Thunder!

Woke up to rumblings his morning and it wasn’t just my stomach (I could have said Sally’s stomach but am not that rude). The hot weather had finally broken and it looked like thunder in the mountains. The breakfast at the Pausania Inn was OK, at least for me though Sally had a job putting together enough stuff that was gluten free. The hard boiled eggs were very hard boiled. By the time we had loaded up it had started to rain hard so we delayed for a few moments under a tree before heading up into town to see why tourists came to this place. Most of the town is modern but the central part is older and built out of granite - as are the large cobbles which are not easy to cycle on. I nearly came a cropper cleated in when my wheel got stuck between 2 of the cobbles. A quick coffee and a call to the bank to see why both my cards had been “timed out” at the hotel - apparently it was not an issue at our bank. Quick look at the church. Stopped off at a bakers and managed to get some fresh focaccia for my lunch and then a call in at the supermarket for Sally to get something she could eat. Many of the supermarkets here seem to have young men who unofficially help people to their cars with shopping and sell a range of goods from a hold-all in the car-park.

Heading out of town we passed a sign to the right saying ‘“Nuraghe Major” (the Nuraghic people inhabited the islands in the bronze age and built structures a bit like brochs in Scotland). We ignored this and carried on down the hill until I said “I wish we’d stopped there” and Sally agreed, so around we turned and went back up the hill. It was well worth it, not simply to see the interesting structure, but one of the rooms contained a colony of Lesser Horseshoe Bats (the smallest bat apparently) that were sleeping in a fidgeting kind of way.

We finally set off to Palau around noon and made speedy progress since it was mainly downhill. This is big country with craggy mountains and long straight roads. Stopped for lunch in a field of hay bales with amazing colonies of ants, connected by super highways largely free of obstructions. After lunch the road dropped into another valley and then joined the main coast road to Palau. Picked up some water on our way into town and then found the camp site. We are camping about 10ft from the sea and looking out onto the Maddalena Islands - very beautiful even if the campsite itself is slightly scruffy. 

To top the day off we even found the gas cylinder we have been looking for in the campsite shop. We just needed to stop looking!

More thunder and some rain but nothing to worry hardened campers - especially when you are cooking on gas!