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Published: October 14th 2015
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Sicily. Day 4 St Vito
Sunny again today,as forecast and temperatures in the mid to high 20's. Great weather for October and a pleasure to be in Sicily with its great coastline.
We set off up the hill we descended last night and had a tour of the town of Alcamo and its castle. Our first port of call was the 2,500 year old temple ruin at Segesta. This was built, when the town was inland, as a fortress against invaders but was never completed since times became more peaceful and the town was then built on the coast. Following this we had a nice long descent before our first puncture of the trip which was caused by glass. The rural roads make the Lancashire ones look good, many suffering from subsidence and lack of tarmacadam in places. The downhill sections, which are normally taken with 'gusto' unfortunately had to be taken with his brother 'caution'. Damn.
The plan was to ride song the coast to Scopello, a beach resort which had swimmers and sunbathers on the beach as we passed. We went further along the coast to the car park at Zingaro Park, where we had planned
to load our bikes into a truck and walk along the coast for 4 miles, where there is no road, to meet up with our bikes again at the other side. However, today was quite windy and the fear was of bush fires which can burn ferociously in such conditions and we could be put at risk. This meant that we had to change our plans and head back into wind which had helped nicely so far today. Unfortunately Bill had a fall coming into the car park caused by a gust of wind. This caused blood loss and skin abrasions on his knee and elbow - not recommended. This reminds me of my fall in Sri Lanka and I hope that it heals better than mine. This loss of our walk added another 30 miles onto our day. Five of us set off down the road and waited at what we thought was the junction where we would turn off. Unfortunately it was a junction too far and we rang Gregg to tell him of our predicament. We agreed to carry on taking the main road to San Vito lo Capo and meet the rest of them there. While
I say rest of them I mean those left after several had jumped in the van and cadged a lift to the hotel. On the way we espied a garage selling drinks etc so we took advantage of it and had half an hour drinking coffee and iced lemon tea plus we made friends a nice dog which ended up following us down the road A few more hills later and we caught up the other group descending into the town before St Vito. A miracle of timing. Just before the turn to St Vito we saw some quarries on the hillside which had stone cut away in large slabs for building. They must have some big cutters. The Hotel Sabbia d'Oro is very nice. Great evening meal and good Sicilian red wine before a walk to the ocean where Alex had a paddle and a beer for all in the Blue Oyster - no only kidding, Blue Lagoon Bar. The wind is extremely warm, even at 11pm, and is the Scirocco coming of North Africa.
Great country in great company and an easier day tomorrow, thank goodness.
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