Here are two more walking stories.

Ru

Walking Adventures

When I go walking with Sharman, I never know where we’ll go. I just follow along and trust she knows where we’re going. Sharman has studied the area on Google Earth and pays attention when we walk. Before I stopped being too lazy to walk at 8 am (that’s when Sharman would walk) I went by myself but I didn’t explore so far. I knew I couldn’t get lost if I just headed for the sea. Same with Sharman. And with Sophie for company she ventured further than I did. But together we really go exploring. Like the other day….we tried a new trail and the bottom line was we had to keep going up because there was no way on earth we could get back down!

If we cross the stream and make it up the slippery rock we might find a path to Sipahi.

Well, we didn’t go that way because I thought there was a path on our side of the stream. There was; but it ended half way up the slope and then we had to make our way through lots of different thorny scrub and loose rocks. We were 10 years old again!

We started out at the foot of those fir trees and ended up looking down on them.

Both of us have agreed, next time we cross the stream and we can cross the, “up the slope scramble” off the list.

That walk was Wednesday. Thursday I did the Deks Walk. Friday Sharman and I did a regular hill walk. But Saturday was a whole new adventure. Sharman needed to go with friends to Boğaz early in the morning. Helen and Dennis from Dream Provider had asked to “baby-sit” Sophie for that morning. Sharman knows I would take Sophie any time she needed but many of the cruisers ask to have Sophie for a day when Sharman has to go off to Famagusta, so my services aren’t needed yet. And I see Sophie every morning. So, anyway, Saturday morning I joined Helen at 8 am for a walk. Actually, I was supposed to be leading the way as Helen hadn’t ever done the hill walks. Of course, I had always just followed along not really paying attention to the twists and turns of the path so I was a bit nervous about being the leader. But Helen said to me what I say to Sharman….”wherever is fine.” I actually managed to lead us on a 3 hour walk picking all of the correct paths to follow. We had a great time and Sophie was sooooo good. She never ran far off and always came when she was called. That was especially important when we met the angry donkey, the 3 sheep guard dogs and heard of sheep, and then the HUGE herd of sheep and goats just at the end of our walk. Any time we heard sheep or goat bells we’d call Sophie and she would come and we would put her on the lead until we were far enough from the herds. Our first encounter was the donkey early in our walk. Usually they just trot off. This one stayed and snorted at us, maybe defending a baby we couldn’t see. We gave it a wide berth and then kept going. Half way back we met the 3 herding dogs but Sophie came when we called and the other dogs didn’t bother us because they seem wary of human. Not sure how they would have treated Sophie had she been alone. Our last encounter was quite funny. We saw the huge herd of sheep and stepped aside to let it pass but it didn’t pass. It stopped just in the path we had to take so there was no choice but to walk by them. They behaved and Sophie behaved and it all seemed fine until we had passed them by.

Follow the “new leader.”

Amazingly the sheep started to follow Helen, Sophie and me down the hill.

Sheep breath on Helen’s neck!

It was amazingly warm as you can see from Helen’s sleeveless shirt. They just crowded along behind until finally the shepherd called them back.

Mass confusion.

But then they all turned around and went back up the hill to the shepherd.

It really was the funniest experience! Having the puppy follow me back to the marina was one thing. Having an entire herd of sheep following you back is a whole other story. Actually, the kind of thing you would read in a child’s picture book. What fun!