An exciting week

Originally posted by Mike Kelly
5B would be Cyprus .

It would indeed; I didn't think for one moment that a prefix would fool any of you for long!

An ex work colleague of mine was a Captain in the British army , he spent time stationed on Cyprus in the 1950's . He told me of a sad accident , losing one of his men when a Daimler Dingo steering tie rod end failed , the vehicle steered itself over a steep edge and tumbled down an embankment , killing the driver .

It is like that off the (over-developed and often touristy) coastal plain; inland the roads are good but twisty with substantial ravines as you gain altitude into the Troodos mountains, but some excellent spots for my TH6DXX Mike. . . . . .

They have a strange system, perhaps to discourage drink drivers or perhaps they haven't found out how to bend Armco. The roads are well protected until you arrive at a sharp corner where the outside Armco is tapered to ground and a two car slot is left at the apex for you to go off into oblivion, some have, as I observed.

I have some interesting pictures of all this and the 6ft of snow at the top of Troodos, however, these are in the memory card of my cheapo digital camera. . . . . . . . . .which rolled under the seat of the rental car and is still out there, somewhere.

The Western half is under Greek jurisdiction ? Is that correct .

It is self-governing Greek and EU also. The systems are in effect British and legal documents in both languages, the population is 99.99% English speaking too, which is a major attraction.

The buffer zone is now de-mined and crossing is an everyday occurrence although the "illegal" north side is years behind, it has a few pitfalls and best avoided for property, albeit very cheap, as the world regards it as stolen. Definitely a bit second world there.

Our very own McSpool is a bit of a Cyprus expert I understand, maybe one day he'll tell all.

R.