Yesterday I successfully walked the length of the Samaria Gorge. For those who haven’t heard of it (and a year or so that would have included me), it’s about 16 kms long, with an additional kilometre or two at the bottom for the walk-out to Agia Roumelli. There’s also a 1250 metre drop in altitude.
I arranged an excursion through an agency in Paelochora, starting at 7:30 yesterday. The first thing I did was to have some breakfast at a snack bar and bakery just by the pickup point. I bought two filled sandwiches – one for breakfast, the other to eat during the day. This is important as there is no food available during the walk. I also took two half-litre bottles of water, with the aim of replenishing them during the day – there is water available in the gorge. I was glad there was, as the litre of water I’d taken wasn’t enough – I must have got through twice that amount overall. I wore a hat, and I wore good footwear – I don’t think ordinary trainers (and certainly not sandals) would do. I have a pair of North Face walking shoes – think ‘tough trainers’ – and they were a good choice. Boots would also do, of course, but would be very heavy and hot.
Just after 7:30 a nice new minibus arrived and took 14 of us up into the mountains. It was an hour to the beginning of the Irini Gorge where half the party got out, and further 20 minutes or so to the entrance to the Samaria Gorge. There’s a snack bar at the top where I had a coffee and visited the toilets – these are the last full-featured toilets until you reach – well, until you get back to Paleochora, actually. It was 9:15 when I actually bought my ticket (€5) to enter the gorge and started the walk.
The first several kilometres are very steep – basically, a stairway – constructed of rocks and stone. This is where you lose most of that 1250m, and it also means that it’s very hard on the thigh muscles. There are a couple of rest areas during the descent – Neroutsika after 1.7km and Sykia after a further 1.2 km, and that’s not far from the bottom of the descent. Water was available from these and all the other rest areas on the day I did the walk, but that might not be the case all year round. It looks very much as if the water taps are fed by pipes drawing water from the river or from streams falling into the gorge, and if these dry up then so do the taps. But lots of water was available yesterday. These rest areas were pretty much just a couple of benches on the path and the water supply.
I kept going until I reached the next rest area, Agios Nikolaus, where there was a real seating area off the path, lots of water and toilets. These, however, were very basic – ‘squatters’, in fact. Also – there are lots of signs to say don’t put (toilet) paper in the toilets! – there are bins alongside. And not a lot of clean paper…. My assumption is that the rest areas are not connected to mains water or drainage, so every thing is supplied and dealt with on the spot.
By this time I was in the bottom of the gorge where the path was a bit easier – not exactly level, more up and down, but nowhere near as steep. It was however rough and stony in many places – I needed to keep looking where I was putting my feet rather than looking at the view. In fact the safest thing was to stop, for view admiration or photos.
There were a lot of other people doing the walk and I tended to be progressing in a rough ‘bubble’ with more or less the same people. A couple of girls asked me take their photo (with their phone) at the top, and I kept seeing them for most of the day as we progressed at more or less at the same pace. Some people were going faster – I remember seeing one elderly woman, small and slight, very lightly dressed, all bone, muscle and sinew, and she was really motoring along – she came past me and was out of sight very quickly. Other people were making heavier weather of it. Getting the dress right was the key; and not being too overweight. I saw one heavy, over-dressed middle-aged couple early on – in fact I overtook them – who seemed to be going very slowly, and I didn’t see them again.
I walked steadily on past another rest area (Vrysi) until I came to the one at Prinari at about 12:15, i.e. about three hours since I had started. Since this was a bit less than half-way I was getting bothered as to how long it would take. This was another ‘full-feature’ rest area, i.e. off the path with seats, water and loos, so I stopped here, drank water, refilled my bottles (again) and had my second sandwich. Then onwards.
From reaching the bottom of the gorge to that point the path had been good, but from there onwards I was into the stoniest part of the gorge, the approach to the so-called Iron Gates. This section was the most spectacular of all, but was also very stony and rocky underfoot and often quite undefined – I was picking my way across stonefields. It was also very, very hot. There are no trees in this section and therefore no shade, the heat (and sunlight) bounce back off the rocks at you, and I had to give the water some serious stick. (I’d kept both my bottles topped up at the various rest areas.) As this section continues so the gorge narrowed until I was walking through the narrowest section of all. I suppose this varied from around 3 metres at the narrowest to 10 to 15 metres in more open areas, and perhaps extends for several kilometres. The path constantly crosses from one side of the river to the other, sometimes across good footbridges, sometimes across not-so-good footbridges, and sometimes across stepping stones. I could understand why the gorge is closed throughout the winter, and also in summer after heavy rain – if the river rises you’d be stuck.
After passing the Iron Gates section the end of the gorge came quite suddenly – I approached a wooden hut where I had to hand in most of my ticket, as a check to see that no-one was missing by the end of the day. Just beyond that there was a snack bar where I had a glass of cool fresh orange juice, and then I walked (quite slowly) the final couple of kilometres into Agia Roumelli on the coast. I reached the exit gate at just 3:15, i.e. 6 hours after starting which I gather is a fairly typical time for the walk, and Agia Roumelli at 4 o’clock, found a taverna and had some sparking water and a snack, bought a ticket for the 5:30 ferry back to Paleochora, and waited for it to arrive. I can’t recommend Agia Roumelli – there’s no real beach, just rocks, there’s a strip of bars and tavernas and a jetty. It’s obviously there just for Samaria Gorge walkers, of whom there can be anything up to 1000 a day in the peak period. There’s no road in or out of Agia Roumelli, so you’ve got wait for the ferry; and the only shade in the whole village is in the tavernas. So they’ve got a captive market.
The ferry turned up at about 5:15 – it was actually en-route from another port, Chora Sfakion, further away. There was a bit confusion because there were actually two ferries in port; one was going to Paleochora (via Sougia), the other was going further east. I successfully found the right one and was back in Paleochora by about 7:15 pm, almost 12 hours after leaving.
I’m very pleased that I managed to complete this walk. It is a tough proposition; my thighs have been protesting all day today (the downhill section is the killer). It was very hot, you have to be well-prepared, and fit enough. And as I said, having lots of water to drink is essential. At the risk of ‘too much information’, despite getting through between two and three litres of water, a couple of glasses of fresh orange at the beginning and end of the day and several glasses of mineral water, I don’t remember needing to relieve myself. It’s also the case that I chose to have a sober day the day before, and stayed sober after getting back to Paleochora – Val and I both reckoned that dehydration was still a possible problem and that I should stay off the alcohol. Many years ago I did a long walk over the Howgill Fells on a hot day, sweated profusely, didn’t drink – this was before we all routinely carried water – and then fell into a pub at the end of the walk and drank lots of beer. Twenty-four hours later I was in Leeds Uni Student Health sick bay with serious dehydration. The memory lingers, even after 40+ years….
Update Saturday morning (two days later): I felt OK on Thursday evening, but by Friday morning my muscles, especially in my thighs, had tightened up considerable. Today, Saturday, It’s really quite painful. I’m sure it will pass in a day or two, but at the moment it’s uncomfortable. Stepping downwards – stairs, even off kerbs – is especially hard.
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