rock at Massua

We took a good bit of road now to Portoscuso and from there a boat went across to island of San Pietro and we'd seen a lot a cars as we came into the town and wondered why there were so many, but we thought they must have come off the car ferry because when we arrived at the place to car ferry was just leaving to go to the island. We left and went down the next little bit of coast turning off to a place called Bruncu Teula where there were lots of little local boats and momentarily it was out of the wind and looked very peaceful.

Adrian videoing at Fontanamare

An old lead mining chimney at Fontanamare

We now came across a long isthmus to the island of Sant'Antioco. The first town that we came to was of the same name. We drove through the narrow streets of that and right up to the north of this little island to a place called Calasetta. We managed to get our way through there to and down a bit of the West Coast. We looked at a campsite at a place called Salina where was actually a salt works nearby. But we worked out with that was going to cost us £13, which was a bit exorbitant, so we carried on down this little road past a place called Tonnara, a spectacular piece of coastline until the road ran out and on our return we pulled in high above some cliffs, a bit sort of Nullarborish great cliffs and the sea splashing down below. And this is where we had our afternoon tea stop. We now made our way back, we didn't actually have to go through Calasetta this time and also by bypassed Sant'Antioco and went further south on the road there which took us to the southernmost part of this so called Island and we were able to turn off onto a little track on the beach seemed to be called Canisonia and there was a nice little place where we could stop there and so we were looking across the Golfo di Palmas back to the mainland. This was a lovely peaceful spot. We both had a shower and washed our hair and just at that point, can you believe another motorhome came in, bloody Krauts of course and parked themselves in front of us. Adrian went out and angrily said, we wanted them to move back a bit, which they reluctantly did, but still spoilt the moment for us and really all the evening because they could easily have gone a bit further along if they'd looked and thought about it. We then had a phone call and it was Emma so we phoned her back but with some trouble because the phone didn't want to connect on the one we were with and we had quite a nice chat to Em and she'd heard from Simon and was trying to sort out the weekend for when we get back home and Simon is also home. We did try phoning him but without success. I then cooked an excellent meal of tuna, so then there were no more reserves so would have to shop the next day and a bottle of wine, Asti it seemed to be called and it was Sardinian wine and it still tasted really nice at the end of the meal. We walked out briefly afterwards. Later in the evening, the moon was shining down it was partly cloudy, and we could see across to all the lights on the mainland and some ships waiting to go into the port. And then we phoned Simon and were able to get through and speak to him.

Boats at Bruncu Teula

Monday 9^th October 73 miles

Although we'd heard the wind blowing a bit we woke up to fine morning and a beautiful view to have our cup of tea in bed looking out over this peaceful water, with a thin sort of sun shining down and the misty hills of the mainland across the water. We found it was pleasantly warm outside and so we still had our breakfast outside despite these bloody Krauts who'd come in next to us. They left quite soon after we'd had breakfast. perhaps we drove them off and that was a good thing too. I took a photo looking on this peaceful scene with a little fishing boat and through some grasses in front of us and after Adrian had cleared bits of rubbish from them which was always a problem there.

It was just nicely peaceful and with reluctance we got ourselves organised to leave which we didn't do until almost 10 o’clock. We drove back towards Sant'Antioco and just on the outskirts we found an unprepossessing looking supermarket but we got most of the things we wanted. We stopped and had our coffee just before the bridge as we were leaving the island of Sant'Antioco. I'd bought some rather Lebkuchen type things in the supermarket which came from Oristano apparently, which was a town we came through on Sardinia and they weren't too bad. We passed again the Roman bridge which we had seen on our way in yesterday. Then returned along the long isthmus. We now headed for Porto Botte, which again Adrian wanted to visit and there was nothing report there, just one or two little boats and the water lapping and some birds, unusually, shags type birds on posts, and we were looking across to where we stayed last night but with even with binoculars we couldn't identify anything - we should have had coffee there. We now continue down this little bit of coast to place called Porto Pino and on the way we'd passed lakes on either side and seen some more flamingos. Porto Pino had seen former glory but it was in a wonderful situation with the lagoon type sheltered area of water and with hills around it and fringed with Corsican Pines, so it looked very attractive and aandy was obviously very popular in the season. We'd crossed a little bridge to get to this area and there was virtually only us there, a couple walked along the beach and another couple of appeared at some point. We we're sitting on the beach enjoying this warm sunshine and pretty situation, when our peace was shattered by three young puppy dogs which came and decided Adrian was the best thing since sliced bread and settled themselves around and on him. So we left and now headed for the Costa del Sud. obviously on the southern coast, we were then in the most southern part now of Sardinia and this was a pretty road with the hills up behind us and nothing else here except an odd tower and then one abomination of a great hotel being built on the end. But we parked ourselves down by this pretty bit of coast and rather boringly sat inside to enjoy some of the goodies that we'd bought for lunch and looked out on this beautiful piece of coastline. We passed the beach Malfatano where there was one of the many towers, and there were cows on the beach - it was certainly a beautiful unspoiled bit of coast.

Early morning from S. Antioco Island

As we got to Chia, we saw evidence of a lot of holiday places being built, up until now apart from the hotel mentioned or whatever it was, there had been nothing at all for mile after mile. In the summer it would appear there was a motorhome stopping place there. We parked down behind a dune and had a pleasant if blowy walk along another pretty orange sandy cove, and found a little place out of the wind to laze for a while and this time no dogs.

Cattle on the beach at Costa del Sud

We next came to some rather discreetly hidden holiday villages and then took a road along by the coast past a couple of campsites and then back to the main road and down another road which our my map said it went beside the sea and came out at the Roman ruins at Pula which is where we were heading. The road started unsurfaced and got worse and worse and also had home-made type speed humps past what must be little holiday homes along beside the sea and it got worse and worse as we went along and after some distance we found it didn't go anywhere anyway, because there was water in between and we couldn't get across. On our way back we stopped and had a cup of tea but it wasn't even a nice bit of beach. We couldn't even get down to it, so not the greatest success so returned returned to the main road and continued towards Pula. We drove through Pula and at the end of a little peninsula in the most fabulous situation you could possibly imagine was the remains of the Roman town now called Nora. It was then clear blue skies, the sun was shining, it was warm and not windy and we walked around this vast Roman town and it was just the location of it was just exquisite. Okay, the stuff looked like a pile of old rocks a lot of the time, but there were some mosaics, nothing fantastic, but the descriptions were in English, which made going around much easier and the fact of this just beautiful position, made it to an enjoyable trip.

The beach at Chia

We now needed somewhere to stop and this didn't really seem possible down at the bit by Nora and we found ourselves on a one way system back into the little crowded Old Town of Pula and tried another little diversion on a unsurfaced road which didn't work. Then as the road from here went inland for a way, we managed magically to find another little unnamed road, which went down to the sea opposite the island of San Macario and it looked a nice place to stop with just a few fishermen around at the moment. The island with it's tower as always, was lit up by the sun. We walked off around this little area and found another track out but it seemed to go a long way, perhaps right to Nora where we saw the Roman town. So we came back and waited for the fishermen to move and it was long time before they did but at nightfall they left so we then moved to a position right by the shore and a lovely position it was. There was a large moon shining down on the water. The lighting had been really lovely after the sun had gone down. I felt reluctant to leave idyll and get food but eventually we did so and I cooked a meal - I made some mince burgers, with the mince and then we put the lights out again and sat looking out on to this lovely view of the calm sea with the stars and lights all around. And just beyond that the sea was really clear, free of any of this paperer seaweed and a nice depth and sandy there were some pebbles along the beach and we both had a delightful swim. We'd had a phone call from Emma, just as it was getting dark and later spoke to her again, on what to do with meeting up with Simon on his return to England before he goes to Canada. We spent the rest of the evening listening to the very last of our African recordings and enjoying the peace and quiet there. And having had two phone conversations with Emma this evening, we also had a text message from her, all regarding Simon's homecoming.

Looking out from the Roman town of Nora, Pula

The Roman town of Nora (Streetview, Paul Hollinghurst 2014)

Tuesday 10^thOctober 33 miles

We woke late to see the sun shining down over the water in this absolute idyll. We had a cup of tea and then got up to have breakfast sitting outside. I would say in splendid isolation, which we were, but Adrian did a bit of video and at one point, I said "oh look there's a person" in fact, there were two people in opposite directions nothing to do with each other.

One was a woman walking a dog and the other a gentleman who had come down on his bike. After that a fisherman came and stayed, but apart from those there was just us. It was warm, hot in the sun and after breakfast we walked along the beach in the opposite direction from last night and there was an area of rocks made of a strange basalt type conglomerate. We came back and didn't leave till 10.40.

Looking to St Macario Island at our overnighter, Sardinia, (streetview 2011)

St Macario Island, Sardinia

Back in Pula we went into a supermarket which Adrian had spied looking absolutely nothing, it looked like sort of the worst cash and carry from the outside or just a factory or something and even had some African people selling their belts and sunglasses etc. outside. But inside it was very well stocked, we'd only really gone to get some rolls, we got those plus lots of other things. I got some ravioli with ricotta which is the Sardinian thing and some gnocchi, a candle because our candle has just about come to the end of its life, on of those red religious looking candles. And the speed of the woman putting things through the till Adrian thought kept up with Italian language - speedy in the extreme. We realised how very lucky we were with our beautiful spot last night as the next little bit on the map which we might have headed for had we not found that spot was a huge oil refinery and not anywhere we could possibly have stayed. We turned down to have our late coffee by the beach but the wind was actually blowing in quite strongly there not like our sheltered beach this morning, but it was still quite pleasant. We looked across to Cagliari, which we will be visiting next. The way into Cagliari was quite spectacular with a sort of causeway with a sea on one side and large areas of swamps on the other, there were a lot of flamingoes and a few herons and egrets. We got right into a parking area in the central part of Cagliari at about 12.15. What can one say about a Cagliari. It's large, busy, a mixture of all sorts of things old and new, cluttered with traffic, a fantastic situation, a real conglomeration in fact a town of which one could wax lyrical. It rates, in my mind, as one of the most beautiful capital cities in the world along with Sydney, Auckland or Vancouver, for its situation surrounded by sea, with lakes either side of it, and the highest of hills separating it and built as a conglomeration, all close together, of old stuff, new stuff, reminiscent of Prague with so many buildings around that are interesting to look at and we really enjoyed our time there. We were fortunate in parking down by the front, in a paying car park, but for a total of five hours there it was about £1.70. and we were then able to then walk up into the town where we searched for ages for the tourist office

Leaving our overnighter opposite St Macario Island

. The other thing that I really wanted to do was get my films developed. We felt a bit like on our trek of finding William Lawson's death certificate on Nuka Hiva, but on the third attempt, which meant that we'd seen a lot of Cagliari on the way, we found someone who said she would do them by this afternoon. We succeeded in getting the five films developed and two loads of washing done and dried, and walked around in the meantime, enjoying the atmosphere of the fabulous place.[Rosie often mentions launderettes, which most people would find boring, but after water and places to empty the loo, it was the most important thing if you were free camping all the time, and was always the most difficult place to find].

Bastion St Remy, Cagliari

Looking through the Bastion St Remy, Cagliari

It was also university city and we were aware of a lot of young people walking about with books, all really quite delightful.
We didn't leave there until gone 5 o'clock and headed out towards the beach, which was quite a hairy drive, there was a tremendous amount of traffic and the beaches are on the other side of this sort of Peninsula if you like, that Cagliari is part of. We came to a most amazing long white sandy beach at Poetto which stretched for several miles and behind it was a large lake, so it was just like a long sandspit of perfect sand - no seaweed, absolutely wonderful. Along there, I spotted a water tap - we'd done all the other things, but we needed some water, but we couldn't get quite close enough to it for use the hose. We thought Harry would be proud of the way. Adrian filled his large water bottle several times and I held the funnel and we filled the tank.

The Elephant tower, Cagliari

The Laundrette!, Cagliari

I made a cup of tea and we sat on the beach beside the quite crashing waves, with the sun going down by some palm trees and a promontory either end of this area of sand. So we were looking out to hills in one direction and a rocky promontory in the other, so quite lovely. We just needed to find somewhere for tonight and get ourselves organised. One nice and one not so nice thing about Cagliari - Adrian was upset to see so much graffiti and also the amount of cars going down these narrow roads that we were walking along but the nice thing, a real plus was the Jacaranda trees, some of which were in flower. We drove on now round a little bit and turned down to a place called Foxi and there we were able to find a little place beside the sea looking back to the long beach and Cagliari in the distance and all of its lights and it seemed a nice place to stop. So we quickly did a lot of sorting out of washing and a very quick look at the photos and all sorts of bits and pieces we had to do. The light was failing, but the view was nice - I took a photo but again no sunset

Adrian filing the water tank at Poetto Beach, Cagliari

. I started to get a meal ready when suddenly a great storm came in and it lasted about an hour and was quite exciting while it did. We could see lightning over Cagliari and in the distance and all the lights and then suddenly we couldn't see anything at all due due to the heavy rain that came. The storm didn't really cause us a lot of trouble, we had some rain but not very much and then it passed over and it was back to normality, we could see all the lights and it seemed a still pleasant evening as I walked out briefly before bed.

Looking to S. Elia Cape from Foxi near Cagliari

Wednesday 11^th October 71 miles

Not a very peaceful night, there were lots of dogs barking and various other things to disturb us and the morning was even noisier. We found that two motorhomes had come in behind us, a large one and a small dormobile type and there was a scooter and two small children, one of whom was rather noisily playing on the little beach, if you can call it that. The big van had a problem with starting, we don't know what it was all about, but it was all very noisy. And after that, there were other sounds and it transpired that they were coming to resurface this area or dig up the road or do something, it was an unsurfaced area, just by the sea, but the view was really beautiful, looking across to Cagliari and its surroundings. There was weak hazy sun shining down.
We had a little walk along the front of what was really a very pretty area but very strewn with this grassy type of seaweed and it was 10 o'clock when we left. At the main road, we stopped at some fruit and vegetable stores we'd seen yesterday where the fruit and vegetables look really good, as opposed to those in the supermarkets where they don't. We bought some rather expensive vegetables, a large bunch of carrots with stalks on and radishes, and a very nice looking cauliflower. We passed the scene of an accident where the two cars were just left out in the middle of the road while the policeman talked to the occupants. We then continued along another superb bit of coast with the road winding high above the sea, but we took a little track off to a beach called Torre di Cala Regina, which looked a sweet little cove with a tower above it again. We went for a walk on the little pebbly, rocky shore, of the little cove, and then decided to have our tea and coffee there, utilising again, the little foam mats to sit upon, that Tom had given us and proved so useful. We were looking out to the sea, with the sun was shining through thin cloud and sparkling on the water like little diamonds.
We left and then came down to a little place called Solanus which had a beach which looked like fine sand but it was large grit but light coloured. There were some rather unsympathetic buildings in the little place. We could see the evidence there of last night's rain and also they were doing some roadworks down where we stopped by the beach, so it was lucky we could get through. It was then on to Villasimius and one of our difficult times. We went first towards the Peninsula which goes down to Capo Carbonara and had decided not to go right to the end of this as it was very much a tourist area there. We turned off to a lake and a beach called Notteri on the eastern side, but we only got to the lakes, where we saw some flamingos and saw a beach beyond. We tried a track down to it, but never really got where we wanted to, so decided to return to Villasimius and where we knew there was a place to empty the loo. After much difficulty and a phone call, we managed this after we had to pay £3.
We then set off again through the town Villasimius and though Simius and then up the coast a little bit and we stopped for lunch, by now late at 1.30, looking back to Capo Carbonara and down on to a beautiful turquoise looking beach way below us. We soon came to the Costa Rei, an area we could see from the hills in the distance, looked so beautiful with a long white sandy beach, but frustratingly when we got there was a holiday area of holiday complexes etc hidden away and with no access that we could see to the beach. So we then went on a bit further towards Cape Ferrato, but there was nothing we could do there, so we had to carry on round Mount Ferru and on to the sea again at a place called a Torre delle Saline and down a long road there with a pond one side and the sea the other. There were little habitations everywhere, but we continued to place called Porto Colostrai where there was another tower, north of there was a development but we didn't take that road. The bit of beach that we were on was very remote and again a beautiful sandy beach, some of it of fine shingle.

We had a cup of tea and then decided it would be a nice place to stay. We went out for a walk across the beach before we had supper of gnocchi. Later we labelled some of the photos. It was an almost full moon.

Flower on the beach at Torre delle Saline

Thursday 12^th October 59 miles

We awoke to a beautiful day, but had breakfast inside. Afterwards we had a walk along the beach and I had a swim before we left. We headed for Muravera where we had a shop and bought diesel and then went on down to the sea at Porto Corallo. So we had our coffee and of course, another swim. There was a lot of paper seaweed washed up there, but our swim there was in quite deep water and as it was now hot it was a very enjoyable swim. We now carried on northwards, inland and went through rather hilly country which was quite attractive and there beside the road we came upon the dear little brick built 12th century St Nicholas Church. apparently the only brick built church in Sardinia and on a very high hill behind this was the remains of an ancient castle. We stopped there and viewed the little church, videoed it a bit and actually found some nice little picnic tables under the olive trees and so we had our lunch there - altogether a pleasant stop.

There were a few butterflies around, lizards and some bougainvillea mostly but adding a bit of pretty red colour to the surroundings and there wee also lots lots of prickly pears in this area. We started noticing vineyards beside the road - we'd had some nice Sardinian wine last night and the vineyards looked well tended. We now went back into the province of Nuoor having left the province of Cagliari, there being four provinces in Sardinia. Then it was no more vineyards, a lot of bushes and there had been quite a lot of trees in this area which made it look more enticing than some of the rather remote areas. but we did come to more vineyards and more agriculture. We passed the town of Tertenia and just north of there, there was a divide in the road and we had intended to go into the mountains, but the weather was so beautiful, a clear blue sky that I couldn't resist trying once more to go down to the sea.
So we turned down towards the sea and came to a little place Museddu but annoyingly the wind was blowing straight in and it was very windy, which hadn't been earlier in the day. So we continued down south a little bit to try and get in the lee of another mountain called Mount Ferru and we eventually came to a really pretty little area of beach south of Perde Pera, called la Spiaggetta, some sand but the actual beach of a sort of little cove was large pebbles and pretty pastel shades. The sea had looked a wonderful turquoise, a clear blue sky and the mountains behind and some red rocks out to sea and the rocky little cove and that stream came out we tucked ourselves away in an isolated little spot and hope and this will be a nice spot for tonight. We had a cup of tea and enjoyed lazing in the sand there looking out to sea and and when we got hot we had a sort of swim in this little stream, we got in a bit that was deep enough to do a stroke or two, but it was nice to cool off, but in fact, the heat had mostly gone from the sun by then. So we came in and had showers and we then had a text message from Em and later we also phoned Tom, who had just come back from his fortnight in Egypt, and we had a chat to him. Adrian had decided to cook the pork chops outside - I think he just got one bite, it was a bit of a battle to eat early before the mossies came out. And then we sat with a full moon shining down and listening to part of our tape going from Corsica to Sardinia and then walked out to the edge of the sea to see the moon shining down

St Nicholas Church near Tertinia

Friday 13th October 128 miles

We'd slept well and woke to what appeared a grey morning but the clouds were clearing by the time we left, which today was a bit earlier about 9.20 am as we want to go up into the hills today. It was surprisingly warm from the look of it outside, so after breakfast we did walk out around this rather pretty little area

. The waves were quite big today and the tide was in, so having had our little walk around and photographed yet another idyll we left for the hills. We stopped just along the road at a beach called Sa Perda Pera, which in contrast to ours, with the lovely orange cliffs all around, this was a long, sort of sandy or gritty beach. The sea was wild, spraying up over the sand and it did look very nice and was beautifully warm. We had a short walk on the beach there. At Bari Sardo they sent us on a little one-way route towards our direction in the hills which was extremely narrow and in fact had a bridge thing across the road. It was just lucky there were no cars parked down that road and Adrian expertly navigated it. We drove through the first mountain village or small town, Loceri.
We noticed how many of the older ladies wear black, assuming they were widows and quite a busy, crowded town but it looked as though it was from times past. There were gentlemen sitting there on seats as though they'd sat there for centuries and there was a little mountain nearby of orangy rock very barren and it made me think with its colour and against the blue sky of Spitzcoppe in Namibia. We were surprised at the size of the next town, Lanusei, which was stuck on the side of steep mountains and we did a series of steep hairpin bends through the place. We stopped up in the hills above Gairo to enjoy our morning tea and coffee. It was pleasantly warm and we could see all the zigzags of the road below us and we could see some large lumps of iron-looking rock, we were using our little mats again to sit upon. The small town of Gairo had been abandoned after severe flooding in the early 50’s when water must just have rushed down the side of the mountain because it was well above the river valley and we could see a
the new town of Gairo -St Helena, had been built nearby. We could see all of the totally abandoned and derelict houses as we drove past in this very steep area. We wound around some more and then we came to the large town of Seui, set in the mountainside and we had no option but to negotiate the main street through, which was being resurfaced to add to the complications of the masses of people and haphazardly parked vehicles, but it seemed a happy sort of place, lots of ancient crumbling buildings and one got the feeling there wasn't much to do in the town. We'd read it was once a mining town but I think now a lot of people move away and send money back to help those who are still living there - a very real sort of place though. We had a bit of trouble finding a suitable lunch stop but we eventually stopped just before we were going to turn off, near a bridge over the River Flumendosa and also near this railway which has been following us all the way along here. Apparently there was a little steam train runs on it, but presumably only in the season. There was a very mountainous track for it. We actually sat inside, it was very warm but also quite windy and the dry brownness didn't really entice us to sit outside. Across the dry valley there was a herd of goats with bells around their necks and all told it was a very peaceful stop.
We received an email from Simon to say he'd signed his contract. Beside the road as we went along it was strewn with little tiny mauve flowers. After Aritzo, another town clinging to the mountain sides, the countryside became much greener and therefore in our eyes more attractive. with a lot of trees, notably chestnut trees for which the area is renowned and in fact after passing through Desulo, another town clinging to the mountain side, we stopped at a spring. We refilled our water tank using the container again to do so, made a cup of tea using that water and collected up several chestnuts from around there.

Our overnighter at la Spiagetta near Perdepera

We now continued on our way, climbing and descending and everywhere became rather greyish and I still think it was rather drab, although we enjoyed being in the mountains for a day and seeing some birds of prey, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and horses. We came down the old road - a new road has been built almost parallel with this old winding road, and we went over the Arcu Correboi sort of pass which is supposed to be renowned, but didn't really excite me. We were looking for somewhere to stop and about 5.45 we pulled onto a little track and actually ended up beside one of the huge viaducts of the new road, beside a little stream, so not too bad a spot at all.

Fontana de Su Au, Desulo ( streetview 2022)

We went for a little walk out and around, there were two streams there, one joined the other and that's a sight we hadn't really seen in Sardinia. And as we returned to the van after quite a nice little walk around, masses of goats with their bells ringing surrounded us. We hoped they weren’t going to stay there all night. After supper we rang Emma and then we listened to the second side of tape 2 of our trip this time.

Somehow we managed to overnight under this viaduct (streetview 2008)

Saturday 14th October 96 Miles

We had a rude awakening in the night. We got up for the loo sometime after three and just as we were getting back to sleep there was a huge crash of thunder and a few torrential drops of rain but then no more, but I didn't get back to sleep for a long time. Then in the morning as we awoke the skies were grey and we had more rain then and there had been little bits of thunder, so we decided that we'd better get back up to the road as we'd come down a very steep and uneven track and didn't want to get stuck under this viaduct forever. So we did that and just along the road we came to one of the little buildings that were the road keepers houses in the pink buildings with ANAS above them. On the map these are abbreviated to CANT and this one was called Pira 'Onne.

They were rather sad now, all these houses that used to look quite smart in days of old in Italy are now derelict, we parked in front of this one and could have stayed here last night if we'd gone a few hundred yards further. - having looked for a couple of hours for somewhere to stop last night. This was a place where we could have joined the new road. It's a stupendous new road with viaducts and cuttings and embankments and it had about one car every half an hour on it. So in the greyness we had our breakfast there. We left at 9.30 and continued southwards, intending to take a road off to the east to the coast, but then the adventure started. We actually turned off on a road too soon on one that wasn't on this rather useless map we have, which is a new map but doesn't have half the roads on it. We started going on a very pretty road through a mountainous area, but then we went into cloud and we couldn't see where we were going. The road became rather narrow, but it was surfaced and past peaks and horses and I had my suspicions that we weren't on the road we'd thought and we certainly weren't. The visibility now became extremely difficult, which perhaps was as well when we realised how high up we were and our road wound down in a series of dozens and dozens of hairpin bends looking like an old photograph of the St. Gothard Pass and just sheer down below us.

ANAS buliding Pira 'Onne, Sardinia Italy (streetview 2008

And then we spired, shining in its pinkness, the town on the hillside. and I had my suspicions that it was a town called Talana, which we hadn't intended going to, but as we came into it, luckily, that's where it was, so at least we knew where we were.

Circuitous Rd near Talana (streetview 2014)

Our little adventure was over. We drove through this little pink town, clinging again to the mountainside, as so many and now we were taking a different road down to the coast, which looked on the map to be fairly straightforward and certainly really superb. I think the best scenery we’d seen around there and we really did enjoy the lovely red rocks and the amount of green vegetation and trees as we headed now for the coast, and on a fairly straightforward road. We got down to Lotzorai, and decided to go a bit southwards to Tortoli and Arbatax, a bit that we'd missed out. The road didn't seem quite that straightforward when we got there and at Arbatax, it seemed strange, a large industrial area and a big port. There was a rock bit at the end of it and we stopped by the sea, and a lot of red rocks. It seemed to be an area where they'd quarried out a bit of the side of the hill to make the harbour or port. The weather had been and still was grey, it had looked black inland, but it wasn't perhaps as bad as it had been earlier - erratic, you might call it. We had our tea and coffee and then thought we'd walk out to see the red rocks, which make a sort of arch bit out to sea there and the sun actually came out to shine. Adrian ran out and stood in a little hole in the rock to be photographed and then huge spots of rain came and drowned us in a couple of minutes, so we made a dash back to the Tiv.

Talana in the distance

We drove round a little bit on this headline to a place called Porto Frailis, below another Spanish tower and this was a very pretty little beach. We walked on it briefly in the surprisingly pleasant, warmish sunshine. We left there and stopped at an R&D discount, which was a not terribly well equipped supermarket - Adrian said rubbish, but we did buy a few things, including a frozen seafood selection for that evening. I forgot to mention that in the morning the second gas bottle had run out so we were then on our different reserve supply and we just didn't see any ‘camping gaz’ places anywhere. Well, the weather and our fortunes continued to fluctuate. We turned off to a place on the sea called Santa Maria Navarrese, to make us a triangle, rather than going straight up the road and in going along this road, Adrian suddenly said, "Oh dear, that was serious", and the clutch wasn't working. Yesterday, when we were up in the mountains, a little spring had landed by his feet and hunt as we did everywhere we couldn't see where it came from. It would appear that it came from the clutch pedal. So we stopped there and then, and he did clever things in the engine bay and what have you and we got going again. We got down to the front at this little place and carried on down to the port, where everywhere was nicely paved, etc. , so beautifully done, but not a soul in sight. We had our lunch, and Adrian did a bit more fiddling around with the clutch problem. The weather deteriorated and it came over rather black and it rained tumultuously, making a river on the road behind us and a swamp of the area in front, next to the port. As we left, the sun was shining again, but still raining where we had been. We now began the long ascent to Baunei, which looked radiant there, shining in the brilliant sunshine after the rain, but there was still a dark sky around. Baunei was partly in wispy cloud as we went through, which made it feel rather spooky, but on a clear day, the views would be absolutely stupendous. We were amazed to see a mighty football pitch and sort of stadium concstructed in this mountainous area, a sort of vast flat area on the top of a pinnacle, with the most stunning situation I could imagine for a football pitch. What expense, we wondered.

Adrian in the Red Rocks, Arbatax

Instead of getting better then , things got a lot worse. As we ascended, this should be a wonderful road with wonderful views, but for a good bit of the time we were in the cloud, and sometimes in the rain. We went over the highest point, which actually was pretty high, 1010 metres and we'd gone through several gallery-type bits too, so obviously they have trouble with snow in the winter. But then things got worse in that visibility became nil, it rained and it was non-stop hairpin bends, which went on and on and on. Adrian was getting desperately worried about the Tiv, something to do with the drive shaft, which has been an ongoing problem, but was displaying itself now [The constant velocity joint was sticking somehow on the countless hairpins and making the steering wheel vibrate alarmingly] and when we finally got down to Dorgarli, he was pretty exhausted. We stopped on the outskirts of the town, and there was a sign to say, no motorhomes or lorries through the centre and there was a ring road around either side. We'd pulled in to see this sign and Adrian reversed in the torrential rain to look at it, and in doing so, scraped underneath the sign, which did something to the top of the van and to the sign and even then, we unwittingly got into the middle of this town, which I'm sure in nice weather is attractive, but to us was nightmarish at the time. We managed to get out again onto the ring road, if you can call it that and after a bit we came to a junction in the road, where we stopped to try and decide what to do as being Saturday night, nothing would be done to the Tiv on a Sunday and time was running out on Sardinia anyway. I'd seen on the map a road which didn't look as though it was as hilly or as windy, as the other road. Adrian managed to pull in in front of a coal supplier's, it had stopped raining a bit and he was able to see what had happened to the van, but he was just exhausted. I made a cup of tea and we tried to assess the situation. The end result was that after a time we did take this other road, which was pretty level and like a Roman road. Adrian was thankful for that, and the Tiv seemed to be okay. [Later, on reflection, we decided that going backwards (at the sign I hit!) had ‘unlocked’ the drive shaft which then performed OK]. We went through a place called Galtelli, and then on a straightish road eastwards through Orosei and down to the sea at Marina Orosei a place which had seen better days. The one building there was derelict and there was a little bar on the beach. Everywhere was looking very, very wet after all the rain, but it was a light grey sky by then, broken up a bit, and only raining very lightly. A lot of people seemed to have come to life and gone down either to the bar or to view the beach. So we decided that we were going to stop there tonight and then see what transpired the next day. We had a pleasant little walk out and were amazed at the number of cars that had gone down there - presumably they'd been rained off for the rest of the day. There was a little river that went between us and the beach and a lot of wetland on from it. The beach was like a long shingle sandbar and as I crossed it I saw a kingfisher, and we saw a heron fly off and several other larger herons. The waves were rough and we walked back along beside the stream as well, so we had a pleasant little walk around. I cooked the seafood dish tonight. It had got quite windy, but later that died down, but back came some rain and a whole lot of lightning, so all told, a pretty rough day weather-wise - and other things too!

The football pitch at Baunei, Sardinia (streetview 2018)

Sunday 15^th October 73 miles

It rained a bit more in the night, and several more cars came down at various times, but we woke to a morning which was brighter than we might have thought. A mixed sort of sky and we could now see the mountains to the south of us, which were hidden from our view yesterday - these were the mountains that we came through yesterday and the coast there is apparently superb, as it's a sheer drop into the sea, and the coastline is pretty inaccessible.
I'd been reading about the ‘Morning Star’, the missionary boat that was around at the time of Thomas Lawson[in the 1850’s and which I had downloaded off the internet before we left home]. So we had a lot of discussion about that. We had breakfast inside, as it was quite chilly that morning. Adrian had spied a loaf in the shop the other day, of what looked like large slices of English-type sliced bread. So it was newly opened that morning in a sealed sort of pack, but was already going mouldy, which wasn't very nice. It stunk a bit, and only a couple of slices were okay, which was rather annoying.
We then walked out across this beach to the rough waves. This area is quite interesting in that the bit we were on was a formerly poshly made car park in front of a now derelict bar. It suited us ideally, but no one bothers to park there. They all drive down straight on the beach and onto a little track along the edge of the sand, which was severely flooded yesterday, to a little bar which is on the beach. As we came back from the beach, in the stream which runs sort of parallel to it, we saw huge fish leap right out of the water. So we now left and returned to the little town of Orosei and started driving north, the Tiv seemed to be behaving all right, so we're keeping our fingers crossed. We turned down to a beach at Cala Liberotto and this was a place where there were lots of holiday villages nearby, but discreetly hidden. We did see people doing line dancing and things out in the open – horrendous, but there were two dear little coves there, really, really pretty. We walked along and the sandy beach was split up by rocks at the end of each little cove. We watched a young family with three young children in caggy’s and bare legs jumping the waves. We thought they were perhaps English, but we couldn't hear them - not that we’d heard any English around, but they certainly weren't Sardinian. We then thought we'd have our coffee here and by the time we left, the sun was shining down. A bit further on north, we took a little road, which I thought would be ideal to cycle along, but Adrian thought otherwise, to Cape Camino, but we did stop there and cycle back a little way and then back again to the Tiv, using a lot of the little sand roads through the ‘Maquis’ area beside the sea.

The sea looked charcoal grey today, but sometimes the sun lit up different rocks along the shore and it looked very attractive. As Adrian was fixing the bikes back on, a car drew up and an Italian speaking man asked us if the dog he had in the back was ours - they'd found it near the van and it was very angry. There were as we’d seen, lots of stray dogs around and he was taking it somewhere. Adrian hadnoticed that people do seem to be sympathetic towards these stray dogs and sometimes feed them. We had our lunch just a little bit further along this pretty bit of coast. The weather unfortunately deteriorated and it rained a bit, but we had a pleasant outlook and enjoyed a little loaf, which I'd bought yesterday, today being Sunday, which had kept pretty well. We came to a delightful beach at La Caletta, a long, white, sandy beach, with sea which would normally be really turquoise but wasn't of its best today. A very mixed sky and the village of La Caletta, or it might be called San Giovanni, the village at one end and St Lucia at the other and pine trees behind and then this white Mount Albo in the distance behind, so all told really beautiful and it was pleasantly okay walking along the beach - it wasn't windy.

Adrian cycling near Capo Comino

There was a chap there who was trying to fly a kite and I think he was really a kite surfer, as he had a wetsuit on. When we finally got there, we had a short walk around Posada, which didn't come up to expectations, it looked really pretty in the book. We'd also stopped fruitlessly at a petrol station, which took notes, but of a really low denomination of which we hadn't got. This was the automatic machines, of course, and being Sunday the petrol stations are closed. An added aggravation at this one was that for the first time ever, I think, we saw a ‘Camping Gaz’ sign, but of course, being Sunday, there was no hope of getting any. Just before Budoni, we came down to another wonderful beach, It had a sign down to it and the track said no motorhomes, but we ignored it because we wanted to see an island, which is called La Tavolara, so presumably meaning something like Table because it looks rather like Table Mountain jutting out [seemingly not!] and it's an island. It didn't quite look like it from there because a bit of mainland obscured it, but with the white sand in front of it, I had to do some Bloubergstrand imitation photographs. It was really warm by now – hot in the sun.

Beach between St Lucia and la Caletta

Monte Alba from La Caletta

After San Teodoro, we eventually came down to a beautiful beach again, at La Cinta, another long sand spit of beautiful white sand. The unfortunate thing there was that it had rained just before we got there, not on us, but everywhere looked pretty wet. The air felt quite cool on this very variable day. Just a little further north, we turned off to a road which came to Marina Lu Impostu or the Cala Brandinchi and I'd read that this was a beach known for its beautiful colour of its water. In fact, it turned out to be a delightful stop. It was a little cove and separated by sand spit from a pond on which a heron stood for most of the time and we had a view across to La Tavolara island.

Tavolara Island from Budoni Beach

The sun was now shining, so we made a cup of tea which we had sitting on the wall there and then forded a little stream which came out from the pond. There was a flock, if you like, [it is a flamboyance] of flamingos in the distance. As we forded the stream on the way back, a lady started speaking to us. She was from Freiburg or we think Swiss Fribourg, and had a brother who had a house nearby and he did diving and sailing. We had a very interesting and pleasant conversation with her, something we haven't had too many of with other people since we've been away. Later we really kicked ourselves for not furthering the conversation with her as she said she was staying at her brothers who had a house there, because it was then getting late and we had mixed fortunes afterwards in finding somewhere to stay. We tried numerous possibilities, but we were getting near the northern area, which we think is more villa and village orientated than the wilder south. And nowhere could we find anything that was a vague possibility and then, lo and behold, as we neared Olbia, and it was getting quite late, about 6.15 pm, we took a little road down and it came out by small lakes that there are so many of there at Lido de Sole. Beyond that, the most beautiful, almost circular beach, a calm sea, and had it been a bit warmer, I'd have had a swim, but it was quite chilly by now. The Tavolara mountain was to the south of us now and the headland we were leaving from, Golfo Aranci, was to the north of us. The whole thing was just absolutely beautiful and the sun was going down, making a sunset, for once it would appear, behind the hills. So, we stopped straight away, thought that was it, and went for a walk along the beach to enjoy the last of this day and to thank our lucky stars for finally finding somewhere, where we could stay and also, today, that the Tiv, which had given us so much anxiety yesterday, seemed to be okay today. So, all told, we're pretty lucky. I cooked some ravioli with ricotta cheese in, apparently a Sardinian speciality, for supper and then, later in the evening, we thought we'd go down and walk along this beautiful bit of shore, before we went to bed. Adrian had stepped out of the door, and as I went to step out, we realised a rather tall chap in a pair of shorts was coming across to us and it appeared that he'd got his car stuck in one of the pools of water behind, and asked for Adrian's help. So, Adrian gallantly went down, and with great luck, they were able to get the car out with the chap pushing, and Adrian sitting in. During this time, a vehicle came down, and it was actually a police car, but it just turned round and went off again which perhaps was as well as the chap's car was hardly goable, it seemed to only have one front light and one back light. When he finally zoomed off, the car actually started after getting out of the water and I thought he'd drive off, but no, he positioned himself near the little bridge down to the beach and he was actually wanting to go fishing, which he presumably proceeded to do. We did have our walk on the beach then, in the moonlight, and it looked very pretty in this place with water all around us and the full-ish moon shining down. When we came back, the chap was still setting himself up for fishing. I wished him good luck, but he said, "No, you shouldn't say that." Annoyingly, a mozzie had got me while I was waiting for this little story to unfold.

Tavolara Island from Marina di lu Impostu - Brandinichi Beach

Monday 16^th October 63 miles

I wasn’t too keen to wake up at 1.30 am to hear our fisherman reving his engine up trying to leave. We awoke to a morning to see the sun shining in over the ponds surrounding us and I jumped up and took a photo.

Then the sun became rather elusive and after breakfast we walked down to this idyllic cove which was so ideal for swimming and I was hoping the sun would come out again but it didn't so eventually I had to have my swim without the sun and we walked back over a little bridge and down the track that our fisherman had tried to go down last night and we realized that it went along to the other end of this pond so that he could fish from there or was going to so, he wasn't so daft he hadn't just driven into the huge puddle for the fun of it!. We then had an email on the phone and it was actually from Bob Margolis from my class at school. The other notable thing while we were there was an aeroplane that we were convinced that the pilot was learning to fly it because it kept going in a circle and then just about landing and then taking off again and it did this continually. I think once or twice it might have landed so that was interesting thing to watch.
We were really pleased to have found an Auchan hypermarket just along the road there - we'd seen an advertisement to it yesterday and we pulled in, but as we seemed to not be in the right car park we had coffee there. I'd actually put the hot water into a flask in readiness, but can you believe that when we decided to go into there after our coffee it wasn’t open on a Monday morning - every other day of the week including Sunday. So we had to make do with a ISA supermarket which wasn't much cop and couldn't get all the stock items we wanted. We then had to queue for ages - of course there was no queue once we’d been through the till. Next we stopped and got some diesel and on leaving there we saw a sign to a Peugeot dealer on the road to Sassari and we had to turn around and turn off a fastish road into a most inauspicious entrance but that wasn't too successful as the chap said it would be a week before he could get a part . However from his book, we did write down the addresses of Peugeot dealers in Rome of which there were half a dozen or so. Then we saw a water tap and we thought that was all great but the man said it wasn't drinking water, so we weren’t doing too well. We intended driving back into Olbia but things decreed otherwise, as the road that we thought we followed the signs on, took us way past it and we decided that was it and we carried on to the Costa Smeralda the Emerald Coast. On reaching that we found a pleasant little place for our lunch beside the water there, like a long fjord really. Unfortunately, the sun, which had been out most of the time, went in while we were eating lunch, so I found it a little just a little too cool. However the French type loaf we bought in the tatty little supermarket was excellent. We were in fact just before a Nuraghe but this one had been restored and looked very nice and just made us feel sad about all the derelict ones we were seeing. We stopped at a viewpoint a bit further up this peninsula and it certainly was wonderful, the scenery with masses of green vegetation, white beaches, turquoise sea and dotted with little islands. The area was a holiday area but any habitation that there was is very secretly done. It really was beautiful. Well after that things didn't go well with us at all. The scenery was absolutely beautiful but it became really touristy with just tourist resorts everywhere so not pretty to look at.
We had been having dire trouble with the lack of water in the van.
We found a tap at one point, a German motorhome had just pulled in and we waited around the corner for 20 minutes or more and when we got to the tap we saw a lady surreptitiously turning another tap off and when we came to use the water tap there was no water - and we still have no gas. Adrian was still anxious about the van drive shaft, so we decided not to go any further up the Emerald Coast. We returned towards Olbia and take stock of how much water we had got, but we couldn't find anywhere nice to pull in. Everywhere we went was just so littered that we found ourselves back in Olbia with our spirits a little low. They picked up slightly when Adrian went to inquire about gas in a little shop which I'd spotted that looked as though it just might have sold some. Well it didn't but the man in there told Adrian somewhere near the hospital that did. So we didn't know where the hospital was, nothing in our book or map or plan showed us but we followed the direction he had pointed and we eventually did come there were no signs to the ospedale, but eventually there I saw it and sure enough saw a shop that looked like it could be a gas shop and yes it was. So jubilantly Adrian managed to purchase two bottles of gas which we now seriously needed. We carried on into Olbia, we had thought we'd skirt it and go back to Auchan which would now be open but thought we'd go into the town to find the tourist information. I thought it would be nice to go for a walk somewhere tomorrow as we're going to be around still. We did a long circuit of the town and we did find some little old streets in the meantime, we followed signs here and there - half the town was being dug up and all sorts of works going on everywhere, so it wasn't particularly attractive. Amazingly we finally found a street plan which showed us where the tourist information was, we'd actually walked past it and not recognized it, understandably as it wasn't very visible. We went inside and a woman said hello, she said she spoke English, but when we asked her about walks she was absolutely incredulous and told us that we could walk if we liked to the commercial centre out near the airport and said no we meant walks round about, was there anything. with absolute disbelief she said this place has beaches not walks - we left abruptly. We drove out to Auchan and while I made a cup of tea Adrian fixed in the gas bottles and then went to see how much water we had left and it was nil. So we next went into Auhan and tried to get a trolley but it didn't seem to take a 500 lira coin, so we went in, it was a huge huge complex a mass of shops outside and a days trek to get into the actual Auchan partand I asked at the information desk and asked to change a note. She took absolutely ages doing this went to all the different tills and eventually went into the shop and came out with two 500 lira coins where we wanted a 1000 Lirs one or so we thought and in fact it was a 500 one, why the one we had hadn’t worked we don't know. So back we trekked all the way out to get the trolley and then started our shop. It was a huge huge hypermarket and packed out with shoppers and not as forthcoming as we might have hoped and there was still no tissues, those little tiny packs of tissues that you get, not big boxes of tissues, anywhere in Sardinia had we seen or salted butter. Adrian thought he might have got demi-sel being Auchan but no. I did get some lurpak which might suit me, no postcards, no Earl Grey tea. So we did get a few things including three bottles of water and we finally made our way back out to the Tiv and drove up the road to where I'd seen a tap this morning in a little sort of paved square but no water from that and we then had to cross a fast line of traffic to go back again. I had thought we'd go out to where we were last night, but we hadn't realized how far back it was, in fact several kilometres. We tried the road before there but that only went to the awful development that we could see on the next peninsula so we ended up back at our place. We actually parked the other end of the parking area this time, it was just exquisite views all around and then tried to work out the water situation. This wasn't easy - Adrian thought he could could collect some from the puddle of water that the chap got stuck in last night because it was deep but it was too mucky so he drained off the hot water tank which we put into a container and hope that we'll manage for tonight at least.
Preparing supper wasn't so easy without running water on tap and with a container blocking up the draining board and we realized how much these frustrations make life difficult but we had a good supper of turkey escallops and trying to utilize as little water as possible for the vegetables etc. Annoyances continued. I had an email during the evening from Gerry Lawson referring to the article I'd written, or the one that he just come by via somebody else, which seemed to be about Greville so we thought we'd send one immediately back to him. He said he was going to include it in the next newsletter and we wanted to say don't and having typed out a long message worked it all out on the email - it failed to send. I said well let's send one to Tom, just a text message, and we tried that, in fact twice on different systems and that failed too so everything is proving really difficult for our last little while there. By then it was 10 o'clock and we washed up, again with the difficulties of having to get the water to do this. We walked out onto the beach, it was just so beautiful, the moon shining down and two separate groups of people were down there, supposedly fishing but each of them with a fire.

Sunrise over the salt lakes near Olbia

Tuesday 17th October 21 miles

I was feeling a bit glum. The morning was rather mixed and I suppose I was feeling a bit frustrated about how things had gone the last few days, but we had breakfast and then got ourselves ready to go off for a walk. This we did in the direction of Olbia and it proved to be a great delight. We left soon after 10.00 am and didn't get back till well after 12 o’clock, so a good two hours and we walked around the little bay we were on, and right round the next headland, which had an abomination of a development on the end of it, which was actually stuck on a little island right at the end of it. We then carried on right around the next bay and to another peninsula which we had tried last night, which also had a development of houses on it, but was well hidden and quite pleasantly done. From the end of this we actually walked a long way around a sort of sticking out peninsula part which would have been ideal to place to stop but we'd never have got ourselves down to it and behind this was a huge area of salt ponds right along to where we were parked. We came to one area where the land had been linked by sandbags and we could have gone across there, but didn't think we would get back to where we'd started from, or it would be a huge detour into Olbia. So we more or less retraced our steps taking slightly different routes here and there. We had seen the lighthouse, which we could actually see from where we were in the Tiv and we realised it was actually on a little island. We didn't realise this for a long time, until we had got near to it and it was there for the boats that would come into Olbia, which is set in a delightful situation with the mostly tree covered hills all around but somehow doesn't hold the magic of other places for us.

So it was quite a delightful walk, we saw a few birds on the salt ponds but very few people or anything else. When we got back to our beach I decided that I'd have a swim, the sun was trying to come out by then which I did and that was refreshingly nice. We'd had a couple of drops of rain on us while we were on our walk, but luckily nothing more as we'd not gone prepared for that. I gave Adrian's hair a trim and then decided to cook our lunchtime meal and the chicken that we bought yesterday - there was plenty of that and the last of the ravioli and gnocchi and one of the sauces that we'd found good - tomato with olives. Shortly after that we went on a walk in the opposite direction along our bay but this time we didn't get as far as we had wanted because we found that one of the salt ponds came out in a fast channel to the sea, so separating us from going any further, but it was a really beautiful beach.

Adrian looking towards the lighthouse from our spot near Olbia

Rosie finds a 'seat' and the lighthouse on our walk near Olbia

We did stop on the beach for a while and laze around, the wind was quite strong, but we managed to get out of it. The sun was not shining all the time and as we walked back the wind was blowing in our faces. Adrian did a little bit of videoing to say goodbye to Sardinia. I made a cup of tea and we had some nice little puff twisty things that i'd bought yesterday. We finally left at about 4.40 pm. and manoeuvred our way past Olbia with great difficulty, we managed to follow the signs just about, but so much of it is being rebuilt that it was hard to find our way. We took the road along to Golfo Aranci and partway along, there was a turning off to a beach by the name of Pittulongu, so we turned off and found another absolutely exquisite beach of white sand, pure clear turquoise water and with the island of Tavolara in the background and low green hills all around and just absolutely perfect.

Looking the other way from our spot near Olbia

We had a walk along the beach and back. We continued along towards Golfo Aranci and we stopped high up and looked down and could see this wonderful setting of the place we were leaving from although it'll be dark when we leave with this huge headland behind the town and the port. We could see our boat down there and La Tavolara on one side, so this was a super viewpoint.

Tavolara Island from Pittulongu Beach

Our ferry at Golfo Arranci, waiting to take us back to mainland Italy

We did briefly go across the other side of this peninsula and look down along the Golfo de Marinella which is verging on the Costa Smeralda and we then came back down to Golfo Aranci and parked briefly on the side of the road and looked out to the sun going down and again we just missed a sunset as it went into cloud.

We drove down to sort out where we were going to the port and then came back and parked right by the edge of the water to get ready and to have some tea. That done we found our way around to the boat - it was a bit haphazard as ever and we waited hoping that we were in the right place and that we shouldn't have done something first because we didn't see any people for a while but of course it was then dark. Eventually some chaps came along and looked at our piece of paper which was our ticket and yes it was all fine, so we boarded and found our ‘holiday cabin’, it was called, with two bunk beds and a little shower room. That was what we were really pleased with, having had no water the last day or so and so we were able to have a shower immediately and wash our hair and Adrian had a shave. We then went up and looked around a bit and just as the boat was about to leave, we had a night cap drink in the cocktail bar which was extremely quiet, a beer and a whiskey and looked out at the lights until we left and then around about 10 o'clock we came back down to our cabin.

The sun sets at Golfo Arranci as a goodbye to Sardinia