TET Greece until I ended up in Hospital

It’s early in the season in the beginning of May, but I’m keen to get started on an new adventure.

This time the plan is to ride the TET Greece starting at the Albanian border on the coast and then going south along the west route via the Peloponnese towards Athens.

From there again north on the eastern route to complete the loop. The pic shows the TET and the part I want to ride is marked in red.

Day 1

But first I need to get there. So bike is loaded in the Van and the long drive from Austria via Slovenia, Croatia, BiH, Montenegro and Albania to Greece can start.

Going across the Alps shows that there is still snow in the mountains, but I’m not worried, Greece is far in the south and the south is always warm, right? Well, we will see.

The drive begins nice and I make good progress. It is quite late when I cross the famous river Krka. There is a National Park with waterfalls similar to the Plitvice Lakes but this has to wait for another time and I just take some pictures of the lower part before the river flows into the Mediterranean Sea.

It is getting dark quickly and I’m in the search for a good parking spot for the night which I found at a rest area with a restaurant for the morning coffee.

Day 2

I’m not in a hurry but as the sun comes up I’m ready to continue. The rain during the night caused fog sitting in the valleys and made a good scene.

You can tell that I’m approaching the posh area.

The plan is to follow the coastal road which will grant scenic views and hopefully makes the long drive more enjoyable. For those who are not so familiar with the Croatian coastline, there are may Islands. The left side is mainland, the right side is an Island.

Dubrovnik is famous since it was used to shoot Games of Thrones there. The place is overrun by tourist and the prices have skyrocket since. Still it is a great example for a fortified town.

Soon my progress is slowed down a lot as I drive the coastal road along the Bay of Kotor. This is one of the most famous place in Montenegro, it’s like a Fjord and has churches on tiny islands in the bay.

There are even cruise ships going all the way in and land right at the town of Kotor which was first mentioned in 168 BC. Very touristic place but worth to visit.

The drive across Albania is uneventful except where I have to go through Tirana. The traffic is crazy and it takes me several hours to get across. No pictures as I’m busy to avoid cars and trucks which utilizes every inch of the road and adjacent areas to squeeze through the traffic at all costs. It was a madhouse and believe me it was the worst I have ever seen. Even Naples in Italy was easy compared to this.   

But I made it safely to my planned campground right in the town of Ioannina next to the lake in Greece. It is late in the evening, so no pictures of that.

Day 3

I took some pictures of the place before I leave for the first day on the TET and the first day of really riding my XChallenge. The bike is loaded except for the camping luggage to see how everything works out. I will come back to this place in the evening if all goes to plan.

The day starts great and I enjoy the ride to the coast where I plan to hook up with the TET going back towards my campsite. Beautiful views and hard to believe that this is Greece.

The XChallenge is new to me and I have done some modifications for the luggage system as well as a repair of the low fuel light.

This is a known problem of the XChallenge and I followed the instructions found on the net, how to replace the temperature sensitive resistor in the tank. Unfortunately the light came on only during my shop test and never again. So I got stranded without fuel in the middle of nowhere in northern Greece.

First I thought that there is another problem but soon realized that I made just a rookie mistake. Pushed the bike back to a small village I just have passed and asked around if someone could help me out with a little gas.

The communication was not so easy but very friendly people finally where able to source a little fuel for me.

I asked also where the nearest gas station will be as I had only a few shown on my map. The nearest one would have been moving on but they told me that this is closed and I better go back. I didn’t know it than but this will become a theme during my ride.

With a full tank and now aware that the 9,5liters (2,5gallon) of fuel need to be watched closely I reached soon the coast.

The route climbs up on a concrete track and soon becomes the usual rocky road. The scenery is great and I meet 2 other TET riders from Germany. We chat a lot an time flies so progress is not great.

We ride a part together and in one section which is very rutted I’m glad that there is this extra level of safety.

We decide to skip a small section to avoid this riverbed. The Track makes a loop and we just shortcut this on pavement but soon are back on the TET. Most of the times it was a easy well maintained gravel road.

With the exemption of a short section which was clearly not often traveled and recently had some landslide damage. This could have been bypassed fairly easy but I wanted to see how bad it gets.

Thankfully it was dry and soon I was back on better roads.

As it got quite late and I had to be back to my campsite we split up again and I headed to Ioannina off the trail, thinking I could do this small section on the end of my trip.

Day 4

It was raining hard during the night and in the morning where thick clouds hanging in the sky.

I even thought if it makes sense to start but thankfully I did. The plan today was to go east to hook up with the TET close to the village of Metsobo.

As soon as I climbed out of the valley sunshine is welcoming me although it is was a bit cold.

The first TET part of the day alters between paved and unpaved sections. Easy road with nice views.

Just before I reach the summit of the Skafida Pass the route turns off the road onto a dirt track which turns quickly into a muddy one and more snow as it climbs further. I did not expect so much snow and don’t want to accept that the track will be unpassable. So I go until it is not possible anymore and I’m defeated for now, retrace back to the Skafida Pass to find a way around the snow.

On the map it looks like the paved road is rejoining the TET when back down in the Valley.

Unfortunately for me, the next section is not passable as well. Not due to snow, but due to forest work. This is cutting out a big part of today’s track.

It is a mountainous area and that means I have to ride until the village of Lafina before I connect again with the TET.

Soon the road is getting less traveled and more and more rocks are showing that no cars are traveling here. Shortly before I reach the next summit a rocky landslide is blocking the road for good.

Just north is a paved road which I take  to bypass the blockage. There is a gas station marked on this road which I had planned to go anyway. But this was another closed service station.

I followed the road to the next village which had luckily also fuel and backtracked to the TET.

From here the road was a single lane dirt road running along a valley where not many buildings are seen. Some of them are on interesting locations.

As I climb towards the next mountain, it starts to rain. On the west side the road is ok and I do not hesitate to continue. But as I cross the summit things change. The route follows a track which leads the long way round of a bowl. It didn’t take long before the first signs of road damages are seen. The first one was no problem but a few hundred meters later was another one. Possible to cross but would it be wise?

As it got also late in the afternoon and the next campground would be still far away I decided to take the shorter route to cross the bowl. I came to the remaining of an avalanche which was about 6m (Approx. 20feet) wide. Not much thinking of the incline I just checked how soft it was. It turned out quite compact and I gassed across. Afterwards I realized that might have been a mistake. There was no way to go back up if the road in front is blocked of destroyed. (Sorry no picture of this situation as I was too much focused on troubles.) Thankfully there was no big problem ahead, just a few rocks and I made it easy to the next village.

Now being off the mountain it was time to search for a campsite. There were some marked on the map. I passed several of them without luck. They were destroyed or deserted or other things which didn’t make it interesting to stay as it was still very cold.

My last chance was on shown on lower elevation next to a ‘village’. Even it was a bit far away from the TET, I decided to go there in the hope to have a nice meal and a drink.

The ride was nice along a lake.

Several tourist places scattered along the road but all of them were closed. As I roll up to the campground it is awfully quiet, another abandoned place. Now what? It’s too late to continue and there are no more option in the area. Good that I have always emergency food packed.

Oh, the village, do you remember that everything was closed along the way? Yep, nothing there either.

Day 5

The next morning I rode back to the TET the same way I came. That means I had to cross again a dam where a traffic light was used that the single lane did not cause a problem. Because everything was closed anyway there were no tourists and no traffic at all.

Soon I was back in high altitude mountains and with that more snow was present. First it looked not too bad but I didn’t get very far before I was again stopped by snow banks blocking the road. And as the road went even higher, you can see that horizontal line below the peak in the distance, I didn’t even try to push through here.

Again another bypass which was fun this time and short as well.

The bypass route was marked as a higher class road on my map. What I found was this.

In Agrapha I rejoined the TET and went up another mountain.

It looked like the usual logging road but it turned out that there was not much happening. Trees had been falling down at several location and nobody came through here so far. This caused some problems for me.

After the first 2 trees where I struggled through, I reconsider my situation. Fuel anxiety kicked in.

There was no gas station in the last village and I couldn’t see anything close by on the map where I came from. Going back was not an option after my hard struggles, so I pushed on and hoped for the best.

Just before the end of that section (reaching the little village of Marathos) and after several less intimidating obstacles, I came across a landslide with a bunch of smaller trees blocking my escape.

The risk was the steep drop off on the right side, if I lose the balance, that’s it. I didn’t come prepared as I had no saw, only a Leatherman. That has to do the job. It took me about an hour to clear enough of the tree that I felt ok to give it a go.

The left picture shows the forward view.

The first pic below is looking back on the landslide I just made it accross, the second pic looking back on the cleared obstacle.

I reached the village of Kerasochori without further problems. Now fuel is first priority.

No problem I thought, the next village (Krentis) just of the TET has a gas station. Nope, closed. Now what? Next shown gas station is in Dytiki Frangista. Nope non existing anymore. The next option was further away from the TET in Ampares and caused me to cut out the section which runs south of the Kremasta Reservoir Lake.

At this point I didn’t care anymore and I rolled in on fumes. The relief was very high when I saw the station in working order and open!

With a full tank I started into the next section which was a fast flowing gravel road at first. It changed soon into a less traveled track. At least not with a car.

And deteriorated even more. This time I walked it first. The pic is looking back to the bike which you can see behind the bushes.

Overall it was fun to ride.

I wanted to reach the coast before searching for a campground. That meant that I needed to cross another mountain.

It started pleasantly but became a bit rocky. No problem though.

Before I reached the bottom it even turned into paved single lane road. Only the dark clouds where worrying me a little.

Soon I reached the village and scored with the campground right at the beachfront. It was technically not really open, but the owner was so kind to allow me to stay and even served me food and drinks. All for very little money. I don’t post food pics often, but this felt so authentic and nice, I have to.

I had to test the water temperature.

Nope, far too cold!

Day 6

The morning presented beautiful weather, blue sky and nice temperature.

The first section follows the coastline with extreme hugging on the first few miles.

Some of the track is a very fast road through a wetland area before the route leads through the lagoon town of Aitoliko. This is an interesting little town situated on an island in the lagoon only reachable by single road from east or west.

After this was a stretch of uneventful dirt road riding until the route makes a loop north of Perithori. When the TET turns south again it runs through forest. It is clearly affected a lot by heavy rain and the roads are not used a lot.

A few little landslide obstacles later I came to this.

Now that is a problem. I can see that there have been bike push on but there is a ravine obviously happened after that.

Anyway, I scout it on foot and if looks doable. I unload the camping luggage and start my struggle.

Boy this was sketchy.

I made it through and  continued on. Unfortunately the good road did not last long and soon I came to a solid stop.

No way to get through this one. Now I have a problem as my maps don’t show all the roads you can find in these woods and there are many dead ends.

Fuel anxiety kicked in again and I decided to backtrack and hook up with a ‘main’ road I have on the map to get around this mess. That meant also I had to go back through the sketchy part which was surprisingly easier from that side.

Along the road I found a nice spot for a rest next to the Greek flag.

Made it without further incident to Kazaneika. Shortly after the village the road was blocked by a self-made gate.

I returned  to the village to ask the locals about it and got assured that there is no problem. OK, went ahead and opened the gate, continued on the route and got to another gate.

This was the same style as before so I did the same. But this time it meant there is a problem. After a fairly steep decent I found the road complete blocked by a massive landslide.

This was the only ‘road’ on my map. The other dirt track was on my map only a hiking trail, but I had no choice. It got me worried and that I had to cross another gate on my way to Paradeisi, where I could rejoin the TET, did not make me feel any better.  At the end it worked out and I was greatly relieved. 

After a quick detour for fuel I continued on the route with the plan to camp close to the Rion-Antirion Bridge which is the connection to the Peleponese across the Corinth Gulf’s strait.

The campground of my choice was closed. My search for another one took me about 20 kilometer off the TET. For that I had to cross the bridge today.

Sometimes when something ‘bad’ happens it turns out to be a good thing. This was a great spot at the sea!

Day 7

The following morning was not great weather but no rain.

The route climbs fairly quickly up the mountain and allows often nice views back towards the bridge.

The clouds got darker and the road was a bit rocky in places. I have not taken too many pictures as the wind was very strong around the summit and the drop offs kept me focused on the riding as well.

The landscape became more barren although the area is used for grazing.

The weather did improve and I enjoyed nicer temperature at lower elevation with a rest at a fountain next to the road.

On the other side of the valley I saw this monastery and was wondering if the route will run close by. Yes it did. The ramp up was interesting and not really build for big cars. The Monastery was less impressive from the other side but might be interesting to visit another time.

The ride continued in remote areas with lonely villages.

This was on the way back up the hill after the exploring.

This is the actual route.

After navigating through the village of Minthi, the TET leads across a mountain with pastures.

At one point the track starts to follow a hiking trail instead of a road according to my map and then suddenly there is nothing left.

I stop at a rocky field which has also some stone walls. There is no way I can ride through here, although I try, unsuccessful.

I backtracked to the known road after making sure that I can not make it.

Soon I hit pavement and follow the road towards the coast. Before I reach the village of Lepreo, the TET turns off onto a very rutted road, barely noticeable. I had to check the map several times as I could not believe that this is the correct way.

Thankfully the road improves soon and I’m reaching the coast with no new surprises. A campground is quickly found close to the coast and I settle in for the night. Exhausted but happy that in the end everything worked out, I reward myself with a nice dinner and some drinks at the restaurant.

Day 8

The morning started similar as the last day ended. Following old roads through green lush landscape.

The track runs more or less in the valley of the Neda river and across via the Bridge of Platania.

There I met another motorcycle rider (not doing the TET) who told me to visit the Neda Waterfalls. So I parked the bike and followed his suggestion.

The hike in Motorcycle clothes was exhausting but worth it. The waterfall has several cascades and some pools. I spend some time there to take in the scenery.

The remaining day was altering paved and unpaved sections of fairly good roads. I made it to the spot where the TET crosses the E961.

I was in the search of a rear tire (not urgent) and a campground. The town of Sparta was promising both. And the name made me curios as well. So I took the curvy road towards the town.

The campground on the outskirt was good and I had a great shower and some relaxing time including  a nice dinner.

Day 9

In the morning I took it easy on the search for the tire. Several places where closed or had only Motocross tires. Hey, I didn’t need on right away and towards Athens are several towns with motorcycle shops.

Sparta itself was nothing special (keep in mind I was not doing tourist sightseeing) so I moved north on the E961 to rejoin the TET.

The landscape is less mountainous and the roads allow good progress, with the exemption of a few small GPX track hiccups.

At one stage I passed by an old quarry.

You can still find traditional villages.

Many hills, turns and miles later I approached the coast. It was getting hot and I’m not a fan of crowded places, so I passed quickly through the town of Nafplio and followed the cost to find a campground.

I enjoyed to end the day a bit earlier and spend some time to take in the views and the sunset.

Day 10

Today’s plan was to see the Corinth Canal and continue the search for a tire. But first I crossed the peninsula on rugged roads.

Some stretches where paved as well.

That way I made it to the fortified place of Acrocorinth. This is located six kilometers southwest of present-day Corinth on a 575m high table mountain overlooking the whole area.

Next agenda was to find a tire. This area has many motorcycle related shops and I found one which supposed to be the best place to buy tires. It took a while to get there as I had to ride through all developed areas with buildings everywhere and the associated traffic.

All of this was mostly unsuccessful as all the shop can only order tires from Athens. Well I’m not far away from the capital city so the new plan was to ride there. The shop was so kind to find a tire I wanted and gave me the details of the garage. Very nice of them!

I took the motorway and made it within a few kilometers of the shop. The traffic was busy and we where not going very fast as the car in front of me hit the brakes very hard. Me being focused on which exit to take saw this too late and … From here on I can’t remember much, other than that I hit the brakes and thought, that is not going good.

Next was me finding myself on the road realizing that my lower leg is broken. Thankfully nothing else happened and the people around where very helpful. All was organized, police, ambulance, etc..

Not too long after I was in hospital. But this is a whole different story I don’t want to bother you with. So that was the end of my TET Greece adventure for now. I hope you enjoyed the report despite the unfortunate end.

FINISH


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