Crete - The White Mountains

[Music] the island of Crete has a character like no other high mountains and gorges are part of its personality centuries-old footpaths lead across the white mountains of Southwest Crete all this within a few kilometers of the sea but at a height of around 2,000 meters it is a challenging landscape and not for the unprepared but it is a compelling one with unique plants and scenery like nowhere else on earth we based our Cretan holiday in the white mountains area of Western Crete today's walk hopefully takes us to the top of the majestic mansion Agnes just left Emily turned off and heading up towards the start of the track responsibly white mountains we're going to fly to the end in Park and according to the legend and luckily it takes about an hour past walk for some of the pioneers left and we're just on the low plateau here and it's beautiful flowers are magnificent it's early May they olive trees are looking nice and healthy but underneath them is a carpet of yellow little baby well we have to clean it that's well seen several coming up but that just confirmed it just a little bit golden oriole closer let's go Laurie White Mountains or madara's meaning without coverage and bare vegetation is a mountain range located in western crete in the hania area they consist mostly of limestone from light gray to a bluish or black color snow covers the peaks until late in spring there are over 30 civets over 2000 meters the highest being partners at 2453 meters Crete has around 2,000 species of plants and 10% of these grow only in Crete and nowhere else in the world well the roads blocked the snow that was towards the top snowdrift just round this corner things turned round in parts of the way mark boots cuts across here below the road and goes into the valley after TSI we get it might not be doable yet not too much snow I wanna be with you [Music] time to replenish the water supplies is the holy night okay you [Music] so taken at about an hour and three quarters to reach the road head number seven a five minute break before we attempt the summit we parked here so that's why I got to work on cause of this monthly come up the old track got on the road walked all the way up the road to here and we're just now getting back on to the path of apartness so that our vision about having a business military [Music] verse shepherd caught up into that box in their hole the door stood he was camped here in the early 90s not in the Shepherd's hook but behind a stone windbreak filtering the water from the well your partners and I'll say here [Music] you he I [Music] week one please [Music] yes [Music] since I we approach the cement whit was so intense to the antrum forward before taking an ex back with me be moderately heavier I of course have no problem against pause ten gale [Music] the second time we submitted on partners back in 1995 we brought an aluminium box and visitors book now subtly gone and we sent everybody a badge who sent us a photo from the summit we received photos and letters from all over the world taken us three and three-quarter hours from where the road was blocked with the wind business comfortable only they can obviously keeps knocking me over where are those books oh my face its northern I'll bet you think you can have a stand up against it that's why we're in this little shelter now look at these prettier expanded the veldt ski we decided to walk to the end of the ridge to get better views of the distance summary of gorge and the Potamus valley below the wind intends to began to increase thought would be hasty retreat I couldn't stand against it at the price myself then it Lily mad man's wife turned around the third big wind cloud a little big mountain faster I didn't like sign of things to come [Music] I wanna be haha [Music] today we're going caving to DA kolache with just our way to try and find the jackal a chi cave which means the dark wanna think and so hopefully we can find it's quite difficult to find but before that we're just about to cross the alladhina gorge this is a Bailey bridge and is a prefabricated truss bridge developed by the British during World War two the 70 meter long bridge is decked with thick wooden planks which Rumble like distant thunder when vehicles drive over them plans to reduce the noise by the local authority were objected to by the locals who actually like the noise because this lets them know when people are entering or leaving their village The Legend of Bailey bridge is the highest Bailey bridge in the world and during the summer months you can actually do a bungee jump from here we are now back on the road towards I guess Isle honest and on entering the village we just had to stop and film the flowers of the roadside a 20-minute drive on the track behind the village takes us to the start of the war now here we are at the end of the road so all we've got to do now is find the start of the pack well it looks like it's going to be a tough walk we're not sure that whether we're in the right place to start the pattern became because we went higher and we think it was just a sink track so we're just dropping back down for that part of the corn dropped down to the lower path and it hasn't gone down any Millions it's a lovely walk now so a Cavanaugh we think this is the right path the tracker lights again and it probably through the woods listening to the bear just a couple corny and got a bit oculars ready hoping to see things like golden Orioles and anything else we'll never know what we might feel heard most of heard now all this morning but we're not sure what [Music] and admiring these trees just looking in the center of this old tree on this band this is one that it's really healthy but looking this way it spread out of from them Center at the bottom of East Bay and it could be so old you can just see all the squirrels and the shapes in the bulk it's a beautiful tree after a short scramble with the steep slope and we're sort of standing on the top of the air Edina Gorge where it branches into different smaller valleys we've got to the entrance to dracolich ek on this top of it it's like a scree slope we're standing on so we've come from down there the cave here and it goes in at a very steep angle and there are two climbing ropes here while the look we need to put the head torches on the cave crackle a chi is a long underground river on the southern slopes of the white mountain it has a length of one point nine kilometres and is richly decorated with stalagmites and stalactites sadly we've grown to go in about 200 meters as it was Lillian season and the cave was flooded [Music] it's got to be a river yeah beside of them the window if you were kV in the old one where do you think excite you that noise that roar at the end if I had a big river carrying almond LT smell for melting for the white mountain down to the sea oh it's the sound of a like whooshing air as the system blur I think it was the water if exploring the two alternative modes of desiring a cappella from more less than Morris Park this is the longest what's a gentle way and this leads from there the wells at the bottom to Valley was three walls full of water well well well yeah so just about two weeks to join I think and then we'll head down near the alternative engine sure to put people [Music] [Music] today's walk takes us to Cormac oppas cave and small summit of aperture farmer was parked in Ioana stand we're doing a walk today today Cormac Optus K which is another case is yesterday we were on the water for a kolache today walking to crawl cut-offs and then if you have time we're going to walk down to a view point over the course of [Music] a gate they say is a maze of old house and also you can see the remains of old field systems and kerosene and all that ruins lots of ruins of villages long deserted and I read in a book that it said that in this area 70,000 people has a population of 70,000 in this area hundreds of years ago we've not been here for 20 years but things don't seem to have changed much and I think these spackling that live here today are still pretty much self-sustaining because they're still growing cereal crops in the fields which I suppose are for making local bread and we've got the olives and they've got huge be sets of beehives in the fields and they're all propped up on old tires it's a good way of recycling car tires honey production is prolific in the area with hundreds of beehives scattered over the hillsides cretins were some of the first beekeepers in Europe to keep these for honey making and so are renowned for their beekeeping skills and Cretan honey is amazingly delicious the honey is made from the nectar collected from flowering wild herbs such as time and pine trees growing on the hillsides in the sfakia region you can see a huge number of wooden beehives usually painted blue and positioned near trees not only did the trees provide shade and protection the wind but also the bees use that as landmarks to find their hive when they return from foraging at the summer heat increases and the plants lower in altitude stop flowering the beehives are transported to new locations higher in the mountains where the flowers are still in bloom and then they've also got the sheep and the goat so it looks to me that they're still living a sale what happen I'm not very good at languages we got to this point in the past where it Forks and one way it says this word and the other it says caves or going to the cave first but we know on the map that's a viewpoint called Papa Keppler so we've just worked out some of the Greek alphabet p a p a ke azores that must be an S a L a Kappa Kappa standing high log now just going round towards the cave a thing all overlooking the lightest acute Gorge so the widest cord you just belongings and the next Valley over the next Hill is a little careful on the end of it that's the SAP samaria gorge and the boat that can lodge trns is just left somalia having to track towards Lutra with a right ear after about an hour and you still have a low key and don't think it goes very far in the lovely spot those fantastic games are over the sea and quite high up disposed you must be 2,000 feet up do you think something like that so now the book is there seamlessly of his phone Shepard's bed because he's drinking smoke hanging up there and he cook his barbecue thing on the wall ready for cooking with your meat gonna stay here quite nice really I said cool sucked up the stealth camp at the water trough because it's brilliant to the bird life here birds coming in to drink constantly and we've seen some beautiful red colored crossbills or certainly I think the across builds on some sort of red finch and also on the rock over there first time ever we've seen blue rock thrush which were very pleased with as well [Music] heading back has taken the turning to the right but it takes you to pepper Kepler which hopefully will give us a good view of zaron a Kepler and also over the coast to the sea so hopefully uh pepper Kepler since we were last year in the year 2000 the locals have opened up a lot of the old paths and this one takes you to a point where and we're just looking over the melons if he's a harbor down there that's the bottom of the samaria gorge samaria gorge and you've also got the elijah's gorge down here so we're just at heading up now just see it's not far to the top of supper careful aware health reviews will be even better [Music] this is the summit of pepper capella and up their desire and a cappella we're hoping we're hoping to walk up along the bottom at least and maybe to the top tomorrow even possibly and behind here on the horizon that's Ginga lost the one was a little bit of snow on the top and below that is this tomaría or summary Accord today Caesars back on the track behind i honest to walk up sarah mature farmer leaving quite early in the morning because it's a fairly biffle it involves walking up that up to that car of that narrow valley and then that we are very very old Jeffers past so the how many hundred years old it is but it's beautiful old path we've been up there before when it's been all misty and so today we hopefully will have good views and then as you go around the corner underneath the summit mountain ridge underneath the cliff there the result apparently to the top we might be able to do deliciously cool shade made by these centuries old cypress trees that are growing up the bank behind each other on this just pure limestone screw you wonder how they find enough water trees grow up to an altitude of 1,650 meters in the white mountains cypress trees are some of the most strangely shaped trees you will ever see their shapes being partly due to their great age these are some of the oldest trees in Europe being well over a thousand years old their branches take centuries to grow in this dry and windswept landscape traditionally and over the centuries Shepherds have used timber for firewood some of the best Cretan cheese is reputed to come from the white mountains where sheep and goats graze on the scattered herbs and plants the wood was used for fires to heat cheap milk and goats milk in the cheese making process traditional cheese making still takes place in remote stone huts high in the white mountains well here we are after about an hour and 25 minutes on top of the first coal looking towards the summary a gorge [Music] which was Kutner well built up here and it's a bit of a zigzag and just slowly climbed up and then goes around the far end [Music] getting very exciting now we all pass along the cliff edge and it feels so special it feels magical just there are still spirits wandering about in the crannies and caves of this ancient pathway and also behind as you'll see these crystal [Music] I think and you go round here under this big box place and then on that far corner that's where we somewhere I think when are you going [Music] we've got to the spring which is shown on the map here so that's where we are now called veranda and we just gonna go to where the plat starts to descend towards Potter lofts we're hoping to take the path up to the summit looks like a very steep climb according to this map at this point there is a vital spring here to replenish water if you are heading up into the mountains for longer walls that the turnoff now is a bit cares behind us and the path descends now spotting off that way there's a cairn heiresses and Steve anyway water way up to that Ridge there and then the summits of cats are a catalyst to our right behind this this rock they climbed up a very steep and rocky slope and got on to being called the summit ridge and hope you will see on that side then a smaller cairn on the summit to the right so on list for the final few minutes to the top and then we could have something to eat [Music] well here we are on the summit of ceramic Kevlar that to 139 meters and that's about six thousand seven hundred fifty feet and the views are absolutely spectacular we're looking up to Patna is over there and the summit is to the left of that long which is snow to see some white on the top which probably is a pile of stone and then coming round and you down the coast towards Frank Costello and below here we've got where we're staying at Thermopylae and then coming right round you can see the entrance to our Edina Gorge where it goes into the sea well go to have a well-earned rest and I'm going to take my boots off and get my white beads out the half an hour to try and match them up tecna's about three and a half hours to get to the summit from the car and we've been taking it slowly because we've been doing lots of thoughts photographs and looking at things white mountains are a very unforgiving landscape and the jagged rocks can cut some routes to ribbons and distance is not measured in miles or kilometers between our [Music] today was visiting Franklin cash deals castle and you can go into if it costs two euros to go in and we're here in May would come only in the morning just if it was coming light you might have been able to see that you men which a suppose I can go switch right out of the sea in May or early June and these are the ghosts of soldiers that were killed in a battle between the Greeks and the Turks many centuries ago some people think it might be use to a meteorological phenomenon but it is said that in the war the German patrol group opened fire on these ghostly shadows thinking that they were real people the castle has a simple rectangular shape with a tower at each corner and the remains of the Venetian coat of arms above the main gate the castle was built by the Venetians in 1371 to 1374 as a garrison to impose order on the rebellious Spokeo region to coming after me [Music] and strawberry I Oh the way [Music] Seiler getting the ferry from our backyard to a Guillaume le I'll go walk along the beach to the Elijah's gorge and just a short walk up it for hours and then get the return boat back it was by five after about 20 minutes we soon approached the little port of loot row which is only accessible by boat or on foot there is a lot of fun to captivity when the boat comes in as this is how most of the supplies arrive people with wheelbarrows and people screwing on and off with suitcases but very soon Lutra returns to its calm collected self state here over 20 years ago in the 90s and it was much quieter than fewer hotels and fewer cafes but it's still pretty wish to go this is a photograph of loot row when the first stayed here in the early 1990s we were soon on our way speeding away from loot row heading towards a gear room Ellie [Music] [Music] it takes an hour an occasion to get through ugly room le and we just cut up now along the beach talking little gold coast for that arise Togepi [Music] not far off are we okay Burghardt right now people have like an area we started the droids now the Elijah's of Ellie gasps George and it's records of an hour's walk on the beach and we are getting the hot hottest island as soon as the token of today and they undergo [Music] and [Music] we just got to the top of the first Boulder ban and huge boulders like probably four four hundred feet by three feet high to 300 meters high Pratt and we've got to a shepherd's hook now as the cutting in the rock there as a fence the wall in a gateway and some buddies pals from old pottery on the gate Post and from here they makes you think how old is it who made this pottery and how long have people been living up this this gorge [Music] Oh quite have arrest here because the mosquitoes are absolutely terrible we've got of the voyage report for now and a quarter we've just passed the large side valleys which goes up towards Cormac up off cave and guess were about here where the number eleven is somewhere roughly about here I don't know if you know this but there's a new mosquito deterrent out have a look at this it works fantastically well [Music] certainly doctor now now because you know this path goes on and on and on into the mysterious part of the White Mountains he's wondering why the mountains on Crete were so high I've been building upon the geology of the island and it's also due the fact that the African tectonic plate is moving relentlessly towards the Eurasian tectonic change causing the land in between to squeeze ever upwards so here on Crete earthquakes on from nouns the mountains are still rising higher and when it rains the water cuts down through the limestone and makes these fantastic broader [Music] we're only back now and coming up the gorge in the past we want to explore now is goes with that you go in out it's on the right there's an old path that leads up to some high meadows and a ruined castle we might do that a couple of days time [Music] to tell you we're walking from irregular and we're doing a circular walk gone through levar Liana and dropping down into the gods there and then walking back up the gorge and hopefully past irregular to the furthest way out of the gorge and then we're going to walk back through a rather the back of the car - it's funny on over but we're heading down trees and beyond that we drop into the village in sierra gorge [Music] standing above it now the village of Benihana here just catching the church probably not going to go down to it now going to walk the other way towards a little church perched on the edge of the gorge and then by that path down well after spending three and a half hours under this lovely olive tree it's time to move on because from one bit of shade to the next there what happened down into the gorge now they look like it's being shaved in the gorge because it's in orbit it's probably four o'clock so carry on to the x3 there are around 100 gorges in Crete in the stockier region there is an extremely high concentration of gorges here 15 magnificent parallel gorges have formed and many of these can be seen from the ferry as it journeys between or asatyam and suya clearly down here on the bottom of the gorge floor and they walk upstream towards through the metal bridge of the span of the chasm however Lee [Music] [Music] it wasn't long before we reached a huge boulder choke that blocks the arid tuna gorge when we first climbed the gorge in the nineties there was only a fixed route to haul yourself up on and then several years later there was the luxury of a rope ladder [Music] you [Music] Oh that's because a this is a new alternative path phase climbing up the metal ladders which I think we was safe away doing particularly on the way down it's back to Auckland Lisa bridge now [Music] the bridge in front of us was built in the early nineteen eighties and before the bridge was built the only way across this gorge for the villages was to go up and down on the lovely old ancient exactcast that we're going to go upon in a minute so the villages to the west a legend and a Diaz I know honest it must have been a massive change in their lot for therefore then in their lifestyle in the village would have access easy access to the outside world [Music] [Music] regular back to the gorge on the old path towards a residence this is the old paths before the bridge so this is the main Thursday through to the villages [Music] the almost abandoned village of retina dates back to at least the 1500s historic documents describe a village called a dad in which was an important village which even made some coinage and after that has always been referred to as a place of brave men there are many tales of stuck Ian's putting up strong resistance to large numbers of invaders however in 1948 the village almost destroyed itself when it then debtor broke out between two families over a stolen gopal the vendetta resulted in many deaths but was probably resolved in the Cretan way either by members of the feuding families marrying each other or by the families exchanging valuable gifts such as goats sheep or textiles such as roomed carpets this afternoon we're doing a short walk from patio sionis to a viewpoint is a new walk and it's shown on the map runs due south of the village really there's a little area garden list of cultivated flats group housing cereal crops and these terraces when there was a very big population living on this data [Music] beekeeping is really important local industries just walking down here through the woods now just listen a book in the pine tree she was receiving on something in the tree just a buzzing of the bees is incredible [Music] the Elijah to Ellie gasps Gorge comes out and it's just the dark shade halfway along to tiny chasm really and it's the entrance to the weather Gorge this gorges into the sea and it's a real significant feature because that goes all the way up four miles right up to the top to top them off and the base where all the crocuses are and we were walking in it the other day and it's so steep like this nearly all the way because it has to climb about 5,000 feet doesn't it to kata Marx at least [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: ByGeorgeFilms

Views: 35,299

Keywords: White Mountains, Crete, Pachnes., Samaria Gorge, Hora Sfakion, Anopoli, Drakolaki, Agios Ioannis, Zaranokefala, Papakefala, Eligas Gorge, Loutro, Agia Roumeli, Chania, Frangokastello, Aradena Gorge, Aradena, Mediterranean

Id: 5DsrqFM45S4

Length: 40min 30sec (2430 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 02 2017