I was riding for 2 hours, 29 minutes, climbing for 1 hour and 17 minutes, with 830 metres gained. Gradients pressed as hard as +16.9% and dropped to –15%. Almost half the ride, 45%, was off-road, with tracks rocky, stony, and dusty — the familiar signature of Apokoronas. I left Kokkino Chorio at 08:30. The sun was high above Drapanos Mountain, but the air was still sharp at 16 degrees. It did not truly warm until after the coffee stop, when the cloud finally broke. The tarmac to Kambia glistened with morning dew. Soon enough, I was racing down the Four Hills Climb, the early descent fast and loose. A short stretch of tarmac carried me on to the Aspro Tracks. From there came the entry to the Roller Coaster, a short, sharp climb at first. At the top, a hunter’s hound came bounding over, full of life. I stopped and spoke to the dog. His master appeared moments later from the olive groves, rifle slung, looking weary. “The shooting’s no good today,” he said with a wry smile. “The dog wants to play, not work. It’s time for coffee instead. May your ride be more productive than my hunt.” We wished one another well and parted. His words echoed something older. Herodotus, closing The Histories (Book IX – Calliope), reflected that “human prosperity never abides long in the same place.” A hunt, a ride, a day: none can be measured only in outcome. Sometimes, fortune is in the pause, the coffee, the noticing. The Roller Coaster carried me through its twists and pitches, then into the olive groves above Kalyves. I looped there, following stony tracks that ran parallel to the Kiliaris River. Soon, I reached a wide double track, hardened by farmers’ 4x4s. I followed it towards Neo Chorio before turning off just shy of the tarmac and running into Armeni for coffee. From Armeni, the line climbed toward the Ottoman fort, rough ground once again. Beyond lay the track running alongside and above the National Road, taking me toward Agii Pantes. Agii Pantes — “All Saints” — lies on the line of the Allied fighting withdrawal of May 1941. After the rear-guard action at Stylos, where Australian and New Zealand units held off the German 85th Mountain Regiment on 26–27 May, the Allied columns pressed south through Agii Pantes. The village became part of that desperate, ordered withdrawal — men moving through olive groves, farm tracks, and narrow lanes, under constant threat of air attack. It was not a rout but a measured and disciplined movement. Each rearguard action bought the columns time. Units leap-frogged one another: one line dug in, fighting, while another fell back, then the roles reversed. At Stylos, at Agii Pantes, and further on through the valley, this pattern repeated until the main body reached the Askifou plateau and the road to Sfakia. The village itself carries a longer story. Its name derives from the church dedicated to All Saints, once the centre of a small ecclesiastical estate. Over centuries, it drew farmers and herdsmen into its orbit, feeding both church and community. Today, it is a quiet settlement, its houses close, its spring shaded, vines heavy in the summer. But in May 1941, its fields and lanes became part of a larger battlefield — a passage where the fate of an army and the honour of holding the line briefly intersected. From there, I pressed on to Kaina. On the high ground, I paused. The White Mountains stood distant, their summits hidden in cloud, the ridges a shadowy blue-grey. They seemed immense yet withdrawn, mountains that give no easy welcome. The myths of the Lefka Ori speak of these peaks as guardians, places where gods and mortals once mingled. Some say that Zeus himself, hidden at birth from his father Kronos, was raised in caves beneath such summits — his infant cries drowned by the clash of bronze shields as the Curetes danced in defence. Standing there on the ridge, the thought was not of divine refuge but of endurance: men, mountains, and memory, all bound by the demand to endure. From Kaina, I turned for home, the route familiar now: Vamos, then Xirosterni, on to Paleloni, Drapanos, and finally back into Kokkino Chorio As I settled into the final stretch, Cavafy’s poem Ithaca comes to mind, written in 1911, reminding us that journeys are not just about arrival but about what we gather along the way: “Keep Ithaca always in your mind. Arriving there is what you are destined for. But do not hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years, so you are old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you have gained on the way, not expecting Ithaca to make you rich.” The road, like the poem, is not about reaching swiftly but about what is seen, felt, and remembered along the way. Each climb and descent is part of the lesson. Each shrine, river, and stone grove is part of the journey’s gift. The Cretans capture the same truth in simpler form through the mandináda. Here is my mandináda, brief but rooted in Crete: English version (rhyme first): Upon the road I ride today, the dust and stones abide, Yet every path through Crete I take is honour, not a guide. Greek translation (fifteen-syllable couplet): Στον δρόμο που διαβαίνω, η σκόνη με κρατά, Μα πάντα στην Κρήτη βρίσκω τιμή, κι αληθινά. Mandinádes are written first as short, rhyming poems, usually in couplets, each line fifteen syllables. Only then are they translated into Greek or English. They are part of every day Cretan life — sung in cafés, at weddings, in grief or joy — small verses that capture truth in just a few lines.