Greece - Thessaloniki 14 Sept

Customs man doesn't like the look of us and has a poke around in the boot. I suspect it's the unshaven look. Changed some money for Drachmas and got list of Merc agents and a couple of maps from Mobil garage. Petrol's expensive here so we cross with everything brim full. Make for Thessalonika which has a Merc agent.

While stopped for lunch we see strange little railway thing going back and to. They have some very rustic telegraph poles in this part of the world, and in Yugoslavia. The police uniforms have changed from a rather shabby light blue/grey to fairly smart olive green, and all motorised police wear dark glasses and look very officious. As we come into Thessalonica lo and behold the level crossing is closed. A train goes by on an adjacent line but nothing on our line. Impatience - horns - some very tuneful, like the bus behind. Police car roars up. Barrier goes up halfway, police wave 'no' and disappear backwards at high speed. Gate opens halfway again, and one car and some motor bikes squeeze through. Then closed. Eventually it is opened for everyone. The queue on the far side is vast.

Find Merc agent by brilliant navigation, spares, closed till Monday (tomorrow) morning. Looking quite disgusting we go and find Eva, then food. And finally, off in search of camp site. About 15km out 32.50 drax/night (6s) all in (reduction for carnet) and very good site. (Apparently called Akti-Thermaikon, but I can find no reference to it now. I mention swimming so I suspect it was a seaside campsite, probably somewhere in the vicinity of the airport. One possibility is Peraia on the Thermaikos Gulf in the Thermaikos Municipality or perhaps even at Epanomi.)

Talk to New Zealanders, Alan and Keith, with Minivan that has just had silencer removed by 'that pass'. Meal and bed at sinful hour of 12:30am. Two girls next door - hitchhikers taking three months off from secretarial college to go round Greek Islands. Sun shone all day except drop of rain at breakfast. Very black clouds downwind at lunch.

Two weeks on the road, Merc reaches 80,000km (we have done about 4000km so far). Up about 8am and into Thessalonica for brake seals and light bulbs. Hair raising journey with Brian almost driving into the back of a tractor, going through red light and clipping Fiat that parked in front of us. Claims he made a definite decision to pull out round it because of bus behind! Very helpful gent at Merc. Got seals, but not quite so successful with bulbs or requested bolts. Off shopping on foot. First to get keys cut. Splendid place off Aristoleus where a Merc blank was available for ignition key and the door key blank was produced and filed down neatly with deft strokes and use of callipers. Clever these people. Both keys fitted no trouble at all. The copier was an ancient hand operated affair - those fancy electric ones are quite unnecessary. The whole business took 3 minutes and cost 60 Drax.