It’s 2.30pm on Friday 20th August and 7 bikes, 10 people and 1 van are aboard the Virtu Ferries service from Pozzallo in Sicily to Valletta in Malta! Can’t believe it! Just a quick word of thanks at this stage once again to Virtu Ferries, who have very kindly donated the crossings for us all free if charge. It’s a lovely, air-conditioned, comfortable ferry and we are all truly grateful for the generosity of Virtu Ferries.

We had a superb evening in Vizzini, albeit not without incident! Our host Mr Cataudella took us to a brilliant pizza bar where they make and cook only 100 pizzas an evening in their traditional real-flame pizza oven.  Full size pizzas were between €2.50 and €3.00 each and bottles of beer were €1.00!! They were very surprised that some of us ordered 2 pizzas each and even more surprised to learn that we’d cycled all the way from England to eat them!  They were lovely people and gave each of us a special bag with their full menu printed on it as a souvenir! We also viewed the remains of a Greek amphitheatre just up the street!!

We had some further beers at a pleasant town centre bar (Vizzini is roughly the same size as Haworth) and were once again struck by the mix of age groups and complete lack of any hassle. The table next to us was occupied by half a dozen 15/16 year olds, not drinking alcohol, not causing trouble but notably enjoying their social crack and even more notably allowed to be with and included by adults. If we had been in England they would have had to sit elsewhere on some street corner. Are we the architects of our own troubles with teenagers?

We returned to the house at about 10.30pm as we were aiming for an early start, just as the town was coming to life. That life went on to about 3am, and we heard much of it through open terrace doors as we lay in the sweltering heat. I must have dozed, as I was awoken at 2am by a buzzer which we worked out was the doorbell. Martin went to investigate, and found the front door wide open and George being returned by a very polite and friendly Italian man!! Apparently George had sleepwalked out of the house and down the street to the nearest bar dressed only in his boxer shorts!! Not only had this guy returned him, he’d given George a t-shirt to cover his dignity!! George has never done this before, so this was yet another totally unexpected and bizarre interlude in this amazing trip!! Mr Cataudella called for us at 7am and we collected the van and packed up. I presented him with a bottle of Timothy Taylors – thank you Mr Cataudella for a very memorable evening in Vizzini!!

Following Mr Cataudella’s advice, we took the main road south towards Ragusa and were rewarded with a good surface and gentle gradients. This certainly helped prevent Bernards legs from “lactating” as he so superbly put it!! Cycling early in the morning was certainly preferable to the middle of the – shame it took until the last day to find out!! Poor Martin experienced a series of further rear-wheel punctures, and thus jumped in the van for the final stretch. The latter was mostly downhill towards the sea, and Patty and George joined us to cycle this final bit. It was with very mixed feelings that we passed a “Pozzallo 3km” sign. It’s nearly over!! All that planning, all the imagined problems, all the real problems and all the wonderful experiences. Wow! We met the van by the beach and jumped into the sea for a wonderful swim. 51 miles today and now 2,000+ for the trip. I got a call from Dave and Pam Baybutt who are already in Malta and also a text from Mum telling me to look after George!!

So on to the ferry, and a can or two of Cisk (Maltese beer) while doing this blog. Next stop Malta, and for a short while no-one is relying on me to tell them the way!!