Hey all,
Much easier direction finding today – on the way to the canyon (Gola su Gorruppu) there were two springs, and a third there where the river exits from underground – the sort of thing it would be nice for a hiking guide to point out cause it would have saved me a bit of weight.
The canyon itself was spectacular – at its thinnest it is only five metres wide – and one of the walls there is 500 metres high – just amazing. To get much further than this you need to negotiate what the guidebook called mountaineering level three – which sounded a bit scary, but turned out to be a lot less of a drama than a lot of days on the GR20 – although I left my big pack behind at the entrance, which was a smart move, because there were a number of spots you had to squeeze through where the big pack would not have fitted – finally reached as far as you can go without ropes and climbing equipment – was worth the effort – the boulders range from about car size up to the size of the apartment I rented in Florence, and they have all been rounded and tumbled together by what must have been a force of water that I really didn't want to think about – in many places there were all balanced up on top of each other. Anyway a very cool place to visit, well worth it.
I returned to where I had started the day – the hike for the following day was basically 12 ks along a bitumen road back to Dorgali, so I thought I would do it that night because it seemed a pretty boring exercise.
Which it was, so I thought I would take a bit of a chance and decided to stick my thumb out – and the very first time I did so a car pulled over. Three Italians, one of whom was on a holiday he had booked with the love of his life just before she dumped him, and two of his mates, one of whom had lost his job the day before, who had flown over to console their heartbroken friend. They delivered me back to the B and B, after asking me out for dinner that night – I had a quick shower and they came and picked me up, drove about half an hour out in to the countryside to some famous restaurant – was full of French and Americans and a whole heap of immaculate and exotic cars.
Was one of the best meals of my life, certainly the best I have had since leaving Australia – just fantastic – decided to just enjoy it and not worry about the money – but then when we finished and all four of us were sitting back in our chairs looking exhausted, the heartbroken guy insisted on paying for the whole thing. He spoke at length about the disaster which had befallen him – his mates seemed happy there was someone new there to listen to it – he was incredibly amusing about it but you could tell he was still genuinely messed up from the whole thing – and the three of them spoke in English all night which must have been a bit annoying for them – but they did not seem to mind. They delivered me back to the B and B and I more or less collapsed asleep. Really good
night.
Is the following day now – am in a little resort town on the coast, only 20 minutes from Dorgali – using the wifi at a restaurant to save hours on my stick – I think, with the laptop, the lonely planet guide out and all the rest of it, they think I am some kind of travel writer – one of the waitresses just bought me out some delicious complimentary local sweet things made from, I think, the heart of a cactus. Gave up on the wifi, which didn't seem to work properly – could get 3G in a certain spot near the beach with the stick – but still struggling – connection is good but Google's new way of doing photos is too clever by half – takes forever to get them to actually work. Annoying as hell.
Photos. I took a heap of photos in the canyon, but it is too huge to get any sense of scale at all – will upload a short film which might do a slightly better job, but is still pretty average. 1. On the way to the canyon. 2. The mouth of the canyon. 3. That little gap to the right – I have to get through there. 4. Pretty happy about hanging off this rope. 5. This weird natural mud-brick wall – the rock in the centre of shot is about car sized. 6. Someone had made an elaborate flower thing with rocks at the narrowest point.
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