Taormina to Palmi

I mentioned previously that I'd take a photo of our main support truck, which as you can see below was formerly a Dutch Fire Truck, which means that it has plenty of room for having separate but readily accessible compartments as well as being sufficiently capable of storing our luggage both on it's roof and within the interior part of the truck.

Today, we finally travel from Sicily to the mainland, with today's ride split into roughly two forty kilometre sections on each side of the water, as you can see from the profile.Taormina to Palmi

The first twenty five or so weren't too bad, however negotiating our way through the traffic and chaos of Messina was another thing altogether. Car's stop anywhere & everywhere, often without the driver's intentions being obvious as they suddenly pull up in front of fruit & vegetable sellers who have their wares, on display on the back of trucks. It's an organised sort of chaos however and for one reason or another it seems to work. Just means that riders such as ourselves have to keep a very vigilant eye open for what is occurring, as there is every prospect that a door is going to be opened in your path or what have you.

Having reached the ferry terminal, it was then a case of waiting for the entire peleton to work it's way through the traffic so that we could all travel as one. Well that was the idea. Sure we all caught up before boarding, what was somewhat unexpected however is the speed with which the ferry's unload then reload their cargo. The majority of us were in the port side cafe, buying a latte and/or gelati when the ship started to disembark, with only five of our group on board. Fortunately the next ferry was only another forty five minutes later, which gave some of us time to buy a second gelati, which I must say went down a treat.

View of Messina from aboard the ferry

View of some of the extra ferries which seemingly come into play in the Summer high season.

Whilst the five who'd been lucky enough as to catch the first ferry had stopped at our lunch point and then carried onto the campground, the rest of us (myself included) rolled in for a bite to eat, which probably wasn't all that necessary given the number of gelati's consumed, bar the fact that by now the sun was beating down, meaning it was a little warm.

Once lunch had been consumed, we then pretty much rode as a group the final forty KM into the camp. Sure I got dropped on the climb by a couple of minutes or so, but quickly caught up with the pack on the descent into the campground. Another 87 kilometres done & dusted. It will be interesting now to see the difference in culture, natural flora and fauna between Sicily and Calabria.