We had no 'educational' plans for Santorini, and were just wanting to explore and see the beauty of the island. I knew that over 3000 years ago a major volcanic eruption had taken the middle out of an island leaving Santorini as a crescent shaped island. It was named after Saint Irene so was an appropriate place for us to visit.

Irene and I went to the Bow to see the sun rise . This was a special event with hot chocolate available for the viewers and a commentary from the travel guide. John watched it on TV. We had breakfast with the others and then all went to join the tender just after 9am. The tender took us to the main town pier with the capital city of Thira/Fira about 900 feet above on the cliffs.

We joined the queue for the cable car. At this stage Anna and Trish decided to go up by the donkeys. This was funny because Raewyn had been keen to do this as she had heard stories about the overloading of the cable car. However, on the tender Philip had mentioned the smell of the donkeys and this completely put her off. She said she had smelt the donkeys from a distance so decided not to go that way. In the end the cable cars were filled as they were meant to be, 6 per car.

In the queue Raewyn talked with a couple from New York State. She said that John and I were from Nelson and we were asked if we knew a local poet who was a teacher . I immediately thought of Rachel Nunns (Bush) but it was a Joan Lees, who Raewyn in fact knew from guiding!!

Philip, Anna, Rex and Trish went off to book 4 wheeled motorbikes. We were more interested in a dune buggy but in fact saw a small, blue jeep which we hired. It was 60 euro for the day with good insurance. However, it came with very little fuel so we set off to fuel up, intending to return and follow the others. However, we went around the block, couldn’t find fuel, got caught up in the one way streets and ended up stuck in a hotel carpark. In the end John had to back out and luckily a taxi driver helped us and then moved his vehicle. We found the original spot and the others had gone. So we got instructions to find a service station then set off for Oia, where we knew the others were going first.

Once out of the city the driving was easier. We stopped at the side of the road a few times for photos and met a Canadian couple who gave us a spare copy of their map . It showed the position of a lot of fuel stations and also the main roads. We could see we were on the ‘high road’ and could return on the low road. The Canadians had booked their car online but were sorry as they said they could probably have negotiated a cheaper deal. We had not even tried to negotiate as we didn’t want to delay and were happy with the price.

We arrived in Oia, parked and walked around the town. It was as pretty as we had been told. The saying that you cannot take a bad photo in the town made sense although I suspect we have a few. We had a light meal in a café overlooking the blue sea, where I had a local dessert which unfortunately I found far too sweet. I had asked for ice-cream with the local wine on top but it was not available because they said they were coming to the end of the season (hence all the sales). We then walked around as far as the original houses at the tip of the town and even ended up in the area where the locals must shop. The marble steps were the only issue and we saw one woman nearly fall . We found the shop at the corner of the short street from where we were told that classic photos are taken, only to find we had been to the spot earlier.

As we went back through the main square we saw Philip’s group. They had left a message with their hire place but had then stopped at an earlier town that they had thought was Oia but wasn’t. We decided it was too hard to keep together anyway. In the square there were a number of Japanese weddings happening with Greek music and dancers. It seemed odd until I remembered that many Japanese get married at Lake Tekapo.

We took the low road back to our starting place, again stopping for photos at marinas and at Vourvoulos Beach. There seemed to be a number of incomplete houses on this side and overall it seemed a bit more run down, although still with lovely sea views. Some of the new houses here were built to resemble the traditional homes. The ground was all volcanic and looked less fertile, with a lot of brown scrub . The island has no rivers and we never did work out how the water supply worked as we didn’t see a lot of water tanks, although we did see solar water heaters. (Stop press: Water comes from desalination of sea water)

We were going to go to the beaches at the other end of the island but got sidetracked and then literally ‘side tracked’. We wound our way up the more than 20 hairpins to Ancient Thira, which proved to be Roman ruins (and closed as it was after 2.30pm). It was a dead end here, although we did see a walking track on other side of the hill, so we then had to wind our way back down. The steepest parts were in cobblestones which helped for grip, but there were also deep gutters at parts of the road which would not have been good to land in. We had great views from here.

The map came into its own as I knew a couple of waypoint towns on the way to Red Beach. There was a large empty carpark near the small town which we suspect is full at high season. We could park near the shore and set off to walk to the beach. In the end we talked with some returning visitors who said the best views were at the corner and to only carry on if we wanted to swim (which we didn’t). It was a ‘wow’ moment at the corner – wonderful red cliffs overlooking the bay. The snack bar also had reasonably priced icecreams and drinks as well.

We had wanted to go to White Beach but here we were let down by the map/signage . The map said White Beach but we never did see a sign and later found there was a town a bit past the beach (not marked on our map) that was on a sign. By the time we confirmed we had got it wrong we had gone further than we wanted to turn back from. It was also getting close to 5pm so we decided to return the jeep and look around the city before taking the tender. We had had a great time in the jeep and well and truly had our moneys worth.

As has often been the way, we arrived just as Philip’s group did, purely by chance as we had out car until 7pm and they had the bikes until 6pm. We walked with them through the city then we set off to walk down the donkey path. Parts were very slippery and there were dry (and fresh) donkey droppings everywhere and donkeys at both the top and bottom of the track. There were still a few people coming up on the donkeys and some walking and even running up the track. The last tender was to be at 8.30pm but we were happy to be back about 6.30pm.

We were going to suggest people meet for sunset but it came and went very quickly. Irene and I were in the spa and then the 4 of us went for dinner in the Vista, while the others had a Greek barbeque on the top deck.

Irene later found there had been issues with the last tender. One of the people we had met on a tour was on it and it had had to wait for 2 people who had got onto the wrong tender and been taken to a different boat. There were a lot of crew on the tender and she heard they go off the boat to buy water and also use the internet as even for the crew it is expensive and not always reliable.