Snoring, Rain & Venice June 10 2011

At 1:30 Am the chain saw snoring started. I don’t know who was doing or what tent it was but I have never heard anything like it in my life. Then at 3:30 Am I am woken up again as there is a very bright light in my tent. It is followed immediately by one of the loudest crashes of thunder I have ever heard. The within seconds my tent is lashed with pounding rain. By 6:00 Am I had to get up and get ready to go but the rain was still just pounding down. Everything was totally sodden. I feel good that I brought a canoeing water proof bag. I don’t think I have ever seen such a heavy down pour, and certainly never a down pour which lasted this long.

I set off on the first 5 kms leg of the trip into Venice in the driving rain wearing a full oil skin rain suit. About 50 meters out of the camp ground a truck passed me and as it when by it hit a huge puddle. It was like being hit with a huge wave. It nearly knocked me over. Fortunately it was only 5 kms up to the first ferry. I was there plenty early, and luckily I was able to wait inside. By the time the ferry left the rain was starting to let up a little.

The second leg of the trip was about 14 kms up the second island. The rain has let up and is down to a drizzle. You can see a little blue sky. We rolled straight on to the second ferry and now the sun is starting to break through. The third leg is only about 10 kms and we got on the ferry and were down to our camp ground in the sunshine. The campground is on a small island across the estuary from downtown Venice.

The cooks were busy in camp and had a tremendous feast ready for us. The camp ground is very nice with great grass to set tents up on. It is a little crowed but is not too bad. It was so great having the sun up. I was able to dry my cloths and tent. I even managed to get my running shoes dried out. They have been soggy for over a week and were starting to smell pretty bad (actually really bad). After a wash and dry they are as sweet as ever.

After lunch I took the ferry into Venice and wandered around looking at the famous sites. It is a really neat place to explore. There are hundreds of tiny lanes and canals. The gondola rides are pretty expensive so maybe I will leave that to the young romantically inclined. It was just great. As tomorrow is a rest day I will head back into to Venice and do some more wandering around.

Terry.