Greek Island hoping - sun, stones, smiles

Ahoy my potentially pasty readers, this is your tanned captain writing. After a wet (rain) departure from Split, we were glad to hit the heat of Greece. Our first stop was Greece's turbulent capital Athens. We managed to time our stay well with taxis and other transport options striking. Luckily we were only in town for a short while and managed to check out the Acropolis, city centre and a few other random ancient monuments (as you do). From here we jumped a ferry and began our island hopping with a stay in pumpin' Mykonos.

We based ourselves right in the middle of the craziness of the nightclubs at Paradise Beach. Every night there was a top-notch DJ spinning the decks. Unfortunately our Greek dealer was also on strike with his taxi buddies, so we didn't party TOO hard while we were there.

All jokes aside, we did spend most of our time hitting the beach and enjoying the sunshine. We also hired the World's weakest quad bike and explored Mykonos town and a few more secluded and quieter beaches. Island highlights included my four gyros in a day gorge and feeling the wind on my scalp as we prayed our 50CC quad would make it up the hill.

Our next hop was over to the amazing Santorini and another week of relaxation, sun and smiles. We stayed out near Parissa Beach and its scorching hot black sand. During a day trip we got to explore a few of the surrounding small islands, semi active volcano, before watching the breathtaking sunset from Oia (northern tip of Santorini).

Highlight of the day, besides the beautiful sunset, was the interesting donkey ride up the steep cliffs surrounding the island. Edwina enjoyed it so much she had two!

After picking up some fellow Aussie travellers we quickly formed a bad arse quad bike gang to terrorise locals and tourists alike. We had learnt from our first attempt and upgraded to the 220CC bike and tore the island apart! During the day our crew of Brad, Tara, Mel, Edwina and I beach jumped along the island checking out the Red beach and Kamari before cruising into Fira town for dinner.

The next day Brad and I hit up a scuba dive in a near by reef before spending the afternoon napping under umbrellas at the beach. We so bad arse.

It was sad to say goodbye to Santorini and our new pals, but there was no time to wait before we next hopped on over to our final island Rhodes. We were only staying for a short time so we quickly explored the old town, with traditional castle walls, and walked along the waterfront. The island definitely had a very different feel than both Mykonos and Santorini but made for an enjoyable stay.

From here we jumped a short ferry to our next country the delicious, well based and stuffed Turkey!