Week 3 - Public Awareness, Excavations and Magical Mystery Tour!

 Day 19: Wednesday 28th September

On Wednesday I had Morning Survey A-C with David and Nick, with less and less nests being present each week as they continue to hatch and be excavated we're beginning to finish morning surveys earlier and earlier. I had the afternoon off and then headed to Golden Beach Hotel with Jonatahan to give a presentation to the guests. Jonathan gave the presentation but most of the guests were German so I'm not sure how much they understood. I had stuffed tomatoes with rosmary potatoes and various cheeses for my dinner a the buffet. 

Day 20: Thursday 29th September

On Thursday I was at White Palace Hotel for morning IT shift with Chiara and I had a nice breakfast and spoke to a few guests, it wasn't a hugely busy shift but we still raised a little bit of money. We returned to camp to be greeted with Lucy cutting up an old tent to make a graduation gown for Lieke! Apparently it was Lieke's graduation ceremony day back home but she wasn't able to go as she was still in Greece with us so Lucy wanted to throw her our own graduation ceremony :). So I helped Lucy get all the chairs ready and in position at the middle of camp, we sat the lead volunteers as the chancellors at the front and made a stand for Jonathan to be the Dean and give a speech and Lucy made a Graduation cap and sash for Lieke to wear. It was a fun morning and I think Lieke really enjoyed it. 

In the evening I was at Caramel Hotel with Alicia for Slide show and IT table. I was excited as I'd been told by everyone that Caramel does the best food. I had some really lovely mushroom raviloi for dinner. It was a very fancy hotel, the kind where at the food buffet they only have 3 of everything at a time but they come and replace each thing as they're taken. The slideshow was outside infront of the huge pool for the kids club, but there were only two Polish children, so I did a very simplified version with just one sentance about each slide and the kids club manager translated for me. 

Day 21: Friday 30th September

Friday Morning I was at Amira Hotel for morning IT with David, we set up our stock in the middle of the Lobby and spoke to a few people, letting them know that there was going to be a public excavation there that night. I had the best breakfast I've had in any of the hotels! I had pancakes, scrambled eggs, crossiants and potato dauphinoise! 

We had Pitta Gyros for lunch and welcomed a few more volunteers who came from the Chania project which was packed up a week earlier than us. Grace from the UK/Switzerland, Lucie from France and Ellie from Scotland/France. We  went for a quick swim on the beach and then had a meeting at 5pm to introduce the new volunteers. I was on Chef with Nick in the evening but as we had had Pita Gyros quite late we didn't need a big meal so Nick and I made an invention of mine a fried vegetable potato cake fritter thing. 

Day 22: Saturday 1st October

Saturday Morning I was on Morning Survey D-F with Lieke, we didn't see any hatchlings but it was nice to be back on a monitoring shift. In the afternoon Lucy, Alicia and I went swimming and arranged Car Hire for our day off on Sunday. We had a public excavation in the evening just outside the taverna on the campsite where I was giving the PE Speech to the pubic whilst Eleni and Alicia excavated the nest. We didn't have any live hatchlings but there were a few embryos and around half had hatched. In the evening Lucy and Alicia picked up the hire car and then Gemma and I joined them for a trip to old town for frozen yogurt before returning to camp. 

Day 23: Magical Mystery Tour! Sunday 2nd October

Sunday was Mine, Lucy and Matthews day off, Alicia had Morning Survey A-C but we knew she would be done by around 9am so we waited for her to be finished as she wanted to join us on our day off which we had christened the magical mystery tour day. We first headed to Kournas Lake which is about 30 miniutes from the campsite, where Lucy and I had stopped on our South trip excursion but it was so nice to see it in the beautiful sunshine. We rented a pedalo and had a really magical morning in the sunshine on the lake, we could have been on a yacht it was so lovely! We saw some terrapins in the water, went for a swim and played mamma mia music whilst we peddled, it was very idealic. We then had some lunch on the waterside at a small taverna before perousing the pottery shops and then headed to our next destination. 

We then headed about an hour away in the other direction (again about 30 mins from Camp) to Melidoni Cave for the 'Mystery' part of the magical mystery tour day. We descended into the cave and down the large staircase into the cool chamber, there were stalagmites and stalagtites all over the cave made from limestone and formed over thousands of years. Inside the stairs took us down to the main chamber where a path lead us around in a circle route around the cave. 

The cave holds a lot of history, as a place of worship for the god Hermes and a refuge for 370 civilians during the 1824 Turkish occupation, however the people were evetually shut inside and died inside. A stone ossuary stood in the centre of the cave to commemorate them. We also found out that the cave was home to a blind species of spider which we looked for whilst we were inside. 

After emerging from the cave we headed only a few minutes away to a local bee and honey museum/shop. It was a really sweet museum with facts about how honey is made on the farms there with a tasting station to try different kinds of honey they make from bees pollinating different plants. We tried Thyme Honey, Wild flower honey as well as a third I can't remember off the top off my head, but my favourite was the wild flower one. 

Our final stop was a small beach Alicia knew about, but it was very windy and the waves were super high so Lucy and I decided not to swim but to sit in the wash and let the sea wash over us instead. We stayed there until around 5pm and then headed back to return the car. It had been a really lovely day out. 

Once we were back at the campsite we showered and got dressed and watched the sunset on the beach out the front of camp, and then headed up to a mountain Taverna which overlooked Rethymno with David, Chiara, Alicia, Matthew, Lucy and Lieke. Gemma, Jonathan and Fergus joined us later on and we had the most lovely meal. All the food is grown or comes from their small farm on the mountain and locally made by the couple who own the taverna. It was really lovely. I particularly enjoyed the baked feta and spinach pie. It was a lovely end to a lovely day off.