After an indifferent breakfast (they never seem to put enough out at any one time, meaning that you have to keep asking for more, a bit like Oliver!) we kitted up and set off, finding a much easier route down to the SS114 than the night before.

All easy today, just trickling along the coast, which is why the sudden 1 in 6, multi-hairpin bend hill is such a surprise. It’s the peak of the Italian holiday season too, and everyone seems to want to get there by car and/or motorbike! No rules though.

We stopped to take a picture of Etna (I had considered this leg involving riding up, but the gradients last night were a salutary warning!!) and then a coffee and a snack. Slow progress saw only 15 miles on the clock. Just after our coffee we did actually see someone receive a parking ticket, which must put him in line for some sort of national award!!

Weaving through the traffic, I waited for Tizz, and we had a sort discussion on how well the trip had gone overall!

Ironic, it turned out to be!! We caught the others at a road sign to Catania, but…….no sign if Patty! Bernard said he’d put the boot in and disappeared!! I raced up the road for the next 2-3miles but no sign! So I rode back for 3-4 miles and had a scout round alternatives – stil no sign! So I told the others to stop and rode back, hoping that Pat would find his way on to the right road.

It’s amazing how when there’s a crisis on the Italians rise to it by covering their roads with uneven flags, but I was soon crashing uphill over these before spotting the others. Should we ring the Carabiniere? Whilst I was stopped Jo rang to report that an Italian lorry had removed the offside wing mirror and nearly garroted Deanne so they were at a VW garage just outside Catania waiting for it to open at 3pm!

Marvelous!!!

I rode on, figuring that Patty may just have kept going, but all the time thinking that this is Sicily and that he may have been abducted! He had no money, no phone, no address and no idea!!! What a stress on a so-called easy day!!! I rode to Catania and rang the others to say where I was. Then……miracle! Jo rang to say they had Patty! He’d carried on riding and had, by utter chance, seen the van in the VW garage!!! So relieved, and also ready to give him a good bo*****ing!