Chip, the All American Bus

Leaving Methoni we found a small roadside garage where the proprietor air gunned the rear hub nut on to a torque setting of FT. A new spit pin later & we were good to go. The guys, typically, wouldn't accept payment so we exchange the international currency of a few beers!

fan belt city


Following the coast we headed up towards Kalamata, the olive capitol of the region and the second city of the Peloponnese.

12 years ago we had an extended stay here after the bad roads destroyed our old bay's shockers. They had to ship replacements in from Athens! Loads of Euro money & a few years later & the roads are now like glass!

Kalamata locals

The scenery is stunning as you leave Kalamata.


We headed for Kardamyli where a nice free spot was secured on the beach...

 

The landscape as you travel into the Mani Peninsula changes again. It's wild & rugged, like the local inhabitants. Warring families built tower houses opposite from where they would hurl rocks & shoot each other. The women would work the land whilst the men fought. A truce would be held for the harvest, following which the men would resume kicking seven shades out of each other..

Old Mani tower house


Mani Landscape


Graveyard!


This is Cape Tainaron, the furthest point south. Just below us are sea caves which are the mythical entry to Hades. Can you spot the bus over the other side of the bay?


Heading north up towards Gythio all hell broke loose. We thought we were coming home. Driving into Gythio late evening it suddenly sounded like we had a blacksmith shoeing a horse in the engine bay.
We coasted into a garage, phoned the insurance company & waited for the garage to open the following day for assistance. Ate chocolate & drank wine. What else was there to do...

The following morning, it was as precarious as it looked on this single post lift! I carped myself!!

 

how nice would that be? fettling outside in bright sunshine with ramps...

 

Funny you should say that...
Stavros, the garage dude, couldn't find anything wrong. He wiggled the axles (there's a clue there) & poked the FI (they didn't like that as FI buses weren't imported into Greece).
With no obvious problem, he let me drop & change the oil...



& off we went. Again, no payment would be accepted!! (we slipped a few euro in an envelope to the lady in the garage. no-one spoke english & us no Greek but we got by) The insurance company were awesome. They would have put us in a hotel, given us a hire car & re-patriated the bus if required. Well, so they said. It put our minds at rest.

So we decided to book into a local camping on Mavrouvouni beach. Camping Mani Beach. We figured if the bus was going to expire then at least we could have a proper beach holiday before we had to come home.
Meanwhile @Dicky had posted our predicament on TLB & @zedders had come up with a possible explanation to the problem.

 

I have posted some of these pics on the Chip resto thread so sorry for any duplication!

Zed suggested (correctly) that the hammering noise was due to dry CV joints. The fact it stopped hammering was due to Stavros wiggling the axles back & forwards which redistributed what little grease was left.

Sounded good, so I prepared my workshop on the campsite.




One side done


The last of the four..


...and as typically dry as the others!


We bought the hex drive kit in Gythio (which was a bit weedy but did the job) and were given some moly grease by another generous garage owner.

Camping Mani Beach was so nice we stayed the week! and drank the bar dry by way of celebration of a job well done.

 

Sadly leaving our new friends at Mani, we decided the show must go on.


and continued across to Monemvasia.

On the way you pass the wreck Dimitrios. Stranded in suspicious circumstances in 1981 it's spooky & strangely alluring...



This was a well sorted truck in Skala


and the rock of Monemvasia


This was our overnight stop. Horrendous, we were too hot & still wandering the quay side at 01.30 with locals that had been attending an awesome traditional Greek dancing festival.

The festival was good, the location amazing, but the weather was getting more & more unbearable.

We were missing our new friends at Camping Mani Beach so rang up the following day to see if our spot was still available.

It was so we headed back to Gythio & moved onto the campsite........for a month!

Home Sweet Home...

 

So a month on a campsite is interesting! We became very much part of the local scenery, with Mrs Monkey even being offered a job for the following month.
We met some great people, swam loads, ate loads, drank loads and chilled out loads. I also fettled the bus. Full service, tappets etc but all taken at a very leisurely pace.
Mavrovouni Beach is a breeding ground for endangered loggerhead turtles and we were even able to help the passage of some new-borns into the sea.

5km of hot sand. It's a windsurfing mecca with people descending from all over northern Europe during the summer.


Jan & Inka from Germany with 6 month old Anna-Marie. These loons had driven the truck across Morocco & had ended up in southern Greece heading back to home. They lived in an eco community, with Jan being an engineer for BMW working on hydrogen fuel cells.
The all wheel drive truck is powered by a 6 cylinder air-cooled Deutz diesel engine & the habitation pod was built by Jan & is de-mountable.


More fiddling...Only the second time in 7 years those covers have been off. Must have been bored


Nice cold Westy fridge. They do work, even in 50'c ambient!


off the scale in the local Lidl car park...


...where on the weekly shop one day we were joined by the young owner of this bus. He & his father had driven it from Belgium to their local property where it was his summer hack. He was on a small road trip around the peninsula, parking up on beaches & just enjoying life.


We had our nightly spot at the bar reserved...


...but despite the partying I took to getting up early in the morning.

There's something about being the only person on the beach as the sun rises. You get to thinking that the day ahead is full of promise and mystery, and all we really have is the moment.

 

I absolutely love these stories. Amazing.

What's with the 80 sign?

 

The 80 was to indicate to drivers behind that the bus was happy at 80kph (50mph). haha.

Early on in the trip we quite often found ourselves being pushed along by faster vehicles. Obviously we can go quicker, & do, but it's amazing the psychological effect those numbers on the back had.
After I stuck them on, we had no issues at all & following drivers chilled out until they could pass!
Result

 

Dawn on the beach was interesting for another reason.
Loggerhead hatchlings are drawn towards the brighter sea horizon, away from darker dune shapes behind.
One of the problems with beach development is the disorientating un-natural lights that draw the hatchlings away from the (relative) safety of the sea.
To combat this, people who care carefully mark the nests and chart incubation periods in order to try & give a helping hand at hatching time.

Early morning is the only time to spot the tracks of the female turtles who have come onto the beach to dig nests.


Archelon (Greek turtle people) volunteers marking a new nest with bamboo


As the incubation period progresses, shades are placed down the sides of some nests in order to try & guide hatchlings away from lights on the land. If you look really closely you can just make out the tiny tracks in the sand.


When shades aren't available, people dig channels down the sand. It's not just electric light but also the rising sun that can disorientate the baby turtles. As the sun comes up, the gulls come out. Young turtle life is a race against time.


One incredible morning we were the sole witnesses to this amazing spectacle. It was distressing as the sun was rising & predators were out & about. It's tempting to help them into the sea, but the journey down the beach is an important part of the start of their life.

A distressed surrogate parent


They are attracted to the strip of light from the rising sun & start going off on a tangent


So rather than touch them, we shaded them.


Hopefully, a few of the ones that made it to the sea are still out there.
And maybe, just maybe, one of those will be one of the 1 in 1000 estimated to make it through to adult sexual maturity....when it all starts again!

 

thanks

 

Great pics - thanks for posting

 

Really love reading this Neil @theBusmonkey , thanks so much for posting, may I ask who you used for your insurance company for this trip, it's not always easy to get such a long period of cover when over in Europe.

Where for you all this year ?

 

Amazing thread and amazing pics. Thanks a lot

 

Love this thread. Always cheers me up.

 

Wow! This thread gets better and better!
Absolutely love it

 

Hey Luna.
We use Lancaster based in St Ives, Cambs.
You're right, most general classic policies are only valid for 90 days with no option to extend. We've got a motorhome policy which gives us unlimited time in Europe. When we know we won't be going overseas we just limit the mileage to 8k as it helps keep the premium down.
They also give us agreed value and because it's a motorhome policy we have added benefits such as 3500 personal item cover, awning & gas bottle cover etc.

This year, we are mainly local. The boat's out of the water for blacking & anodes in May so that's going to be quite expensive.
Chip's out of storage next weekend (yay) and we intend to get away as much as possible in him, but just short breaks into the Peaks, Tech Enders & maybe Busfest for the first time in over a decade. We'll see.

We're hoping to take our syncro into Morocco & beyond in November....I'm on with the conversion but that's another story haha

 

Thanks Neil @theBusmonkey - Lancaster may well get a call later in the year from me then, so thanks for the info, counting down the days to your next update and already looking forward to the Morocco Syncro adventure.

Thanks again

Neil

 

Well, I got all excited regarding your attendance of Bearded Theory!
Then Mel reminded me I've got the boat out of the water that weekend soooo..
..the pressure's on you to provide pics & feeling for the festival.
You guys @ TE this April?