The bus goes to the Omalos Plateau in the White Mountains. The route is very scenic, through lots of villages with plantations of thousands of orange trees. As we get higher they give way to olive groves, then mountain scenery. We arrive at the edge of the plateau, the start of the gorge walk, about 9.30.
The first part of the gorge is very steep, dropping nearly 1000m to the floor. There are many warnings of possible rockfalls.
The path isn't quite as steep after that, as we wind our way down towards the sea, 16km away. There are horses as ambulances to assist the injured or exhausted.
There are stunning views and landscapes all the way down.
About half way down is the abandoned village of Samaria.
It takes about five and a half hours in total until we get to the village of Agia Roumeli at the seafront.
We had brought our beach towels and swimming stuff hoping for a dip in the sea, but it was actually very windy. One or two brave souls were in but we didn't fancy it. Agia Roumeli has no road connections to the outside world, there's one boat out at 5.30 so we have about 3 hours to wait. We start by finding a seat under a sheltered, shady tree, and managed to pick up a wifi signal from a nearby hotel!
Later we go to a bar where there are rumors it might be too windy for the boat to dock. If that happens our chances of getting the flight home tomorrow are slim.
In the end the boat had to beach itself rather than tie up, and everybody had to run on board. It was quite exciting really.
The boat took about an hour to get to Hora Sfakion where we caught the bus back to Chania, arriving back to the hotel about 9.00.
We went out to the Akrogiali fish restaurant very near the hotel, where we had swordfish and small fried mullet (not quite what we expected from the menu but still good).
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