The original reason why I wanted to go to Crete was to hike, and specifically its gorges, that are supposed to be gorge-ous (Sorry. I’ve got it out of my system now.)

Imagine my dismay then when my hotel receptionist in Chania informed me that the most famous gorge of them all, Samaria, was closed! Apparently the bad winter rains had wreaked such havoc that it wouldn’t open for weeks yet.

Luckily there are others, so after some research I set out for Agia Irini instead, just on the other side of the White mountains that run along the middle of the island.

Everyone had warned me about the roads, but as I meandered up the lowlands through endless orange groves they didn’t strike me as particularly bad. How wrong I was! The moment the land began to rise up more steeply, the scars of landslides became visible on the wooded slopes, and driving turned into never-ending zig-zagging between enormous piles of dirt and debris that would often cover half the road, thus forcing you (or oncoming traffic) into the other lane. And this on roads that are nothing but hairpin bends!

Several times the road had simply disappeared, as if a giant had taken a bite out of it, and I passed a massive ancient stone bridge that had half collapsed – one of the foundations had been Kobra Kai’d by the deluge, sweeping the colossus off its feet. The cretans didn’t seemed too fussed about it all tho: I saw one guy in a digger working to clear the roads. Given no additional precipitation I’d say he’ll have the job done in two to three centuries!

Suffice to say that I was happy to arrive safely at the entrance to Agia Irini after a 35 kilometer long drive that took over an hour. The gorge itself was a delight, with the stream that crafted it very much a presence, burbling its way down the mountain for the first two thirds, then inexplicably disappearing without a trace. The fauna was very rich – I was to discover that every gorge is a microcosm unto itself, and Irini was dominated by stately cedar trees, the kind that once covered much of the island but which are now largely gone. There were enormous bushes of wild sage and rue, giving off clouds of heady perfume, and most of all there were platanos – plane trees. Normally you associate them with tall, straight trunks creating shade on city squares in an orderly fashion, but here, mangled and mauled by the onrush of water, they looked more like mighty maples, managing to thrive in the most unlikely of places, clinging to rocks, submerged in the brook or both. I was entranced.

The trail was by no means easy, but the sun was shining, there weren’t many hikers around, and I thoroughly enjoyed skipping back and forth over the stream and the waterfalls, so I hiked it all the way to the end, grabbed a coffee at the one café, and hiked back up again to my car in little under five hours. That was quite enough for my first day though, so after that I slalomed my way down the rest of the southern slopes to the isolated coastal hamlet of Sougia, where I hoped to find a room for the night.

Apart from the odd sighting of kri-kri, the wild mountain goats that are endemic to the island, I was virtually alone on the road, and I began to worry that Sougia would be deserted. It wasn’t. And virtually everyone had rooms to let, so I got one quite quickly; it was a monk’s cell, but the proprietress was so friendly and energetic (despite being 76 years old) that I began to wonder if my new-found monk status would come under siege! Thankfully that didn’t happen; instead, I had dinner on the beach (sadly under an overcast sky, so no stars), and went to bed thoroughly exhausted.

Kalispera!