Got Milo?

Milos was not what we'd expected based on the rave reviews we'd had from many parties - Greeks who had been there and Greeks who hadn't. Big and unwieldy, we were at a loss at how to begin exploring this island. Ferrying from Sikinos to Milos was only a hop, skip and a jump. Time dragged it's feet though, because our evening ferry was a few hours late. Dave and I hung out at the funky Rock Cafe in Sikinos which overlooks the bay and serves icecream frappes which go off. Our ferry rocked up just past midnight and in my sleepiness I left my camera there. On Milos I called around and eventually got through to them - it's on its way back to Perth.

Milos was pretty buzzy at Adamas port when we pulled in at four in the morning. A few bars were pumping funky Greek tunes. Exhausted and apprehensive about a roof over our heads, we wandered over to the slim room pickings offered by touts out early to fill rooms. We went home with a little old lady who Dave regarded with suspicion. She let us have a 3-bed room for 40euro which we later learnt was bargainous. The 'nanna suite' came complete with an elderly aroma, plastic covered furniture, cabineted knick-knacks and floral patterns of course. The little old lady fussed about the place and kept trying to up the price - 5 euro extra for aircon etc etc. We refused so she took the remote. Dave didn't trust her, and asked in jest if the flash Mercedes parked out front was hers. She almost fell over, replying with 'I go with the foot - no car!'. Dave still thinks it's hers. He tried to work out how many nights of extra aircon it took to buy that baby.

Our first day in Milos was pretty stagnant. We hired a scooter, keen to kick around but we kept getting lost. Milos is hard to navigate, roads aren't that well-connected and peter out into dirt tracks. We made our way on scooter all the way up to Pollonia, a touristic beach town. We stopped at the bakery and quickly became regulars. We went in three times in the next hour. We are diehard fans of their cheap pastries. They even gave us free chocolate cake with our first purchase. On the way home, we found the gorgeous natural caves of Phylakopi and did some exploration. We did a spot of out-of-bounds rock climbing and I vomited much owing to the pre-exertion treats.

We stumbled across a cluster of windmills on the way back - new ones you can hire out as rooms and older, dilapidated ones. Dave wants to make one. The child-like wonder in his eyes brimmed over as he went snap-happy. In the distance, we also spotted a trio of wind turbines on the other side of the island that Dave was desperate to explore. Alas, we never found out how to reach them.

To share a few hilarious horrors, I'll start with our trip to the beach Plathiena to watch a sunset. We saw an old lady waddling down a long road on the way down to the beach Firopotamos. She was too large to offer a scooter lift, so we hoped she didn't have far and went on our way. Returning to Plathiena later we passed her again, trudging down to the beach. She didn't seem wealthy and obviously had spent ages walking for a swimming outing. Wandering around taking pics pre-sunset, Dave had the misfortune to catch her starkers though and remains evermore scarred. In a little accident, we smashed up a front light on our hire scooter. Good news is Dave returned it with a poker face and they didn't even notice. Oh yeah, and we were both ok, pretty good huh? Alot of things in Greece are designed shoddily or left in a haphazard way. Dave cut himself on the dodgy broken glass at our next hotel in Adamas, Milos.

Milos is an island rich in minerals, featuring sulphur mines, catacombs and dotted with caves which people once, crazily enough, inhabited. Although Milo, pronounced with a soft 'o' in Greek means Milo, to Dave's Australian ear, he heard Milo and it got him lusting after that stuff in a green tin. He searched the island in vain for a Milo factory.

To better get a handle on the varied island that is Milos, and to do something special on our last Greek island, we took a boat tour the day before we left for Piraeus. The tour of Milos and Kimolos took us around the perimeter of the island and afforded some amazing photographic and explorative opportunities. We swam at the gorgeous beaches Firopotamus, Kleftiko and Tsikrado. Kleftiko was the splendiferous favourite. The shore itself was pebbly and uncomfortable, definitely hard to walk on. That was irrelevant, as we explored some little caves, swimming into them. We went into a huge one off to the sight, and almost swam through to the next one. The blue water was amazing - dark blue but still transparent. The 25euro boat tour was worth it - the boat, Cpatain Yiaykos was driven by daredevils who got surprisingly close to prismatic Volcano rock structures. The only downside was the stop at Kimolos. Dave and I waited for everyone to get off and unfortunately couldn't get a table at the restaurants as people on tours packed the few restaurants. It's stressful to see a boy almost in tears with hunger pains. After an hour or so we finally got a table, and had awesome calamari and eggplant salad.