Olive Harvest and the search for Odysseus' Cave

View of our olive grove

Picking olives has never been a popular sport, unlike a grape harvest with all that perceived romance and thoughts of the end product, olive oil simply can't compete. The harvest already four weeks late, olives the size of peas the yield is not looking good. While pulling my rake through the trees my thoughts turned to another harvest on the Greek Island of Ithaca, a journey I made a few  years ago while on a quest to try and find the cave where Odysseus was put ashore by the Phaeacian in the Odyssey.

On arrival from Kafalonia we discovered a charming fishing village were a local seaman on leave arranged for a taxi to come from Stavros a few kl ms up the road. Our driver turned out to be a very reluctant olive harvester. He offered to drive us from the far end of the island to Vathy by what turned out to be a very circular route. He had just left the family annual harvest and seemed intent to undertake as many diversions as possible. Stavros is currently the centre of much archaeological interest as the possibly the site of Odyssey's palace. Our drive proved to be highly entertaining and after taking us to lunch and a glass of very good local wine [chemical free] we continued on to Vathy via the long route.We drove up over mountains examined an old monastery and Church on the way. The Church contained some very old icon frescoes still in tack after five hundred years of Ottoman occupation that I had wanted to see.The drive turned out to be quite beautiful and every bit as good as our recent experiences on Kafalonia , but this time the countryside  was alive with people gathering in the olive harvest.

The following morning we set off to walk to the Fountain of Arethusa, the well from which the swine herder drew water for his pigs in Homer's Odyssey. He would drive them  here to for water before traveling to the palace to feed the suitors who had taken up residence there, in order to woe Penelope during Odysseus long ten year absence away fighting at Troy. Our road took us through more olive groves, everyone seemed to be harvesting olives and it is not hard to see how olive oil is the life blood of Ithaca. Many of the groves are owned by Athenians who make this annual pilgrimage each year to the island. The island lost most of its population after the 1953 earthquake with only half its citizens left. I was surprised as we walked along by the serve pruning of the olive trees during harvest with a good 2/3rds of last year's growth being removed, The olives were then removed on the ground by holding the branch up against a chicken type feather plucker.
This was a  revolving drum with rubber fingers poking out, it seemed to be pretty effective. This type of pruning is carried out every second year, with the centres thinned on alternate years. Everyone seemed to be very happy and always called out to us offering us something to drink.

The road slowly turned into an unsealed strip  through heath and scrub, eventually becoming little more than a goat track.The countryside became very mountainous and  rough but offered spectacular views of the Adriatic Sea, several of the steep gullies had been terraced in the past for cropping, but now abandoned. The land looked very unproductive and I wondered what dreams and fortitude must have driven people to try and stay alive in such harsh an environment.

After two hours walk we finally arrived at the spring which turned out to be a well inside a small cave. The water was crystal clear with a small bucket supplied to draw water for lunch. It is hard to imagine the magic such locations have on any romantic soul, your mind can travel back thousands of years,  here you are waiting for the return of the Greek Fleet  from Troy. Oddyssus' Cave will have to wait another day.