Return to England
Sep. 24th, 2016 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylUp early to sort out my packing, I had a shower and finally managed to get out early enough to take a pre-dawn shot of Telendos — something Izzy had been wanting to do all week. The weather was clear enough to give a good view of Leros to the north and to give a hint of something else — surely not Patmos? — in the very far distance.
Returning to the hotel, I went down to breakfast with the others where we settled up our breakfast bills and I arranged for a taxi to take my to Kalymnos airport. While we were waiting around, Tom came by to pick up Andrew for a morning of climbing, bringing the news that Gav had crashed his scooter the previous night, picking up some nasty road rash in the process. Sure enough the man himself arrived a little later, looking suitably banged up, to take Izzy up to Iliada for a final attempt on Lucky Luca.
The taxi arrived at around nine and Eve and I got in. The taxi dropped Eve in Myrties, where she was going to meet up with Hayley with the idea of spending the morning in Pothia ahead of the ferry, and then continued on up the mountain to the airport. It was very cold and windy when we arrived and the taxi driver gave me his card, telling me to give him a ring if my flight was cancelled and I needed a lift to the ferry port; something, he warned me, that had happened before.
The small terminal building was surprisingly busy, with a large extended Greek-Australian family, some locals, and a few Americans, all waiting for our plane to land. Around 40 minutes before the plane was due to depart, it became clear that conditions were too windy for a landing and were all being re-routed via Kos. I got my ticket changed, jumped in a taxi with the Americans, and was soon at Pothia ferry port. There I bumped into Gaz Parry, who pointed me to the ferry kiosk where I bought a ticket — the man behind the counter wasn't fooled by my bad greek for a second!
Once the ferry started boarding, I went and sat in the cabin where I got talking to one of the Australians. She said they'd been in Kalymnos to visit her mother-in-law's grave and they were supposed to be heading to Kalamata for a wedding. They'd tried to leave on yesterday's flight, only to be stopped by the wind, and they'd decided that it was better to go from Kos than to risk being stuck in Kalynos for another day. As we were talking, I got a surprise when Hayley wandered through the cabin. It turned out that she and Eve and Andrew, who'd stormed his climbs this morning, were all up on the top deck. I went up and joined them for the rest of the journey, catching a final shot of the island as we were leaving.
Arriving in Masticheri on Kos, where the wind was strong enough to throw spray over the breakwater, we joined forces with Gaz and one of his group to share taxis to the airport. Once their, the girls soon disappeared off for their flight, leaving the three of us to await our five o'clock flight to Athens.
Once check-in was open, we went through the process of getting our bags through and our seats allocated. Andrew and Gaz, who were catching their scheduled flight, breezed through with no trouble. Whereas I, when I tried, got told to go to the Aegean Airlines desk to get my ticket fixed. On initially presenting my ticket, the woman on the counter told me I needed to go to check-in. Once I convinced her I wasn't in the wrong place, she made a few phone calls, told me everything was fine and sent me back to the desk. Bypassing the queue, I tried again, only to discover that there was still a problem. There then followed a few frenzied bouts of typing by the women on the desk, following by one of them going over to the Aegean desk, followed by more typing and lots of rapid phone calls in Greek. After half an hour or forty minutes of this, during which I'd been blocking the check-in queue, they finally fixed the problem, slapped a quick transfer tag on my bag and pushed me through into departures where I met up with a very baffled Andrew.
The flight was very smooth and we arrived in Athens in well under an hour. We made it through the airport in good time to get to the departure gate for the flight to Heathrow and we left around twenty minutes behind schedule. After a fairly smooth flight with only minor turbulence, we arrived in London at around 9pm local time where, much to my surprise, I found my bag waiting for me on the carousel.
I said my goodbyes to Andrew, who was off to catch the bus to Woking, and caught the Piccadilly Line to Leicester Square where I changed to get myself to Chalk Farm. I arrived at my uncle's an hour and a half later, tired but extremely pleased to have made it back to England — there were moments during the afternoon when I doubted I'd ever get back.
Returning to the hotel, I went down to breakfast with the others where we settled up our breakfast bills and I arranged for a taxi to take my to Kalymnos airport. While we were waiting around, Tom came by to pick up Andrew for a morning of climbing, bringing the news that Gav had crashed his scooter the previous night, picking up some nasty road rash in the process. Sure enough the man himself arrived a little later, looking suitably banged up, to take Izzy up to Iliada for a final attempt on Lucky Luca.
The taxi arrived at around nine and Eve and I got in. The taxi dropped Eve in Myrties, where she was going to meet up with Hayley with the idea of spending the morning in Pothia ahead of the ferry, and then continued on up the mountain to the airport. It was very cold and windy when we arrived and the taxi driver gave me his card, telling me to give him a ring if my flight was cancelled and I needed a lift to the ferry port; something, he warned me, that had happened before.
The small terminal building was surprisingly busy, with a large extended Greek-Australian family, some locals, and a few Americans, all waiting for our plane to land. Around 40 minutes before the plane was due to depart, it became clear that conditions were too windy for a landing and were all being re-routed via Kos. I got my ticket changed, jumped in a taxi with the Americans, and was soon at Pothia ferry port. There I bumped into Gaz Parry, who pointed me to the ferry kiosk where I bought a ticket — the man behind the counter wasn't fooled by my bad greek for a second!
Once the ferry started boarding, I went and sat in the cabin where I got talking to one of the Australians. She said they'd been in Kalymnos to visit her mother-in-law's grave and they were supposed to be heading to Kalamata for a wedding. They'd tried to leave on yesterday's flight, only to be stopped by the wind, and they'd decided that it was better to go from Kos than to risk being stuck in Kalynos for another day. As we were talking, I got a surprise when Hayley wandered through the cabin. It turned out that she and Eve and Andrew, who'd stormed his climbs this morning, were all up on the top deck. I went up and joined them for the rest of the journey, catching a final shot of the island as we were leaving.
Arriving in Masticheri on Kos, where the wind was strong enough to throw spray over the breakwater, we joined forces with Gaz and one of his group to share taxis to the airport. Once their, the girls soon disappeared off for their flight, leaving the three of us to await our five o'clock flight to Athens.
Once check-in was open, we went through the process of getting our bags through and our seats allocated. Andrew and Gaz, who were catching their scheduled flight, breezed through with no trouble. Whereas I, when I tried, got told to go to the Aegean Airlines desk to get my ticket fixed. On initially presenting my ticket, the woman on the counter told me I needed to go to check-in. Once I convinced her I wasn't in the wrong place, she made a few phone calls, told me everything was fine and sent me back to the desk. Bypassing the queue, I tried again, only to discover that there was still a problem. There then followed a few frenzied bouts of typing by the women on the desk, following by one of them going over to the Aegean desk, followed by more typing and lots of rapid phone calls in Greek. After half an hour or forty minutes of this, during which I'd been blocking the check-in queue, they finally fixed the problem, slapped a quick transfer tag on my bag and pushed me through into departures where I met up with a very baffled Andrew.
The flight was very smooth and we arrived in Athens in well under an hour. We made it through the airport in good time to get to the departure gate for the flight to Heathrow and we left around twenty minutes behind schedule. After a fairly smooth flight with only minor turbulence, we arrived in London at around 9pm local time where, much to my surprise, I found my bag waiting for me on the carousel.
I said my goodbyes to Andrew, who was off to catch the bus to Woking, and caught the Piccadilly Line to Leicester Square where I changed to get myself to Chalk Farm. I arrived at my uncle's an hour and a half later, tired but extremely pleased to have made it back to England — there were moments during the afternoon when I doubted I'd ever get back.
