A Swan Song for Italy

Roman ruin overload and finally some peace and quiet in Paestum. Until we found that BigMog had contracted a nasty case of Diesel Bug.

Diesel Bug meant that both his fuel tanks, all the fuel lines, the fuel filter and eventually his engine were getting clogged up with slimey bacteria that would grow and expand until it killed him completely.

Up until now I have chosen not to bother you with too much detail about the problems BigMog had developed since leaving the UK – there was so much else to cram into each post. I thought I would leave it until later and write about it all in a separate post.

But I may as well come clean now so that you can put this latest problem into perspective. We are also hopeful that most, if not all, of the problems have been uncovered now – or is that tempting fate just a little bit too much?

I did mention the first problem we had – with the portal axle breathers. Very occasionally UniMogs will develop an issue where the transmission oil is pumped from the portal axles into the front diff and BigMog had started doing this. The breather hoses had also become porous from age and a lot of oil was seeping out of them to add to the problem

We replaced the breather hoses without too much trouble

But to fix the rest of it we needed a specialist breather kit which we had ordered from the UK and planned to collect at Christmas. So, for the next four months, James went underneath once a week to drain the oil out of the front diff and put it back into the portal axles, topping up any extra that had got lost on the way

A few weeks later, oil started literally pouring out of the portal seal, covering the inside of the wheel with oil. On investigation James found that the breather was blocked. It was an easy job to unblock it and after a bit of oozing whilst the displaced oil worked its way out of the breathers, things settled down.

That was three parts of the first problem.

The second problem raised its head halfway through Italy. We discovered that the central tyre inflation system was leaking so our tyres kept slowly going flat. At first it was just the front tyres but after a while the back tyres started as well.

When James investigated he found that the pneumatic couplings were badly corroded inside and generally worn out. They couldn’t be salvaged, they needed replacing

We could keep an eye on the pressures from the instrument panel in the cab and reinflate the tyres when needed

But eventually it got so bad that we had to remove the whole system from the front which was not helpful when we started going off road

We tried to find new couplers everywhere but to no avail. In the end all we could do was order them in the UK to collect at Christmas and put up with not being able to change our front tyre pressures until then.

We also found three leaks in the main air system. One got so bad that the entire air tank was empty within just half an hour of switching the engine off. Fortunately, the compressor was powerful enough to keep the system fully pressurised whilst we were driving – without air pressure we have no brakes.

We managed to find new couplings to fix the two worst leaks but the third was in the valve to the rear brakes and we could only get that by ordering it in the UK again

Our spot lights stopped working. Not a huge issue as we don’t use them often but when we do need them they’re vital. Probably a fuse or electrical connection but still not solved.

The alternator belt kept slipping whenever it rained so the battery didn’t charge as we drove. It never got to a critical point as it never rained for long enough. James tightened the belt and we are currently travelling optimistically in the hope that this has fixed it.

Two rubber fuel lines had to be replaced as they had degraded over time and air was leaking in. The manual pump that bleeds the fuel system also had to be replaced as that was also leaking air back through.

The front brake rubber flexis were original to the truck so needed changing and new ones are on order for Christmas.

And finally the torque tube gaiters split with age and are also on order in the UK.

A long list of problems which, at times, seemed endless. But nothing major and everything caused by age and probably not helped by BigMog having sat outside for nearly two years before we took him in and started work on him.

Most of the items we have ordered in the UK could have been ordered in any of the countries where we have been travelling. Our problem, as always, is not having a postal address for them to be sent to.

As you can imagine, with all this going on, finding Diesel Bug was the last thing we needed. It is incredibly difficult to get rid of but we hoped we had found it early enough that it would respond to treatment. We just needed to find somewhere that sold Diesel Bug killer.

It was Sunday afternoon and we had booked a walking tour around the old town of Matera for Wednesday morning. We were only about 3-4 hours away so we had plenty of time to try and find what we needed.

The guys at our aire were very helpful and made a couple of calls to autoparts shops between Paestum and Matera to see whether they sold the right stuff. Having someone at our end who could speak Italian was very useful.

It took an age for anyone to come back to us but we kept ourselves busy whilst we waited. James spent four hours cleaning BigMog, something that was well overdue

He looked sparkling

Eventually, on Monday afternoon, a place in the nearby town of Battipaglia called back to say that they may have what we needed. We set off on Tuesday morning in the pouring rain with our fingers crossed.

When we arrived, James jumped out to go and see them and ten minutes later he came back with a large bag and a huge grin on his face. Success! They not only sold Diesel Bug killer but it was the very make we wanted. James had bought three litres of it just to be sure

We pressed on to a campsite we had found very close to Matera. I hadn’t been able to find any contact details for them so we weren’t sure whether they were open or would have space for us.

The drive was long, we got stuck in an accident and at one point there was a frustrating detour with no signage except one of the road workers waving his arms at me and pointing vaguely in the direction of where we should go.

But we were driving through beautiful countryside with green hills and trees as far as the eye could see. We were a long way down the foot of Italy now and the south seemed to be far greener and less urban than the north – and certainly a different world to Naples and its environs.

So when we finally arrived we were tired but happy. I almost cried when the owner said we were too big to get into his campsite but when he saw the look of complete dejection on my face he relented and offered us a space between the campsite itself and the farm buildings.

It wasn’t pretty but it was fine and it was full of cats!

Plus the views were pretty good

I was up before dawn the next morning to do my training, helped by our new friend who really just wanted to go inside for a sleep

We then caught a shuttle bus into the historic centre of Matera, known as the Sassi, and walked to the Piazza San Pietro Caveasa to meet our guide

The Sassi is a city of cave houses where people lived from 8,000 BC right the way through until the 1970s – the oldest continuously inhabited town in the world.

The people in this photo may look as though they’re living in the 1800s but actually it was taken in 1963

We were looking at the photo whilst standing in exactly the same spot

Until 1952, there were 28,000 people living here. There was no running water, no electricity, no television or even radio. The town was completely cut off from the rest of the world and was known as the ‘Shame of Italy’. Then, between 1952 and the 1970s, the people were forcibly moved by the government into new tenement blocks higher up the cliff.

There are actually two separate Sassis in Matera, carved into opposite sides of the valley. The oldest is known as Sassi Caveoso

On the other side is Sassi Barisano

No-one lives here anymore, it is just a historic site now

One of the most incredible things about the town is the water collection system. The earliest occupants of the town built cisterns and systems of water channels between the houses which capture rain water at the top levels and syphon it down to the lower levels, providing every cave house with a cistern full of water for their own use whilst allowing the overflow to pour into their neighbour’s cistern

The largest, public cistern had been carved 15 metres down into the rock and is so large you can navigate it by boat

This water system is so amazing that the town was made into a UNESCO World Heritage site.

To add to the town’s claim to fame, part of the James Bond film ‘No Time to Die’ was filmed in the main piazza. Mr Bond screeched his Aston Martin around the square and up the steps – but the stone was so slippery they had to pour coke all over it to make the tyres grip!

Our guide was wonderful. His family had lived here until they were relocated in 1959. He was born in the new town but his older brother remembers living in the cave house.

He pointed out the ingenious building techniques used by the local people including using animal bones to hold up the gutters

And the narrow staircases up to the blacksmiths designed to take mules

He took us to his family’s cave and we peered in through the gates

It was all locked up though, all the families lost the rights to their caves when they were given new homes.

This other cave was open to the public so we were able to wander around and see just what the conditions were like for these people less than 70 years ago

Looking out over the valley we could see a series of much older caves dotted in the hillside

And we heard that Mel Gibson was in large part responsible for the success of the tourism industry here when The Passion of Christ was filmed on top of these hills with Matera in the background. From that moment the town was besieged with visitors fascinated by the history of the place.

After our tour we walked up to the new town and found a lovely little street food café where we had pizza overlooking a pretty square with an interesting church at one end

We then returned to the old town to visit the snappily named ‘Church of Madonna de Idris and San Giovanni in Monterrone’ which dominates the skyline perched high above the cave houses

This used to be two separate churches – the first dating back to the 17^th century but the one further into the rock was carved in the 12^th century. A corridor was built a few hundred years ago to join them into one

There were still a few frescoes visible on the walls

And the old alter was still standing

But the most interesting thing about it was knowing that it had all been painstakingly carved out of rock by hand, it was really beautiful

The shuttle bus back to the campsite didn’t leave for another two hours so we walked the 3km instead – we were really dedicated to keeping our step count up these days!

Once back with BigMog, project ‘Diesel Bug extermination’ started. We worked out how much diesel was in each tank and calculated how much killing agent we therefore needed. This first treatment was supposed to be a concentrated blast to kill as much of the bacteria as possible. After that we would need to add a lower dosage to the tanks every time we filled up to ensure the last remnants were cleared out.

Our plan was to treat the tanks now, drive until we used up most of the diesel, fill them up again and re-treat. Once that second lot of diesel was used up we would check and change the diesel filter to see how things were going.

As of the time of writing, we have changed the filter and found the old one was black and full but not slimey like the first one.

A diesel filter should last around two years. When the new one went in it looked like this

Two weeks later it looked like this

This suggests to us that the bacteria has been successfully killed off and is washing through the system into the filter.

We are still treating the tanks every time we fill up and will carry on doing so until we have got through two of the three cans of killer. The third can we’ll keep in reserve in case of a relapse.

BigMog has all his power back and seems to be on top form again. Sidetracked Team 1 – Diesel Bug 0!

We were pleased to be away from our campsite the next day – it was fine but there was animal poop all over the ground and we felt a bit stuck away in a corner.

The Caves of Castellana were only an hour down the road so we headed towards them early in the morning and parked up in a nearby supermarket where we could stay overnight.

It was only a short walk to the ticket office where we had a long chat with the ticket lady. I explained about my claustrophobia and we discussed the options. There was a long tour and a short tour – the short tour only took you 350 steps down and then through four large caves. The long tour took you another 1.5km inside along winding, narrow tunnels.

She said that at any point the rear-guard guide would be able to escort me back up to the top without causing any disruption to the rest of the group.

James really wanted to do the long tour and I was happy to leave after the four caves so we bought two tickets for that afternoon and went back to the truck to have lunch and do some shopping at the supermarket.

When we arrived back at the caves ready for our tour we were surprised to find the place heaving with people. There must have been at least 200 other tourists there all going on tours at the same time.

We started off down the long staircase taking us deep into the caves

The first cave was huge and had a hole at the top where sunlight poured in

It was beautiful, with stalactites and stalagmites in all shapes and colours

I had spoken to our two guides to ensure they were aware that I would need to be taken back up at some point and they were very relaxed about it.

At this point I was not feeling claustrophobic at all, the whole place was airy and light

We pressed on into the next cave and the next. It was all just as captivating as the first but photos were not allowed there.

By the time we reached the fourth cave we were a little bit too far from the sunlight and I was feeling edgy. After that the pathway narrowed and disappeared into darkness and that was my cue. I looked around to find one of the guides and ask to be taken back up but neither were anywhere to be seen – they had gone off down the narrow passage ahead of the group.

I had a crowd of people in front of me and a large group pressing up behind me, this was not a good situation. I spoke to the guide from the group behind and explained what had happened and their rear-guide kindly walked me back to the first cave and pointed me back up the steps.

Once she had gone back to her group I found myself alone in the cave

The throngs of people had all gone and I had the whole place to myself. With the steps back up to the top right next to me, my claustrophobia had disappeared and I spent a fabulous few minutes taking in the atmosphere of this underground cathedral in silence.

James carried on with the rest of the tour and reported back afterwards that it had been amazing – still no photos allowed though so we’ll all just have to take his word for it.

We were right down in the south by now, just on the heel of Italy. We had spent the last two months making our way slowly from the north to the south and had seen so much history, so much culture, had so much great food and wine. We had both been looking forward to our time in Italy and felt we had really done justice to the country and everything it has to offer.

Looking back on our weeks there though, it had also been a time of complete chaos, hellish driving, noise, hustle and bustle. We had had little time to sit and relax, there were few places to stay anywhere overnight that were pretty or relaxing and we had spent days – if not weeks – seeing no greenery at all. It was like we had dived into a swirling maelstrom and had no choice but to let it carry us away and see where we landed.

We had enjoyed Italy immensely but longed for parts of the world that were a little calmer, a little more remote and a little easier to travel.

We still had four or five things left on our itinerary and had tickets booked on a ferry across the Adriatic Sea to Dubrovnik in ten days time.

But we were ready to go now.

We made a decision – we emailed the ferry company asking to bring the date of our tickets back by a week and chose just one thing from our itinerary to do before we left.

That one thing was to visit the Trulli houses in Alberobello – also known as the ‘Spinning Top’ houses. These are centuries old, whitewashed houses with pretty little conical roofs and it seemed unlikely that we would see anything like them anywhere else in the world. So off we went to make our final Italian stop.

We found a place to park-up just outside the ‘Trulli Zone’ and walked into the centre. We hadn’t been sure what to expect – I thought maybe a few of these houses dotted here and there amongst the rest of the town. But when we arrived it took our breath away

It was magical

These gorgeous little houses were everywhere and the whole place was clean and calm and really very lovely

Unlike Matera, people still live here and it seemed a very nice place to be

We wandered the streets for an hour or so, poking around in the little shops – not because we wanted to buy anything but just because it gave us the chance to be inside these beautiful places and see the conical roofs from the inside

At the furthest end of the town we found a Trulli church which was built in exactly the same way as the houses just on a much larger scale

We then walked back to the centre and found a café for lunch where we could sit and watch the world go by

It was Friday afternoon and we were hoping with all our hearts to get our ferry tickets changed to the following Tuesday but we had had no response to our email from the ferry company. We suspected they would be closed over the week-end and were worried that it was all getting a bit late – the ferry only sailed three times a week giving us few options.

So we decided to drive to the city of Bari the next day where our ferry was to sail from. We hoped we could find a ticket or booking office for the ferry company.

Bari is a big city and I had been dreading driving into it since we booked the original tickets. The idea of going early and having to stay there was even worse. Needless to say, my fears were well founded. It was supposed to take us an hour to get there but with heavy traffic and a 3.5 tonne bridge that we accidentally went across (twice!), it was over three hours before we were finally in a car park near the port.

This area had a reputation for harbouring gangs of men roaming round trying to swindle money from unsuspecting tourists. But maybe it was too late in the season for that as we didn’t see anyone around. It still didn’t feel particularly safe though.

We jumped out of the Mog and walked the 1.5km to where Google promised us the ticket office for our ferry company was. But when we arrived it was all closed up. There was a telephone number on the window but when we called there was just a recorded message in Italian. The notice on the window told us that the office would be open on Monday from 9am until midday so it looked as though we would have to wait a bit longer.

We really didn’t want to stay in the big city for two days so instead we drove 40km down the coast road to a park-up place I had found on one of our apps. It had looked very rural, in the middle of an olive grove, and seemed perfect.

The dirt roads into the place were narrow with tree branches scraping the side of the truck but when we finally arrived we were thrilled – it was one of the most peaceful places we had found to stay in our whole time in Italy

We parked up and got our table and chairs out ready to have a rare outdoor lunch

Then sat back and admired the view for the rest of the day

The next day James decided to swap the wheels over on the truck – something we need to do every now and again to stop the tyres from uneven wear. This meant having the excitement of trying out our crane for the first time

It worked beautifully and James was delighted.

Later that afternoon we packed up and headed back to Bari. I had spent some time looking for safe places to park overnight and found a small car park right on the sea front that had relatively good reviews.

It was never going to be peaceful being right in the middle of the city, but when we arrived it was actually quite beautiful

We walked up to a nearby pizza place and got rather good takeaway pizza which we ate sitting on a bench looking out over the sea

Maybe Bari wasn’t going to be so bad after all

I was up at 5:45am the next day and had finished my training, had my breakfast and was sitting on a bus to the port before 8:15am. I arrived at the ticket office just before 9am and pounced on the guy behind the desk the moment it opened.

He spoke good English and was very helpful. It took me a bit of persuading for him not to send me away to ring the number I had been trying for days but when he realised I wasn’t going anywhere he sorted out the change of dates within 5 minutes. As he printed out the new tickets and handed them over I felt a wave of excitement running through me.

I rang James who was on a mission to cycle around every autoparts shop in the city trying (unsuccessfully) to find new couplings for our tyre inflation system. When I told him we had the tickets he sounded as excited as I was.

This was it, tomorrow we would be on our way to our next adventure. Dubrovnik and Croatia are supposed to be lovely but we didn’t plan to stay there for more than one day. We had bigger fish to fry. We were champing at the bit to throw off the heavy cloak of the EU and disappear off into the big wide world. Destination Bosnia and Herzegovina – it was only three days but a whole world away….