06/08/2009 Greece VI: The Journey Home

As I write this, I'm on the plane back to Blighty. Feeling a little tired at the moment, given that I had to wake up at 6:15 to catch the 7:00 bus to Thessaloniki, before the hour long journey to the airport and nearly five hour wait for the flight. But everything has gone without a hitch so far. I've now had a very nice lunch of BA serpentini pasta (someone planned this, I'm sure), wrap and fruitcake, after Mpougatsa in the departure lounge. I like BA; the food is edible, and I've just had a 12 year old Glenlivet Single Malt to sooth my aching nerves and brain. I'm considering actually having a nap now, but we'll be starting to descend soon, and even with alcohol in my system I don't think I'll manage to be sufficiently relaxed to drop off.

05/08/2009 Greece VI: Oikocrysts and Octopodes

Deciding where to go today was a difficult decision. We had arranged with Anna Mpatsi to do my last days fieldwork together, but we had no idea where. Luckily, Annie came to the rescue, and suggested a section through the Aspropotamos Complex, which we had just touched up'on on the day where we met our amphiboles in peridotite on Dramala with Nikos. We worked our way up, from Grevena to the Ambelia Section, starting in the pillow lavas. The first proper stop was spilitic pillows; something which I have a hard time getting excited about. The sulphide pipe was much more exciting, packe as it was with arseno and iron pyrites, along with a small amount of native sulphur. The pipe is apparently one of the largest in the world, but too low in the section to be of economic interest. Unfortunately, if the pipe did once reach the surface, it has since been eroded, leaving us with only a hint of what might once have been.

Continuing our journey through the section, we reached the Ambelia Bridge, which marks the boundary between the Aspropotamos Crustal sequence and mantle peridotites of Dramala. Above us lies the Liagkouna sole, which showed in the amount of amphibolite on the road. Along the valley, outcrops of melange include three types of lava, one of which is from the Aspropotamos, along with several other blocks. This is potentially an important area for figuring out the relationships between the to thrust sheets (and I presume was used by Jones and Robertson in their work in the late 80s-early 90s), but there was no time to study it in any detail today.

Instead, we continued up the track out of the valley, passing gabbro, wehrlite, dunite and plagiogranite cumulate layering. Some of the gabbros have oikocrysts clearly visible with the naked eye - we collected as much as we could for posterity.

By the time we had finished along the roadcuts, both Anna and Annie (and to be honest me as well) were exhausted, so we decided to head back for a long rest. In the evening, Anna returned to Grevena, and to celebrate (?!) my leaving, we had a fantastic meal at the fish restaurant. Between the 6 of us (Mike and Babi came along too) we ate four tentacles of octopus, four plates of squid, two of saganaki (cooked cheese), one hot pepper (we really didn't need any more of that!), two xoriatiki salads, one plates of patates and three baskets of bread. Lightning flashed around us as we sat under the tentes (awning), thunder rumbled, and the rain splashed the parched ground, sending most Grevenotika running for home. We stayed, and enjoyed the freshening air and wonderful food. Annie treated us all to the full spread (E100 of it) and we all went home pleasantly full.

04/08/2009 Greece VI: The Climbing Rocks

This was a fairly relaxing day. We travelled to a lookout at Annitsa for a panorama, and found a war memorial to those locals killed in the campaigns against the Italians, 1940-41. The view wasn't quite good enough for Annie's books, but I got the clearest view of Smolikas that I've had (still with snow in a couple of crevases), and could see quite easily to the border with Albania. I have to admit, I am tempted to climb Smolikas; it looks remarkably easy for the second highest mountain in Greece (2635m, compared with Mytikus at 2917m) and there's a road that makes it a significant way up. Not that I'd ever cheat like that, of course.

After a brief stop collected huge (~40kg) flysch samples for a museum exhibition, we visited some exciting climbing rocks just round the corner. Still made of flysch, but heavily cleaved and gently folded it made the perfect site for a small amount of sillyness before moving on. Annie wanted to go to see the Dotsikos Strip Ophiolite pyroxenites, but unfortunately the road had a large stop sign across it, next to a huge baza piles of serpentine (used for grading the road). So instead we took one last site, collecting fossils from red and grey Jurassic carbonates, before returning back to Grevena (Annie felt a little woozy, and a woozy driver in a high 4x4 like the Chevy Blazer is a bad idea.

In the evening, Mike took me out of one of the Cafes for a couple (3) beers. Another great thing about Greece - the longer you stay in a cafe, the more and better food they give you. It's a clever idea really; you can carry on drinking for longer without a) getting hungry b) getting drunk c) getting rowdy. They should definitely do the same in Britain. We only stayed for three, and so only got two lots of crisps and two tosts each. I'd be interested to find out what we'd get if we stayed for longer!

03/08/2009 Greece VI: Manual Labour at the Office

As it's a Monday, it's an office day. Unfortunately, because of our rock-collecting spree over the last week, this meant myself and Dina attempting to carry in all of the specimens, both from the Blazer and from the LandRover. Because the LandRover is frankly a best of a machine, it carried far more than we could have taken in the Blazer, including some pretty hefty two-man (well, me and Dina) specimens. After lugging about 300-400kg of rock into the cutting room, I asked Dina if we could cut some of my specimens to make them more managable for me to take back in my luggage. The saw made a horrific grinding-whirring noise as it started up, which only got worse as Dina touched the specimen (a perfectly fresh peridotite) against the blade. After about a minute of sparks (and me leaving the room), she gave up. The specimen had a massive chunk removed; not because of Dina's youthful exuberance in cutting, but because the blade was actually blunt. Talk about Greek's and their laid back attitude to work; the blade was clearly about 500 samples past its use-by period, and I wouldn't have touched it with a barge-pole. Hammering and scrubbing ensued, to allow me to take as many samples (of my pretty chromites, amphiboles and other assorted peridotites) as possible.

Unlike last Monday, we didn't then proceed to do work. Instead, we went back to Grevena, to partake in what has become a bit of a tradition; lunch at the Makedonikon. This time, I had yemista and keftides. Ahhhh, heaven. In the evening, rather naughtily, we went out for another meal (Annie's dietician would not have been impressed), to the Ekavi for a second time.

01-02/08/2009 Greece VI: Rest Days

Well, the last two days have been very relaxing. Both Annie and myself decided that Saturday would be a good day to catch up on rest and reading. After all, we've done almost everything we wanted to do whilst I was out here. Not much more to say really!