Tuesday, 10 November 2009 00:00

Day Out With Some Mates

Written by Mike
Do not feed the animals.  Photographers at work! Do not feed the animals. Photographers at work!

One of the great things about living in Cyprus is lots of mates come out for holidays and I get to show them around our favourite bits of Cyprus.

This time it was Baggy - a guy I've spent a lot of time at the lineside with in the UK photographing steam.  He was here with two mates Steve and Tony - also keen photographers.

So we planned a day out to check out some of the sights of Paphos District.

Agios Neophytos Monastery, Tala, Paphos District, Cyprus, 8 November 2009We started out at Agios Neophytos monastery in Tala.

Always worth a look, we tried (but I think universally failed) to get some shots of the priest.

He was way too quick for us, or perhaps very experienced in keeping out of the way of some nutters with cameras following him around.

From there we hacked up into the hills, checking out the Concentration Camp at Polemi and the church at Theletra.

Polemi Concentration Camp, Polemi, Paphos District, Cyprus, 8 November 2009The latter is always a favourite.  The church is perched on the side of a steep hill with a view all the way up the valley to Polis as a background.  Sadly it wasn't the clearest of days, but the sun did shine at the right time.

From there we went on up to the harbour at Latchi, with a quick stop near Androlikou to catch some hay bales that looked fetching in the sunshine.

The fishing boats in the harbour are always promising, this time complemented by one welly boot amongst the fishing nets.

The fishermen must have thought we were barking as we grovelled around on the ground trying to fill a wide angled foreground with the welly.

A quick bite to eat by the harbour, and then on up to Neo Chorio.

I'd threatened and interesting drive, so got an amount of stick as we headed up on a perfectly good tarmac and concrete road.

Just after the village we stopped at Agios Minas, a little church in the middle of nowhere.

The well-photographed welly, Latchi, Paphos District, Cyprus, 8 November 2009The big bell with its rope was just too much temptation, so it had to be rung.  As the sound echoed around the mountains we decided to leg it in case the priest and his congregation turned up for a quick unplanned worship.

From there on the road down to the Akamas coast gets a lot more interesting, and there was an amount of groaning from the back as heads hit the roof as we bounded over the bumps.  The winding mountain track with big drops and equally big views is a bit of a stunner and not to be missed if you've got the right car.

Akamas, Paphos District, Cyprus, 8 November 2009Nearly at the bottom we passed a family heading up in a Nissan Micra, rented of course.  Our big 4x4 had eaten the bumps of the dirt track, how would the little Micra fare?  And it's getting dark in about an hour...

Heading on down the Akamas coast, we had numerous stops to shoot the sun glinting on the sea, and Tony tried to throw himself off a cliff.  We grabbed him and everything was OK, but for a moment I thought we'd be gathering his remains on the beach far below.

Time was getting tight now to pick up a sunset at Cap St George, so we ended up tearing along the coast track far faster than you really should.  I know I've lived here too long when I think nothing of leaving the road and thundering along the beach to overtake people on the road.

Some last thrashes over some bumps on the beach at Agios Georgios and we made it with minutes to spare.  Shame it was only a mediocre sunset!

From there it was back to Paphos to drop the guys off.  We had one last bit of cross country to do - up some rocks from the beach to the road.

I know there's a track there and where it goes, but the guys were a bit phased by us bouncing over boulders with no apparent track to follow.

A long day and everybody was tired at the end of it, but as always some nice pictures came out of it.

Find the pictures in the following albums:

 

 

Mike

Mike

Mike McCormac has been a photographer since about ten years old.  He's a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, and lives in a village in the hills near Paphos in Cyprus.

Read his full Bio

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