Day 3: The Dogs Were Angry That Day....

May 6, 2025: Early in the morning, a terrific thunderstorm rolled through the area. Rain poured from the heavens in buckets and thunder rattled the windows. None of that mattered to me since I was tucked safe and dry in a hostel, although it did disturb my sleep.

The thunderstorm eventually passed and I started preparing for the day's hike, said goodbye to Denim, and hit the trail at about 9:00am.  The trail went literally right past the front of the hostel so there was no effort to get back to the trail--I was already on it!

I put on my shoes at the hostel, preparing to start another day of hiking!

The route followed some roads out of town, but somewhere along the way I missed a turnoff and plowed onward in the wrong direction for maybe five or ten minutes. It wasn't really a big deal--but definitely an annoyance. I pulled up Google Maps to see how to get back to the proper trail and it appeared that there was a small path through some olive fields that would hook me back up with where I was supposed to be without having to backtrack quite so far, and I decided to go that route instead.

And it was a pleasant diversion. I followed a gravel road through the olive fields, away from the busy traffic on the street I had been following, and at times the gravel road became a narrow walking path. I passed one woman walking in the other direction along the way, but that was it and after five or ten minutes, rejoined the route where I was supposed to have ended up earlier.

I passed through these olive fields after missing a turn and trying to reconnect with the trail.

From here, the trail started climbing steeply and steadily into the mountains. First it followed a gravel road, winding its way up the hillside, but I had to slow down a bit when I reached a shepherd with his flock of sheep and goats that blocked the road. I continued following the road, but the shepherd took his flock cross country and I soon found myself behind him again.

This time, however, he tried to talk to me. He didn't speak English, but with a little hand-waving and pointing, I told him that we were heading to Pilur. He said something in Albanian that I couldn't understand, and I tried pulling out my phone to open Google Translate for him to talk into, but he waved that aside and pulled out his own phone and called someone. I could tell that it sounded like a young girl, and I assumed it was probably a daughter or something that spoke English and could translate for us.

They conversed for a couple of minutes then he handed the phone to me and my guess turned out to be correct--it was his daughter, and she spoke English. She explained that her dad wanted to warn us about "angry dogs" ahead, and that it wasn't really safe to continue onward. I actually could hear dogs barking not too far ahead, so I had little doubt that he was right.

"Umm... okay...." I said, wondering what I was expected to do now. I had actually passed a few "angry dogs" along the trek already, not including this shepherd who had a couple of dogs that did not seem pleased to see us when we first arrived (although now they were leaving us alone). My policy for dogs was to pick up rocks and, if they started to threaten me, throw rocks at them. The dogs back off quite quickly when you start throwing rocks at them. I had even learned while hiking the Jordan Trail several years ago that just picking up a rock can often be enough to get them to back off. They know what you're doing! So I'll sometimes just pretend to pick up a rock even if none are around (or even if I already have a rock in hand) as a warning. "Don't mess with us! We can pick up rocks!"

Anyhow, I said we would pick up some rocks and throw them at the angry dogs. It's not like I had a lot of alternatives. Even if I walked some other route, there would likely be other angry dogs! But I also asked what her dad advised.

She asked to be handed back to him, which I did, and they talked a bit more before he gave the phone back to me and she translated that her dad said to wait for a half hour and the dogs would be gone.

How could he possibly know that? I found this a little puzzling, but okay.

The flock of sheep (and some goats) that were blocking the trail.

 

I gave the phone back to the shepherd and sat down under the shade of a tree to wait for a bit. The shepherd also hung around, seemingly wanting to make sure I was okay. He talked on his phone with some other people in the meantime, then, after five or ten minutes, he waved to me and seemed to indicate that it was safe to continue onward. It hadn't been a half hour yet--not even close to it.

The only thing I can figure is that he knew the people who owned the dogs up ahead and he had called them to let them know we were walking by and that gave them enough time to put the dogs on leashes because when we passed by the structure, we did see several dogs, but they were all leashed up and of no threat. Still, I carried rocks as I walked by. Better safe than sorry! But I didn't have to threaten any of the dogs with them.

Safely past this obstacle, I powered onward up the mountain, which soon reconnected with the main route again. (Lest you've forgotten, I had decided to take an alternate route through Himarë late yesterday, and had not yet reconnected with the main route until now.) 

At this sign, I officially was back on the main trail rather than the alternative I had been following since yesterday.

 

At this point, I left the gravel road and followed an actual trail ever higher into the mountains. The air was getting thin up here! I huffed and puffed and beads of sweat dropped from my brow. It was hot. Perhaps not so much in temperature, but combined with the humidity, it was taking a toll. The trail started weaving among pine trees that became an absolute forest in places and the shade was welcome, but it didn't help with the humidity or the stagnant air.

After at least another hour of hiking, I reached the town of Pilur and followed roads the rest of the way into the town center. Pilur is a small town with probably no more than a hundred or two inhabitants, but it was situated on the top of a hill, had wonderful views looking all the way out to the Mediterranean, and provided a nice fountain to fill up with water and a shady place for a break.

What it did not provide, however, were any open restaurants. I was hoping to buy a cold drink or something in town, but the couple of restaurants in the town center appeared to be closed for the season. The only liquid refreshment available was the water from a fountain that people constantly drove up to to fill up empty jugs that they loaded into their vehicles to take home. I was prepared for this eventuality, however, knowing that these smaller towns likely had no public services available. That was the main reason I veered into Himarë, after all--to fill up with groceries for the trail for the next couple of days.

I sat down at a table and wrote in my journal, read my Kindle, played with my Rubik's Cube, and ate some snacks out of my pack.

I stopped for a break here in Pilur's town center. It was a lovely place for a break with views to the Mediterranean, shade, and a nice breeze.

 

I spent over an hour there, and it was a pleasant stop. One local guy walked up to me and started trying to speak to me, but he didn't know any English and apparently didn't have a daughter he could call to act as a translator, but I was 't entirely sure he actually had anything important to tell me either. He just seemed like a lonely old guy that wanted to talk with some people, and I was a huge disappointment for him.

Shortly before I planned to keep going, a German couple biked up from the opposite direction and asked if any restaurants were open. "Not that I could find," I told them, and they seemed immensely disappointed about that. Unlike me, they had counted on restaurants being open.

I said that I had some food I could share if they were hungry, but they waved it off and said that they'd be fine--although they would have to fill up with water from the fountain. (As I did.)

I packed up and said goodbye to the Germans on my way out of town. For the rest of the day, the trail led mostly downhill, and my progress went a lot faster. Plus, I sweat a lot less going downhill than uphill. 

The restaurants in town, however, were closed up tight. =( 
At least I could use the tables and chairs outside, though!

 

My guidebook warned me about "angry dogs" along a certain section of trail and to be wary of them--the first time my guide mentioned a specific location along the trail with angry dogs so it was a warning I definitely heeded. I filled my pockets with several rocks and kept a couple of them in hand figuring better safe than sorry.

And the guidebook was not wrong. Near that area, a few dogs that had been running loose came running at me like I was prey to be taken down and eaten. I shouted at them and waved my trekking pole around, and I immediately used one of my rocks and threw it as hard as I could at one of the dogs and they immediately paused their attack.

I pulled another rock out of my pocket and I kept yelling at the dogs to "back off" and swinging my trekking poles at them, all the while continuing down the trail and trying to put as much distance between me and the dogs. After a few minutes, the dogs left me alone, apparently no longer in their territory.

The trail passed by a small man-made reservoir, a stagnant pool of water used by livestock that I was happy to pass by since I had filled up with water in Himarë.

The small reservoir that I passed along the trail.

The trail hopped over a small ridge, perhaps 30 feet high, before plunging down a steep hillside where it flattened out in a small area near a valley bottom. It was only a little after 3:00 in the afternoon, quite early to stop for the day, but the weather forecast called for rain to start sometime between 4:00 and 5:00 and looking ahead on the map, I wasn't sure that I would find a better place to camp for the rest of the stage.

So I suggested to Karolina that we stop to camp for the night right then and there, and seeing the wisdom of my suggestion, agreed to it.

This gave us hours to kill before sunset, and I used the time to read the latest Reacher adventure on my Kindle. 

By 5:00, the rain still hadn't started, and I had begun to regret stopping so early in the afternoon. The whole point of stopping was to set up camp before any rain began, but if there was no rain, then there had been no reason to stop so early! 

The hours marched onward, and still the rain held off. Some ugly clouds did roll in, but no rain came from them.

However, a little after sunset, I saw a flash. Then another one. The fireflies were coming out!

And as darkness descended, the fireflies came out with a vengeance!  Hundreds and hundreds of them, all around the campsite, as far as the eye could see! It was positively magical! It reminded me of one of the best firefly displays I had ever seen while thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail. Wow, wow, wow!

I must have watched them for over an hour, mesmerized by the flashing lights before turning into bed and going to sleep. Maybe stopping so early for this campsite wasn't such a bad idea after all... =D

 

I tried to take photos and videos of the fireflies, but alas, they really didn't turn out. As amazing as it was to see in real life, they were much too dim for my cameras to catch. So instead, I'll show you what I ate for lunch: tortillas filled with salami and cheese. =)

 

A post about Albania would not be complete without a photo of more bunkers. =)

 

The trail today went quite high into the mountains and was even filled with a proper forest!

 

Road into Pilur

 

Water fountain in Pilur

 

Monument in Pilur

 

Day 2: Ghost Towns

May 5, 2025: I woke up to... rain. The weather forecasts were accurate. However, the good news was that it stopped early in the morning long before I had to start hiking!

I learned that there was a short, half-hour (one-way) trail up Gjipe Canyon. I had camped at the end of the canyon and it looked gorgeous, so I decided to enjoy the hike through it. It was popular with climbers. I had no plans of climbing, though, just sightseeing. Since it was an out-and-back trail, however, I decided to slackpack and left most of my gear in camp.

Gjipe Canyon was quite scenic!

 

At times, there wasn't even much of a trail, where I just followed a dry streambed upstream. At times, it required a bit of scrambling over the large boulders piled into it, but nothing that was particularly problematic. It was a nice little detour, and after a half hour or so, I turned back and returned to camp to pick up all my possessions and continue the real hike.

From Gjipe Canyon, the trail climbed up onto a badly overgrown trail overlooking the sea. The overgrown trail was a nuisance, however, Inever lost the trail like I did yesterday. =)

Very scenic (albeit overgrown) trail overlooking the Mediterranean.

 

The trail then led down to Jale Beach, a small resort town on the coast. Even from a distance, the town looked surprisingly empty of people, but I didn't think much of it until I reached a large hand-painted sign just before a staircase into town that said not to enter and that it was private property ahead.

Looking at my maps, this was a problem. The only alternative around the closure was a long road walk that would bypass the town entirely then require a bit of backtracking if I actually wanted to go into town. It seemed like a needlessly stupid detour. Even more annoying, there was also signage pointing to businesses, beaches, and other facilities down that same staircase. Make up your minds! Was it really private property, or a public walkway?

Taking a closer look at the town, however, I realized that it seemed like the entire town was under construction. Every building I could see appeared to be uninhabited except for construction workers making a lot of noise. Some buildings looked essentially finished, gleaming and shiny with newness, while others were mere skeletons and shells of structures that had months of work left to go, but pretty much every single structure I could see appeared to be under construction. I suspected the closure was due to this construction.

The whole town around Jale Beach appeared to be under construction!

 

Not wanting to take such an enormous detour, however, I decided to charge through anyhow and ignore the hand-painted signs for the more official-looking directional signage that pointed me there. And... walk through the construction area as quickly as possible before anyone started yelling at me. =)

I surveyed the scene for several minutes, trying to get a sense of where the workers were actually working and the best path through that might avoid them then descended the stairs and pushed my way through.

I passed a few workers along the route, but they did nothing more than wave or say hi before continuing with their work and didn't seem at all bothered about me walking through.

I breathed a sigh of relief upon reaching a road closure--it was closed to traffic coming from the other direction--so I figured that meant I was once again in an area that was "open to the public." Safe!

I had already walked through most of the town, but there was still a bit of beach and a few businesses open along it. In fact, I only counted two small restaurants and a small market/convenience store that were open. Everything else, as far as I could tell, was still closed. One of the restaurants had no people at all in it while the second one had a table filled with what appeared to be construction workers on a break and another table that I would later find out were the owners of the establishment. 

I took a table at one of the restaurants, ready for lunch, and asked for a menu--but they had none. "We have pasta," the waitress told me  

"Pasta? Just pasta?" I asked.

Well, there were different flavors of pasta. There was seafood pasta, for instance. Not being keen on seafood myself, I asked if there was an option without seafood, and the waitress said they could make a vegetarian pasta. "Great, I'll have that," I told her.

Karolina's "seafood pasta" (i.e. shrimp pasta)

While lunch was being prepared, I tried to figure out where we might stay for the night and catch-up writing in my journal. 

The food was eventually served. We paid the bill--and for a full lunch for two, the prices were quite reasonable by my standards. I suspected it was considered ridiculously expensive by Albanian standards, but you could get a very large, filling plate at a beachside restaurant for about $10. With these kind of prices, I wanted to eat out every day!

But anyhow, it was time to continue onward. The trail followed a gravel road out of town which made the walking comparatively easy. It followed near the coast (albeit not on the coast) and often provided wonderful birds-eye views from high points.

The trail next reach Livadi Beach, another town that appeared devoid of tourists. To be fair, this town actually had several restaurants and hotels that were open (but mostly empty) and definitely a few tourists, but it again felt strangely empty as if the town had been evacuated due to an impending tsunami.I had heard that many businesses along this coastline were closed during the off-season. May is more of a shoulder-season, though, with peak season not really ramping up until June. But it was positively eerie how empty these towns felt. Nothing like Dhërmi Beach from yesterday that seemed bursting at the seams with activity!

While a lot of construction was going on in this town, at least this town didn't seem like the whole town was being built. It just seemed like most places were still closed and not yet opened for the busy tourist season. 

The main beachside street along Livadi Beach seemed strangely empty of people.

 

I was still full from lunch on Jale Beach, though, and had no reason to stop here and just pushed through town.

The main trail led away from the coast and into the mountain, but there was an alternative route that followed near the coast into the town of Himarë and I decided to take the alternative. I had a couple of reasons for doing so. 

First, I knew about a hostel where we could stay for about $10 per person per night. That's where Denim was staying, so I already had a firsthand account that it was a great place to stay and relatively cheap. If I stayed on the main route, I would have to wild camp and I couldn't be sure how easy or nice that would be. There were no official campgrounds or other lodging options in the area.

But the second and more important reason for going into Himarë was that I needed food. Technically, the trail would go through a couple of towns along the way, but they looked very small and given the lack of services in the last two towns today, I had low expectations that anything would really be available. The next reliable place where I could find restaurants and markets would take two to three days to reach, so I needed to buy food. And Jali Beach and Livadi Beach were not great options. Himarë would have a real market where I could buy a couple of days of food, however.

So, I decided on the detour into Himarë. I missed a turn along the way, but it turned out to be a little importance. It made the walk a bit longer, but it also avoided a steep, overgrown section so that was fine.

When I arrived at Himarë, it was still fairly early in the afternoon. Himarë, I'm happy to report, was a bustling town with lots of activity and every business actually seemed to be open, so I stopped at an ice cream shop where I got ice cream. Afterwards, I caught up with emails and other messages on my phone.

I walked to the Oasis Hostel and checked in, catching up with Denim for a bit and getting more details about the angry taxi driver yelling at him when dropping him off. Was that just yesterday? It seemed like a lot more time had passed!

Checking in at the Oasis Hostel

 

I still needed to buy food for the next couple of days and get something for dinner, though, so I headed back out again and did some shopping at a grocery store--a real grocery store! It was a small one, but definitely bigger than a convenience store which is the largest option I had seen so far on the trail. Then stopped at a pizzeria for dinner before returning to the hostel again for the night.

Day two was official done! 

Looking down on Gjipe Beach as we were leaving.

 

Crossing a rocky scree field!

 

So many tables and chairs and other debris piled up outside on Livadi Beach.

 

Of course, we passed more of those infamous Albanian bunkers....

 

We found this frog in a pool of water in Gjipe Canyon.

 

 

Livadi Beach

 

Dinner at a pizzeria!

Guests hanging out in the hostel's kitchen area.

Day 1: I went to Albania?!

May 4, 2025: I was never supposed to walk today, but yet I found myself in a taxi, careening around sharp turns in the road on my way to Dhërmi and mentally preparing to start hiking as soon as I got out.

But before I get to that, let me catch you up on what happened. My friend, Karolina had been invited to a wedding in Albania by a friend of hers, and she very much wanted to go. But not content to fly across Europe just to attend a wedding and fly back, she searched around for trails that she might be able to hike while she was in the area and found one called the Southern Coastal Trail that ran, not surprisingly, along the southern coast of Albania through an area known as the Albanian Riviera. Then she asked if I would be interested in joining for the hike.

The Southern Coastal Trail in Albania was marked with these white-red-white markers. At least some of the time. Other times, it wasn't marked at all!

 

That sounded like an intriguing idea for me. Albania! I never really even had that country on my radar before, but sure, why not? It might be interesting!

Somehow, I ended up attrnding the wedding as well. Originally, the plan was that I would just "hang around" and do my own thing sightseeing or whatever, but Karolina got me an official invitation so hey, dinner!

It's a little odd when you have to pack a bag to handle both a wedding and a backpacking trip at the same time. My hiking clothes did not seem particularly suitable for a wedding, and wedding clothes didn't seem particular suitable for hiking, and hiking with wedding clothes in one's backpack is just crazy--even if I do know of one person who actually hiked in an actual wedding dress. I would not be wearing any wedding dresses, just to be clear, but looking through my clothes, I didn't really have anything that I thought would be suitable for both hiking and a wedding. What to do, what to do?

I wound up bringing a tie. That's an easy, lightweight way to look a little classier. =) 

And then, instead of wearing my own hiking shirt to the wedding, I would up wearing Karolina's. She had bought a new shirt to hike in so it was fresh, clean and spotless--for now and with a tie, it seemed like something that I could get away with wearing to a wedding.

Crashing a wedding with a Wallace and Gromit tie and Karolina's purple hiking shirt. =)

We spent the night in Golem, on the coast of Albania, and woke up the next morning to go to Dhërmi and the start of the Southern Coastal Trail. I expected it to be an all-day thing. In fact, checking buses, I wasn't even sure if we could make it to the trailhead today. The fastest route on public transit according to Google wouldn't get us to the trailhead until about 8:00am the next morning!

But during breakfast, while chatting with one of the other wedding guests (Denim, who comes from South Africa),I learned that he was heading to Himara, the town right next to Dhërmi, and I decided to pool our money into paying for a taxi, which would get us to the trailhead in just a few hours.

I was thrilled about this. Turning a 24-hour trip on public transit into a three-hour taxi ride seemed like a good trade, and split with Denim, it was expected to cost only about 50 euros.

The ride went well. I fell asleep in the back seat for a little bit, but when I woke up, the views around Vlorë were amazing! Giant, towering, snow-covered mountains inland! Beautiful Mediterranean Sea to the coast! This was looking like a great idea!

We arrived at a sharp turn in the road that marked the official start of the Southern Coastal Trail. The taxi pulled over to let us out, and I gave Denim about 70,000 lek (about 70 euros) to cover half of the cost of the taxi plus a tip and "just in case" the driver demanded more than expected. For 70 euros, it still seemed pretty cheap for a three-hour taxi ride.

The cars were being rinsed with water from a creek running down this canyon.

 

Denim continued onward and we rearranged a few items in our packs and prepared to start hiking. At the trailhead, several cars stopped and sprayed their vehicles with water from a hose that pulled water out from a nearby creek. The free, local car wash, I guess?

The trailhead started at the edge of town, a few hundred feet above sea level, and immediately plunged down a steep canyon toward the Mediterranean Sea. There was no grand monument to mark the location, but rather just a simple sign pointing the direction with destinations and estimated travel times.

After adjusting all of my gear and putting on my hiking shoes, I started down the trail. This section of trail from the trailhead down to Dhërmi Beach was also known as the Mills Trail according to a sign, and had been used for hundreds of years by the locals and would pass by some old mills, a couple of historic churches and even an old, abandoned hydroelectric plant.

Along the way, I passed a herd of sheep and goats being directed by a shepherd. I also lost the trail on one occasion, following a prominent trail to the right over a large, red bridge that crossed over a small creek. It wasn't until I hit a dead end a few minutes later and I checked my GPS that I realized that the bridge lured me into the wrong direction. The trail never crossed the bridge, but rather continued straight on a smaller, slightly overgrown path.

Fortunately, it didn't take me more than a few minutes in the wrong direction and I quickly corrected.

A herd of sheep and goats blocked the path for a minute or so.

After about a half hour or so, I hit a paved road and followed it the rest of the way down to Dhërmi Beach and the Mediterranean Sea.

I stopped at the first restaurant I csne across. Or maybe it was the second restaurant, but basically I hadn't had lunch and I was hungry so I stopped for food more-or-less immediately as a late lunch and/or early dinner. They served Italian food. I guess the fact that Italian food was common was no surprise--Italy was just 50-or-so miles away across the Adriatic Sea--and I didn't realize it at the time, but it often turned out that Italian food outnumbered all the other types of restaurants combined! Good thing I like Italian, but where was all the Albanian food?!

Anyhow, I took a seat at the open-air restaurant and I tried to order the ravioli, but they told me that they were out of ravioli and it was no longer an option. *sigh* So after getting my hopes up, I settled on the risotto instead.

I spent time on my phone trying to figure out where we might be able to spend the night and found a campground a few miles ahead at Gjipe Canyon that seemed to be available and decided to shoot for that.

I ate lunch/dinner at this restaurant on the beach.

 

Afterwards, we stopped at a nearby market to pick up a few snacks for the trail. To call it a market is a bit of an exaggeration--it was more like a convenience store and a terrible place for hikers to resupply, but it was the best option we had at the time.

I followed Dhërmi Beach to its end, at which point I had to start scrambling over some large boulders where the cliffs plunged into the sea, and it started to become somewhat sketchy. I obviously wasn't the first person to travel this way, but it was clearly not a well-traveled path. I remember reading a description of the trail saying that areas were often overgrown and difficult, but this particular section seemed positively miserable and Karolina demanded that we turn back, convinced it had to be the wrong direction and this direction was too dangerous. I was optimistic the difficult section would soon end just as soon as we got around the headland, but I eventually relented and we eventually turned back to the beach.

We wandered up and down at the end of the beach looking for a trail or junction that we might have missed and, finding nothing, we asked one of the locals for directions. He was uncertain if there was actually any trail at all but suggested looking somewhere near some bunkers at the end of the beach.

The bunkers... indeed! Albania is somewhat famous (or infamous) for their ubiquitous bunkers.  Hundreds of thousands of them had been built when the Hoxhaist government ruled from the 1960s to the 1980s--a colossal waste of money and resources. Plus the bunkers were never even used for their intended purposes. On average, the country had about 15 bunkers for every square kilometer in the country, and they would be a daily sight along the trail.

One of the infamous bunkers of Albania.

 

Anyhow, I found a bunker without any trouble, and found a small trail that led up to the bunker along the steep hillside. I followed it to the bunker where the overgrown trail continued onward and onward. Ah ha! I was on the right track again!

The trail climbed steadily and steeply, eventually reaching a high viewpoint near an old monastery before dropping back down on a gravel road to Gjipe Canyon. By the time I arrived, it was near sunset--quite a bit later than I had expected to stop for the day. I quickly checked in and set up camp for 500 lek each. Albanian lek was the local currency, which converted into about 5 euros (or about $5.50). Practically a bargain for a beach-side resort! ;o)

I walked out to the beach and made myself comfortable on a lounge chair where I watched the sky darken, the stars come out and caught up with email on my phone. 

Karolina, I guess, decided to stay in camp and sleep early. I also had plugged in my other devices to charge--the campground was hooked up to solar power panels so we were able to charge devices with a provided outlet.

The solar panels that seem to run the beachside campground, and Gjipe Canyon looming inland.

Back on my phone, I got a message from Denim that the taxi driver shouted at him and tried to rip him off after he got dropped off in Himara. We expected the taxi to cost about 10,000 lek (about 100 euros), but because a tunnel was closed the taxi had to drive around it, it was now 13,000 lek (about 130 euros). Anyhow, it sounded like a lot of drama and while I felt sympathy for Denim, I was kind of glad I had missed the spectacle. =)

Interestingly, when I connected online, my phone gave me a "welcome to Greece!" message. It likes to welcome me whenever I enter a new country, but I had to admit being a little shocked to discover that I had somehow wandered into Greece. Clearly, I was not actually in Greece and had not been in Greece at any point, but I was close enough to Greece that my phone had connected to their network! There were several islands offshore that were visible that, according to Google Maps, actually belonged to Greece and I figured it might be connecting to one of them. I was actually a little surprised that I got any service at all in Gjipe Canyon since it was fairly primitive there (running on solar power and all), but I guess the cell phone signal must have been coming from those islands.

As darkness descended, I was surprised when I saw a few flashes of light nearby. Fireflies! I had no idea that there were fireflies in Albania! They weren't particularly thick or anything, just a few of them flitting around, but I so rarely get to see them, it's always a treat when I do. =)

When I eventually returned to the campsite, I had left the rainfly off my tent thinking it would be nice, but a forecast of rain definitely changed the calculations and I found myself putting the rainfly on at nearly 11:00 at night.

I took this photo of the moon while hanging out on the beach that evening.

And thus ended my first day on the trail..... In all, I completed about 7.6 kilometers (4.7 miles). Pretty good for a day in which I had not expected to do any hiking at all!

 

 

So many hoses pulling water from the creek!

Dhërmi Beach

 

Dhërmi Beach

Gjipe Beach ahead! And I would camp in those trees, a little left of the beach (but not visible in this photo).

 

Day 16: The Extra Credit Assignment

September 9, 2024: I found myself with a whole day to do anything I wanted. I had finished the Coast to Coast route yesterday, but my transportation out of the country wasn't until late tomorrow. So.... what to do, what to do....?

I decided on doing an "extra credit" assignment and keep hiking. The Cleveland Way followed along the North Sea coast southward. I didn't actually know how far it went, but that didn't matter to me. The salient fact was that it appeared to be quite scenic since it followed the coast, a fact buttressed by the other fact that the trail was even a designated national trail of the UK. Plus, the cherry on top--the weather was expected to be fairy decent--but admittedly, I had less faith in weather predictions than when I first started hiking these trails. To be fair, the forecast did have a slight chance of rain later in the afternoon, but for the time being, the weather was looking great!

Onward to Scarborough!

The trail led south to the town of Scarborough, which was a town I needed to go to anyhow to catch the train. I could have taken the bus there, but since I had the time and the walk appeared to be quite pleasant, I figured it would be more fun just to walk there.

I did some Internet sleuthing the night before to learn more about the route--or rather, the section of the route between Robin Hood's Bay and Scarborough since that's the only section I intended to hike, but it was difficult for me to find solid information about it. The various sources I checked said that the distance was anywhere from 12 to 16 miles--which is actually quite a wide level of uncertainty. If I hiked at two miles per hour including breaks, that would be a 6 to 8 hour hike.

So I woke up and packed up, wanting to hit the trail as early as possible. If it did rain in the afternoon, I wanted to get as many of those miles in beforehand as I could. Thus, I was on the trail and hiking by 7:30am.

The tide was very high when I started, marking quite the contrast from what it looked like the day before.

The tide was quite high when I started in the morning. Not to worry, the trail doesn't go into the water here. It'll veer up to the top of that cliff on the right on a trail that's not in the photo!

 

The trail wasn't particularly hard, but there were a few ups and downs and the trail followed the top of the cliffs of varying heights along the coast, then descending into creek valleys before rising up again. So I wouldn't call the trail flat, although in many places it was.

For several miles, I could look back and see Robin Hood's Bay. Without the thick fog, the area really was quite scenic!

Eventually the route passed the ruins of an old alum plant. I wasn't really sure what alum was and looked it up online later which described the substance as: "a colorless astringent compound that is a hydrated double sulfate of aluminum and potassium, used in solution medicinally and in dyeing and tanning."

So there you go. The former site of where alum was manufactured hundreds of years ago.

Some of the ruins from an old alum factory.

The route also passed an old radar station that was used during WW2. Some signs were erected nearby to tell the story of the British defending against the German bombers during the war.

The trail was surprisingly empty. After the relatively crowded section of trail coming into Robin Hood's Bay, I expected an equal number of day hikers along this scenic stretch of trail. But no, I could count on one hand the number of people I passed along the way. That wasn't a bad thing, just a surprise.

Later in the day, the sun even came out for a bit. Although there hadn't been fog today, there were still plenty of clouds overhead to block the sun most of the time, but for the first time in days, I actually got short peeks of that giant ball of hydrogen in the sky.

And finally, I arrived in Scarborough. By the time I arrived at 3:00pm, the tide was notably lower than when I started in the morning 7.5 hours earlier. Seeing as tides typically go up and down in 6 hour intervals from their extremes, it seemed that I largely started near a high tide and finished near a low tide. Mostly, I liked that because I enjoy seeing visible changes in the tide. It's a really interesting phenomena, don't you think?

The tide was noticeably lower as I neared Scarborough!

In Scarborough, I detoured off the Cleveland Way to check into the Delmont Hotel which I had booked the previous night. Room 313 if you want to follow in my footsteps. I took the stairs up, though, not the elevator (or lift, as the locals would say), which seemed to confuse the clerk manning the front desk.

I emptied my pack, taking just some snacks, a water bottle and my fancy camera with the zoom lens before heading out the door again. Although I had arrived in town and checked into the hotel, that was not the most scenic of places to end the trail for Walking 4 Fun. Nope, I had a better idea. I was going to hike out to Scarborough Castle and finish the walking route there.

I first spotted Scarborough Castle on the horizon about halfway through the day's hike. It was just a faint bump on the horizon that became larger and larger and clearer and clearer as the hours passed and I approached closer and closer. Now, it was practically just around the corner! I could even see it from the window of my hotel room!

On my phone, I looked at the map between the hotel and the castle to get a sense of how best to get there and noticed a marker for Anne Brontë's grave. Really? She was buried here?! Of course, she was the least famous of the Brontë sisters, but hey, another landmark I could take a photo of it on the way to the castle. It was literally in a church graveyard that was precisely on my route!

So I headed out of the hotel, and found the church. A sign pointed the way to her grave. She had two headstones now. The original was badly deteriorated and basically impossible to read and therefore a new one had been installed. I took some photos, then continued around the bend in the road to Scarborough Castle.

The two headstones of Anne Brontë. The older one is basically illegible because it's degraded so much, but the new one is laying on the ground in front of it with the original words of the old headstone. (Except it also says that she died when she was 29, not 28 like the original headstone read.)

 

The castle was full of history and stories. Much of the castle is ruins, but they are genuinely impressive ruins! The main keep towered high in the sky--or at least half if it did since the other half collapsed during a siege centuries earlier. Definitely a beautiful and interesting place to end this route!

I still had 60 pounds in cash on me--many of the smaller businesses along the trail only accepted cash so I always made sure to carry some, but I didn't really want to leave the country with that much in cash so I paid the entrance fee in cash. I needed to start using it up! I was scheduled to leave the Land of Pounds tomorrow and who knows when I would be back again?

When I first entered the castle, I was offered an audio tour of the grounds which was included with the ticket price, but I passed on it preferring just to read whatever signage was around explaining the sites. I walked into the castle grounds and almost immediately saw signs that simply said, "To learn more about what happened here, press 1 on your audio tour" type of thing. There was absolutely nothing to describe what I was looking at that could be read. So I turned around back to the entrance and asked for the audio tour after all. I wasn't going to learn anything about the history of this place without it!

Scarborough Castle was magnificent!

 

The castle was built at the top of a hill on a headland with commanding views in all directions, but the history of the site dates back far longer than I imagined. They've found evidence that the Vikings had used the location by around 800 BC. The Roman, of course, built a signal station on the hill. That, somehow, didn't surprise me. By this point I had learned that the Romans had thoroughly explored and controlled this area between (roughly) 100 and 400 AD, and of course they'd have a signal station on such a prominent point.

Over the last few thousand years, however, much of the shoreline has eroded away and it's believed that much of the archeological evidence from the Viking and Roman times eroded away with it. Oh, well....

The structures still standing today were originally built in the 1100s by Henry II. It was expanded and improved over the years, and being a royal residence, was quite luxurious in its day. 

Severe fighting occurred during the English Civil War which damaged many of the buildings and led to the partial collapse of the keep. But... the castle continued to function as a military post for centuries, with a military garrison stationed there until the mid 19th century. After that it continued to be used as a prison. One notable prisoner that some of you might have heard of is George Fox, founder of the Quakers, who had been imprisoned there in the 17th century.

 

The history of the castle kept going. During the early days of WWI, the Germans bombarded the town with a couple of warships, an event that killed 19 citizens and damaged the castle's keep, barracks and curtain walls. The barracks were later demolished due to the extensive damage, and the event became something of a rallying cry for the British. In my American head, I likened it to the "Remember the Alamo!" Except for them, of course, it would have been "Remember Scarborough!" And that was, in fact, the actual rallying cry. (You can read more about it at The Shelling of Scarborough.)

But even after that event, the location was used as a secret listening post during WWII.

There was nothing to suggest that it is still being used for any military purposes now, but it kind of makes you wonder, eh? =)

Anyhow, I found all this extremely fascinating and spent a couple of hours exploring the grounds. Eventually, the castle was scheduled to close soon, so I finally returned the audio tour and left the castle.

Now, it was time for dinner! Scrolling around Google Maps, I found a place called Cowshed Burgers that looked interesting, so I walked down to there where I ordered a BBQ burger and a Coke. Paid for in cash, of course, since I was still trying to use those pounds up.

Dinner at Cowshed Burgers

And finally, after that, I headed back to the hotel. The day was done! The hiking was done! And the adventure--after 47 days--was finally done. 

And thus ends this blog. At least until the Next Big Hike. If you're interested in virtually hiking the Coast to Coast Walk--including the "extra credit assignment" along the Cleveland Way to Scarborough--you'll find that available for premium members on Walking 4 Fun. So yes, you too can hike the Coast to Coast Walk! 

Looking back toward Robin Hood's Bay--the water level was much higher than when I arrived yesterday afternoon. It comes all the way up to the town's walls now!

The trail followed along the cliffs above the shoreline, but there were many places with giant cracks in the trail where the ledge was starting to erode away. It was such a big problem, they even posted a sign warning of the hazard and to stay away from those areas.

Look at that! Some blue sky and there's even sunlight in the distance!

An old radar station used to defend against Nazi attacks during WWII.

That bump on the hill in the distance is Scarborough Castle.

The castle kept getting closer and closer as the hours marched on!

This bird of prey seemed to be in hunting mode!

Scarborough! I see some of the civilization in Scarborough!