What goes up must come down .... somehow

Boy we have had a busy week. After leaving the wonderful Siracusa we stayed
a single night wild camping at the small fishing village of Brucoli on the
southern edge of the Golfo di Catania. We eventually found a nice spot to
park on the beach just outside the village after quite a while driving
around looking for something suitable. It was nice and quiet and the village
sleepy, and in the morning we had a great surprise of being able to gaze
across the bay towards Catania and the snow capped bulk of Etna! What an
amazing sight, even despite the haziness. Although the weather was not
great, sunny with clouds looming we upped sticks, and made our way around
the bay, decided to give Etna a go, and made for the southern approach.
You will never guess who we passed on the road, coming down whilst we were
going up. Yep, Kevin and Libby! We knew from a SMS that they may be around
there somewhere but it was quite funny to suddenly pass them on the road. As
you can probably guess, we both turned around and then proceeded to pass
each other going the other way! We told them to stop just up the road and
after we had turned again and headed back we finally both managed to come to
a halt in the same place. The poor things had just come down from the car
park at the top off the road and were frozen, especially as the heater in
the cab was not working too well. They said it was cloudy up there and very
windy with quite a wind chill. We sat and chatted for a while with our
heater on full blast to warm them up. We parted and ploughed on up the road
in Noddy aiming to get to the car park our selves. Sadly we did not make it
all the way as the clouds engulfed us and it started to hail. We chose to
leave it for the day and go and find a site for the night instead, ending up
at Giardini Naxos just south of Taormina, and parked next to K&L.
We have been here for almost a week now. The weather at the weekend was
great, hot and sunny, and perhaps we should have tried another assault on
Etna. Instead we relaxed, wandered around the town, had a very nice weekend,
and decided to return to Etna in the next window of opportunity. Typically,
the weather changed and Etna was invisible underneath thick cloud for 2
days!
Eventually today the sky was blue and after some discussion we chose to
return to Etna on the Tourist Bus, i.e. with K&L in their van. It all
started very well, leaving at 08h00 and aiming to get to the car park on the
southern side for breakfast and then take the Gondola up and spend the day
walking in the snow. Things can go very wrong very quickly in a mountainous
environment, and they did! Icy patches started to appear on the road, but
they just looked like old snow that had been blown onto the road and crushed
by traffic. Then progressively it got worse and before we knew it the road
became impassable for us just after negotiating a hairpin bend with no
traction for the front wheels! Shit! I climbed out and examined our
precarious situation and we eventually decided our only choice was to roll
back down the 600m or so of icy road, including 2 hairpin bends, to clearer
tarmac and somewhere to turn around. It was touch and go for a while with
some scary slides but thanks to Kevin's prowess behind the wheel, me finding
the best parts of the road to use, and the girls on traffic duty we
eventually made it to a 'safer' place to try and execute a scary 32 point
turn! It very nearly went pear shaped during the turn with the van
lengthways across the road and spinning wheels, but after some good clutch
control and me with one hand on the bonnet and the other on the crash
barrier assisting the van backwards we made it. Phew, bloody relief, and a
lucky escape. We drove slowly back to a pull off and had breakfast and
contemplated our 'experience'. Plenty of coaches and cars seemed to pass
with apparent success, but motorhomes with front wheel drive and no studs or
chains don't do icy roads, not now, not ever. We did have a great day out in
the end after visiting Zafferana Etnea and the amazing lava flow from 1992
that stopped just short of the town.
I think Etna will have to wait for another trip sometime. Shame, but that is
the way it goes sometime. All the rain over the last couple of days
obviously fell as snow, melted, and then froze up on the mountain road. You
never know, we might get up there this trip, but at the moment even if you
get to the Gondola and get up the mountain it would be very, very, very cold
in the wind up there.
We will probably stay here until sometime next week after Easter as
everywhere will get very busy for the festival period. There is Taormina to
visit and Castelmola perched on the hill above it, and hopefully plenty more
hot sunny days to laze in.
Ciao
M&S