A Snapshot of Greece from a Backpacker  

The place we stayed at, Hotel Delfina. This Hotel was on the shores of Evia, one of the many Islands of Greece.

This Island was about a 45 minute boat ride to the main land of Greece itself. The boat ride was always interesting, the Aussies with there 'will win everything' and the Canadians with there 'wots this all aboot' accents.

Just about every morning we would be up by 4:30am getting ready for our big adventure for the day.

Basketball was the main excuse, being so far away we had to travel about 2 hours each way to get there. One morning we got on the very early ferry a hitched a ride with a lovely Greek women. She was heading to see the equestrian. She dropped us all the way in to Athens Airport, after a very long but interesting journey. Almost going the wrong down a motorway off ramp wasn't that good on the old ticker.

Apart from the basketball we did spent two days just lazing on the island itself. John Twaddle and I made our way around the back streets of Nea Stiris and checked out the local veggie markets. We bought some really great tasting Watermelon. Basking in the sun on the beach was a good idea as well, plenty of time to do this when arriving home back to base around 5pm, then sitting out there and watching the sun go down behind the hills on the mainland. Amazing something I'll never forget.

The Island itself was so alive, all the local people out every night, having a meal kids running around making friends playing soccer or beach volley ball, riding scooters or off to the local disco. No real sign of mobile phones or internet on this island, it was if it was stuck in the 80's perhaps, a good thing thou being able to get away from the hassle and bustle of the big smoke. It seemed to be a local's holiday crash pad.

The Food was amazing every night was something different, Fish, Greek Salads and Meat dishes and of course Saivlaki and Kebabs which everybody took a liking to. Every meal was great and dirt cheap around $4-8 (euro). Every meal was served with Greek Bread, which always dry and hard, but we got use to it in the end. I'd go back in a flash just for the food.

Although they generally kept to there own the locals did understand where we all came from. A lot of the older people knew somehow New Zealand helped them in the war or something, as one old boy tried to explain to me. He was quite hard to understand has his English been that great but hey we bought the man a beer for trying to understand our language.

The locals also looked after me, as I tried my best to learn a few words, one group of children buying me some 'Combole' beads. One old boy in the hotel had a set and it racked my brain so much about what they where, so they girls bought me a set. It was very moving to get a gift from the locals so in return I found a couple of little Sliver Fern badges to give to them which they also enjoyed.

If you had something to swap this was the best way of meeting new people, very body wanted to swap badges or something with you, it was a pity some of the better swapies didn't exchange numbers or address with me for later on.

Anyway we did happen to meet some kiwis on our travels to the basketball, a few who are living in London and a few that we should catch up again with in a few weeks, the whole time you where there you would always meet a different group of people and it was quite interesting meeting a couple from the states in the 60's whom where both born in good old Pukekohe, the names slip my mind at the time of writing this which as I look clock its 1:42am Sunday morning.

My room mates consisted of John and Nick Twaddle, Nick having arrived a few days after John and I. Nicks Brother Nathan was in the Pair. John and Nick both made the trip that little bit better, with the rest of our crew being far too old to go out with or doing anything exciting. They really needed to just chill out a wee bit instead of being so on edge. I think with all 5 of our crews making the finals there was a bit of pressure for one crew to perform.

John, Nathan and I set out everyday in search of something new. There was never a dull moment between the three of us, each one of trying to take the piss out of the other, It was really a laugh a minute, and with the BoP having won the shield Both those Whakatane boys where on a high and of course well I was to with Counties winning a few games in a row.

I don't think I have met a pair of guys better than these two. Just a pity the trip didn't last a few more days so Nathan and Eric could join us as we could have gone to a few more events.

The Stadiums where out of this world, the one we visited the most was Helliniko Olympic Complex which was near the south coast of Greece.

For us to get there was a mission but so worth it. We got to three games of Basketball, and one game of Hockey which to be honest was rather boring, but hey I was there and you weren't!

I couldn't help but think what was really going to happen to this place once the games where all over? Some stadiums where really a bit of a waste, I mean how this country got the games in the first place is beyond me.

Nothing was finished correctly, ok so they rushed it but it's going to be rather strange when it's all over.

A lot of the stands were temporary, and would probably have been packed up when it was all over. We also got told that a lot of the buses and trains had been brought in from other countries, The Greeks will still have a great transport system when it's all over.

The other stadium we made a visit to was the original Olympic Stadium near the national gardens (Zappeio). They held the Archery there and I think the finish of the Marathon.

Zappeio was very pretty, I'm not really sure how old these gardens are but they had some amazing feature, running through them at 2am was pretty cool. With things like Zeus's Temple and Heralds Gate amongst it all. The Dutch decided that I was a good idea to have their house in these Gardens, those lucky enough to get in were was I was told, treated to a dance set from the God of trance himself Dj Tiesto!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lucky buggers, I heard he was the sounds behind the opening ceremony. At £500 a ticket I think we could also easily say pass on that one.

Event ticket prices weren't to bad, everything around $15-40 (euro). So that didn't burn a whole in the pocket.

Transport was free if you had your ticket to a game on the day, the Metro was the underground system and it was fast. One of the guys reckons they wound it up to around 175km/ph, but because the stops were too close they couldn't travel faster than that. Believe me you knew when it was going faster than 150km/ph man did it fly. Jumping on and off was pretty easy, you just had to remember which stop to catch the bus from.

The funny things that will always be in my mind is being able to see the length of the train itself and watching it bend around the corners from front to back, we are talking 50-150 meters in length here, 500 people at time on each train, and the different stops, Kata Haki and Syntagma.

Boy did we have some fun on the buses and trains in this city, chatting up every girl we could, especially the lovely girls from Denmark and Holland!

Snytagma was also the main stop for us when we wanted to see the cycle road race, we all perched up at bar and then some would yell out that the girls were coming along the road so we would all duck out for the 30seconds we could see them, cheer for our girls and then head back in and carry on drinking, this carried on until the race finished. I got a glimpse of the very stunning Leotini Zejard Van Morsal. We got told news that she and Sarah Ulmer had a crash but that was crap, probably some stupid aussie trying to talk up his girls.

While all this was going on you had to spare a thought for those rowing boys. Digging it in with the all the training. To me being there to watch my best mate compete as one of the world's best was a great honour. All these silly bets in High school 'Yea bro you'll get there and I'll be right there with Ya' 'Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa cause that will ever happen'. Well it did and they went bloody well.

The Boys which consisted of Donald, Carl, Eric, Maiha all started there Kiwi Training in Cambridge. I made the odd trip down just to check up on them just to see what was up from time to time. I never believed for one minute that my best mate shouldn't have been there, he would have to have the biggest ticker in the whole world, and it's just a bloody pity he still supports Bombay Rugby which I might add should be in Second Division!

I think everybody back in Pukekohe would have to be proud of what there home town boy did, 5 th in the world is a great feat. Hopefully it all pays off for him when he gets back and he becomes the superstar he should be. What's more lets hope I can write another story like this in 2008 and that next time he brings back a medal.

Now other parts of the tour included a trip to the famous Akropoli Site. The building, which is on top of the Akropoli Mountain, has been there since around 400bc, it was the original Athens City. High above the rest of the now Athens City, It was a very safe place for the important people to be. As we found out for ourselves once up there you could see out to the sea on one side, and all the way up north on the other. This is when you get to see how over crowded and polluted some of these big cities are. I made the silly mistake of thinking all the smog clouds where rain clouds. One Poor local woman thought I was mad, 'rain you say, it hasn't rained here for ages, that's smog my boy plain and simple, too many old cars in this over crowded city' she said.

Being able to visit sites like these is an eye opener. I could easily picture myself going back all those thousands of years, running around with a shield and sword. Most of the ruins are still intact and the usual please don't touch or keep back under construction signs to make people aware they where building again. I think these same signs have been there since the early 1900's haven't they?

The People we meet on our travels where also pretty amazing, you could pretty much talk to anyone about anything. The vibe was a very happy one, it didn't matter if you came first second or last, everybody was in a good mood. The Swede's with there flags on that last night, because they had one three or four track gold medals they decided to hit town and very loudly. The Dutch with there bright oranjeee !!! All dressed in that eye catching colour and most of them being over 6ft tall, Some very stunning girls to.

The Greeks, all very proud to have the games in there country, every Greek had a flag in there shop window or waving off the back of there car, truck or motorbike. And of course us Kiwis, all charging around going golden brown with what should be our new flag, the silver fern on the black flag, we got a little sick and tired of getting called Aussies because of the similar flags, so switched to the black and silver before I left.

I decided since I was kind of on my own in our tour group I could keep everybody entertained. Reports from home said I was a bit hit on TV, At least 6 times I was on there so I hear perhaps more?

The stunt of all time had to be the famous water entry from the hotel doorsteps. Dunno if that made the news but it should have. Struggling for news the TV One crew headed out to the island to capture us. It was a big joke because it was our day off from the basketball and we were trying to stay away from the cameras. They came to us they knew we were superstars, pity I don't seem the cheques rolling in aye guys?

We did get to meet a sporting icon through our TV dramas. Author Lidyard happened to be sitting with our Kiwi crew at the basketball. Getting to meet him was quite amazing and for his age he is still one very switched on person. He loved us younger guys making the trip all the way over to support our Kiwi team. He didn't quite get into the Haka like we did though.

But a Big hooray to the basketball boys for providing us a great day out, even the games we they didn't win we still had a ball. Taking on the Chinese and there 2000 strong crowd was pretty awesome.

That flag, man that had to be the biggest flag I have seen in my life it would have been at least 50sqm. But we shut them all up when we did the Haka.

It was our time out motivation speech for the boys, who in the very last seconds nearly pulled it off against China and Italy, only a couple of points out aye boys.

The last days of Greece leg were easily the best. The big spit roast bbq at NZ Rowing HQ. All the supporters came along and had a bloody good time. Eric and I made sure everybody was fed well that night. I'm Not to sure if it was sheep or goat but it was perfect, never mind the locals telling us how to cook it, we had it sussed.

After a few quite drinks we crashed under the stars, it was so warm all we need was a blanket and a pillow. We chatted away to each other all night till we dozed off, most of that night was blur, wonder why aye..

The next morning we hitched a ride down the rowing arena, which then Nick and Me got ride of our finals day tickets for a bloody good price of $70(euro) each woohoooo!

We got back to the Island as fast as we could and then packed up our stuff and made it back to NZ house. Now this is where the fun begins. We watched on the big screen Sarah Ulmer clean up the Aussie chic in the final and win gold wooohoooo! NZ House was a crash place for Kiwis to head to and meet up with other kiwis. It was all very relaxed and always good times.

Then it was time to hit the town, we had meet a group of people in the foyer while getting on the piss as you do. We had been invited to join then and off into town we went. If there was ever a night to be out on the town this was it. It was Sunday night and it was amazing, there wasn't a space left on any footpath, people everywhere, couples, kids, old people, everybody just out to be amongst it.

We tried out luck at the Dutch Hall but the line was too long, music sounded like crap anyway thank god for that. So off into the main street, one of the guys who was in our group for the night was telling us his story of how he had taken his moped from London and travelling all the way to Greece on it, now that man deserves a beer!

We made our way into the Syntagama Square where it was all happening, we qued up for what was going to be our last Greek meal. They had a band playing there in the café, these guys were good, and everybody was up dancing and having a good time. So we got our meal and ended up going back for some more because it good. $1.50 (euro) for one of the best meals I have ever had, sorry mum it was even better than your apple pie and that pretty hard to beat.

(Time check 2:59am)

Ok we moved on from there and tried to find ourselves a bar to go to. But we couldn't get in anywhere, all the bars had people out on the streets, it was what you would call a circus. We finally parted from the group at around 3am. Now me and Nick had the problem of no where to stay. We headed back through Syntamga and popped into good old macca's for a bite to eat.

The idea was going to be to just crash on the grass under some trees in the square as many other people were doing, but on this night the council had cracked onto the idea and turned the sprinklers on. So we were out of luck there. We snuck back to NZ house and crashed on the couch. We got kicked out about 6:45am the next morning. Being a hotel foyer I don't think a group of kiwis on there couch was what they wanted.

It was decided we would go to one last basketball game before we set off somewhere new. We caught up with our to lovely girl mates, Fern and Louise from the time before. We also meet up with a few others from the night before, was quite funny to see these guys again before we left.

We got a call and said we had a seat with the rowing boys and could take off that afternoon, thank the big man upstairs for that one. Because airfares to London where drying up fast and at $1000 NZ for a one way flight neither Nick nor me had the money.

We could have headed out to the Greek Islands with Fern and Louise, which thinking back might have been the better option aye Nick? Boyfriend's yea righto J .

Anyway we jumped in with Sam Earl and a couple of the rowing coach's at Marathonis and that was it just like that Greece was over, roll on Italy, its 3:07am am I going to stop here now? Not likely.

The voyage to Italy was a long one, having left Greece at around 10pm we set sail for Kofu and then onto Venice itself. 30 hours, on the back deck, oh ya for that. Well it was hell. I got sooooooooo sun burnt having falling asleep in the sun, back was red and so was the tummy. We meet an Aussie couple doing the bus about tour, whom were meant to get in Kofu but decided to stay on. The pool was very near were we slept so trying to get any rest during the day was rather hard.

The food was crap and ripoff, we should have bought our own, but we didn't really know we where going to be on this ship for 30 hours. The whole sleeping out on the deck thing didn't really bother us. It wasn't cold and well under the stars was really different. The ship itself wasn't even that noisy most of the time. The only thing I was really worried about was my wallet getting nicked. Up until now nothing had really gone wrong for me and Nick, but this was going to be the tester looking after our stuff. We finally departed the vessel and arrived in Venice.

We took a little boat off to the city centre, the canals were amazing. Although there was lots to see I didn't really enjoy it, it was hot humid and really not all that great of time to be there. To many people for my liking, I felt quite unsafe the whole time for some reason. St Marks square was a bit of challenge trying to get decent pictures without one of the 1000's of people walking in front of you. We finally did. Managed to get our selves some pizza which was crap and check out the backstreets. This is where you see the beggars. Now coming from the country you just don't see this kind of thing in Pukekohe. There they were on there corners hiding their heads in shame just kneeling pleading for any spare change, was it have or was it for real? You could never really tell.

The painted masks that where about the place were very interesting, we never did quite find out the meaning for them all. Perhaps a masquerade ball costume? Who knows?

Another thing that struck me was how much these canals were used, there are basically no roads at all in the city centre itself, and even all the things like veggies are transported around on little boats. It was always fresh and tasted as good as it looked. Pity it was so damn expensive aye. There was a speed limit of 5 knots at all times, it seemed that If you travelled faster than this you would cause waves in the sea. These waves seemed to be weakening the buildings that where on these canals.

It was starting to get quite hot so was quite happy when it was time to leave.

We made our way to one of the many water taxis operating in the area. And very slowly got on board after one really bright woman thought she would have a good pushing in. Me being from the Reynolds back round I let rip and told her to get to the back of the line where she came from , I'm sure you can all understand that some swearing was involved.

Quite a few members of the crowd thought was rather funny and also told her where she should be. One problem with European people is they thing it's ok to push in. They then proceed to tell you there local and they are more important, yea righto pal, hit the back of the line thanks mate.

Right so we got this water taxi back, we managed to see a few of the other sites on the way back to the van, although most where clouded away by the smog.

Right road trip time, it was quite understandable that Sam (the driver) wasn't that interested in mucking around. We headed for Switzerland. After travelling through more than 20 tunnels one being over 15kms long we arrived to our hotel for the night. Switzerland was something else, we could see snow, there was green grass, castles and cows, very much like home. We crashed the night in Luricien, another famous rowing area. I ordered a rather expensive steak meal for tea. It really wasn't all that nice and after getting hit with a bill of £35 Swiss francs it was all that nice at all.

An early start the next morning saw us head for France, now again very pretty and very much like home. All the tractors were out making hay and silage as we could smell it along the way.

There was also corn and maze for miles and miles. France being as big as it is, I'd have to say I have never seen so much countryside in one day.

After pulling into a little service station and trying to chat a lovely local French girl (thanks for the discount pity you couldn't get off work to come with us) it was time to hit Belgium via Luxemburg. Luxemburg btw was nothing to write home about so I won't.

Well there we where Hazenwinkle rowing arena. We unloaded the boats and meet up with this Aussie bloke who was heading back to London. Now Nick and I decided to ask this guy if we might be able to hitch a ride with him to London.

It was decided after I lost paper scissors rock that we were going to London that very day. If I had of won the beat we were going to be heading to Holland for a few days.

So we switched vans, this time we had a good old British Land Rover, and it hauled arse to. We got to Calais around 6pm. We had to wait till 7ish to head across the Channel to Dover. Hooray for customs people that don't really give a stuff and stamp your passport no questions asked.

Nick on the other hand got asked the usually 20 questions about how long was he staying and no work ect.

The trip across the straight was good, we got a decent roast meal, now we had to start paying in pounds and the whole three to one thing came into it. So our roast dinner cost us $17NZ oh well it was good.

The rest of the trip from Dover to London I don't really remember because I was asleep most of the time. Anyway the guy dropped us off at Fulham Broadway Tube station and there we were in London.

We crashed the night at Nick's mate's house and well the rest hasn't really yet managed to be as exciting as these two weeks in Europe.

Well that's me and that was my adventure from New Zealand to England.

What happens now? Who knows at the time of writing this I awaiting for a job in Leeds , so my travels my carry on there, I'm planning to see the might AB's taken on the Frogs in Paris and hopefully get away to Sweden & Denmark before the Year is out.

It was a wicked trip to Greece and I know I'll be going to back next summer to the Islands for a few weeks to chill out in the sun.

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