Book 1: 12 Kastellorizo Part 1

FINDING KASTELLORIZO

Kastellorizo (aka Castellorizo or Megiste), most easterly of the Greek islands. Note proximity to Turkish coast.

1965. The crowd at Barry Stern’s Gallery in Paddo wasn’t there for the art show. There was a frisson, a delicious sense of something very much out of the ordinary. George and Charmian were back from Hydra and the adoring sycophants were there in force.
  

Hydra today - still idyllic

We joined in shyly, trying to get closer in the crush around them when they arrived, but they were being mobbed and it wasn’t until everyone was quite drunk and ready to find the restaurant for the next stage of the evening that we managed to sidle through the ranks of the adoring and the voluble to try to tell them we had also been infected with the same call to the Mediterranean.

Hydra in 60's: Expat writers Charmian, George, Maryanne Ihlen & Leonard Cohen watch Maryanne's son learning to swim.

George Johnston and Charmian Clift  had just returned home to Australia after many years absence, living as expatriate writers in Greece.  We were leaving in just a few days for the same destination.  Leaving the dull conservative political climate still stuck in the post-war values and the restrictive society with its’ stultifying mental environment and seeking that lifestyle George and Charmiane, and others like the Durrell brothers, Freya Stark, Henry Miller and Rose Macaulay had extolled. It was a feeling like the passing of the baton - we would continue where they left off, somehow.  The inner call to those ancient stones beckoned; a well-trodden trail that led to mysteries that would be revealed in the magic blue-jeweled Aegean light.

In the 60's many expatriate artists and writers were living, alone, in couples, often in small colonies, on Greek Islands, the Levant, the Euxine, sorbing the ethos of the old stones and cool tombs.  Living simply in the tiny villages among the goats and the olive and fig orchards.  Feta and Greek coffee.  Mezés with retsina and ouzo under grape arbors looking out over the glorious Aegean sunsets.  Pilgrimages to tiny monasterios and hidden grottoes. I had been reading of their idyllic loves, greedy to be a part of this. 

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Lawrence Durrell especially was the muse who entranced me, challenged me to write. For years I had been reading his works, feeling my inner magnet irresistibly drawn to his Mediterranean world. I even named my daughter for his character Klea.My fellow Ozzy expat blogspot mate William Skyvington gives good Durrell in his blog Antipodes - see http://skyvington.blogspot.com.au/search/label/Lawrence%20Durrell

My irreverent okka husband would tease me about this fascination I had for these far-flung artists' colonies. “Hand woven yogurts”, he mocked.  But he was just as webbed in to the dream as I was - no architect could deny the wonders of the ancient world.  

We left Sydney on the Roma late 1965. Seeing us off, a little bewildered somehow,  were Mama and father, my teen brothers and a clutch of friends . Departure  was delayed. Six hours later only my free-spirit good friend Jenny Powditch (Magrath)  with first-born Petra in stroller, was left waving from the dock as the Roma cast off. It was many years before we met again. As the Roma reversed out of Circular Quay in a swirl of roiling green waters I felt the separation wrench as Jenny's tiny figure diminished then vanished, like the life we were leaving. We cleared the heads in one of those fiercely lurid brazen Sydney Harbor sunsets.  I looked back at the glaring golden mirror with the Bridge and city black in silhouette on the horizon. Elation and fear conflicted in me as I faced the reality that I might never return.  I was six weeks pregnant. The world outside the old penal colony island called me into the Great Unknown..  

SS Roma

 “I am a writer” I cried into the pounding waves as I stood Titanic-like on the heaving bow as it broached the Big Blue and the planet swung into darkness.  I was leaving the petty minded North Shore crowd with their stupid moral codes and mating games in which nice girls didn’t and all the best studs had to drive sports cars and did.   I was off to a freedom they didn’t seem to have the mentality to even locate on their map of life possibilities.  Many of them made their pilgrimages I guess.  But they went to L.A. or London and after the Tuscany holiday idyll returned after a couple of years and set up advertising agencies, got married, commuted from creche enclaves in leafy suburbs to the city; ended up divorced and alcoholic in their 40’s.   Well quite a few did. 

But there were others. Crazy super stars. Like Brett and Wendy. Jenny Kee, Richard, Germaine...stars who put Oz firmly on the intellectual map with their flair and genius. Of these only one, Brett Whiteley, shared the "divine madness" of the free creative spirit that infested, drove and liberated me from the chains of mundane normality shackling even the most brilliant in this effete gang of Ozzy expats flying the coop at that time. Others, less flamboyant but possessed of the fire of the soul went on Saharan caravans with the Tuartegts. One I encountered had just walked from Vladivostok to Samarkand and down to Goa. Yet another disappeared into the Amazon to live with the Yanomani for years.Some were friends, many were acquaintances and many more moved in our circles. 60's Sydney and Melbourne were still small towns in that respect. We all knew each other in one degree or another. No surprise then to find familiar faces among the expats clumped in London when we passed through on our way to the West Country to find a safe place to give birth some eight months later.

I guess Tuscany and the Balearic Islands were the meccas of that Sydney elite set trek.  Ibiza and Majorca.  Sure, after Greece and the U.K. we followed the surge to those places as a couple, ending up in a windmill on Formentera.

Klea & friend - Formenteran windmill1967

On several sorties to the adjacent island of Ibiza I'd run into old friends at waterfront cafes in "Dr. Livingstone I presume" encounters. Such a meeting with Collette was fortuitous, She had connections with Oz magazine and took a bundle of my latest (post-Morocco) drawings back to London & years later I picked up an issue at the Yellow House, and there they were, my little flower power sprite artoons. What a buzz! But after I left Formentera on my own trek the only old friend I met was Jenny Kee in Marrakesh.  She was always an adventurer, not locked into the clique values. At that time we were both awakening to the extreme colors of psychedelia. I shared my first acid trip with her roaming the bazaars soaking in the colors and smells.  But after Jenny I met no one from my past on my journey across the planet.  Walking to India. 

Yes, after leaving Australia we did find our Greek Island.  I looked at the map and chose the most remote dot some fifty miles east of Rhodos and just one mile from the Turkish coast.  Kastellorizo.  Castello Rosso. Megiste. 

After five weeks on a bizarre trip in the Roma, a retiring migrant liner returning almost empty on its’ last voyage, we disembarked at Genoa. We made our way across Italy and down the boot by train, with a mind-blowing few days in Florence for a first real encounter with the wonders European culture held for us. The gardens, the art, the architecture, the whole city and its stylish inhabitants, was a full frontal astounding experience that rendered this colonial couple numb with culture shock. It was overwhelming and I knew I had to return and not for just a few weeks.  

Our journey was culture shock, unexpected, often in-your-face abhorrent, but mostly experienced in a state of perpetual wonder and astonishment. Passing through Italy the depth and richness of the culture started impressing itself on us.  Milan. Tuscany and Florence.  The art, the architecture, the landscape, the light.  The people! Behaviors and ideologies often quite alien to us, a language we struggled to interpret. Somehow we got to Brindisi intact, only to have to fight off three robber/rapists who tried to lure us to their lair. Puny lads, no match for us, both very fit, easily able to dispatch them. After that we became very cautious about friendly strangers with agendas.

Undeterred we boarded the ferry to Corfu. Italy was not for us. We had a further destination, the ancient marble temples spoke louder than Leonardo and drew us into the older culture to the east. Greece was our destination and apart from those few astounding days in Florence, we quickly left Italy. lured on by the Sirens' call. On Corfu we found it, that Greek magic, but we knew we wanted to get to the very heart of Greece and, after a blissful few days,riding bikes around the island, swimming, sampling tabernas,  made our way across to the mainland shore and on by local buses to Athens.  Of course, I had to get as close to the source as possible and so we immediately walked to the top street of Plaka under the Acropolis.   Here we managed to rent a tiny room, a narrow tunnel barely wide enough for the bed, burrowing right in under the foundations of the Acropolis itself. Our landlady’s name was Aphrodite. Of course she was! She welcomed us with figs and Fasoulia bean soup and for the 1st time since disembarking from the Roma I felt the travellers' tensions dissipate as I came to a full stop, sorbing it all.

From the front stoop of the house we had the view out over Athens,

View from Plaka with Athens spread below to the horizon

spread out as far as I could see in every direction, with the other hills at eye level. Every night under my fingers I touched the ancient stones of the Acropolis behind our bed as I dropped off to sleep; .  Mana.  Touchstone.  I felt as if I had finally come close to some instinctive destination and was being fed by some arcane ancient source.

Standing up on that last street below the Acropolis in the evenings looking out, the sounds of the city came through as an intense screaming rising above the background din.  Persistent.  A city in torture.  I was told of riots and tanks moving around the streets, but I didn’t encounter any such.  Just heard the screaming of the city’s heart.

We did all the tourist things.  Visited the museums and the ancient ruins.  Took trips to visit monasteries in the country and bars in Piraeus.  Ate every evening in Plaka at kerbside tables with charcoal braziers and the smell of rosemary kebabs grilling.  I sampled the retsina and loved it but my baby didn’t, so I just jealously watched as Colin soaked it up. I visited the Turkish hamam, or baths, and luxuriated in hot water and clean hair and clothes.  It isn’t easy for an Australian, so used to clean living and regular hot water and daily ocean surfing, to travel unwashed for days, weeks, only doing a top-n-tail routine. Not this one at any rate.  But I was learning.  Australia was a long way away and after all, we had left it forever.  Hadn’t we ?

Still came the call, the itch in the soul and we looked beyond Athens. We took a short trip on an inter-island ferry and disembarked on Hydra. I needed to feel the ethos of this place that had such allure for so many expat artists, writers, poets, like George and Charmian. We wandered the port, then explored  a narrow lane leading uphill beyond the houses. looking back over the harbor. I loved what I saw, but it lacked something. Perhaps it was too settled, too much of a village. It didn’t quite fulfill my needs, I wanted wild. Ruins. Grandeur. And I didn't encounter one of the fabled expat artists. Certain expectations dashed, we didn't linger. It was back to a few more weeks enjoying the life under the Acropolis in Plaka and then ...farewell Athens for now, as we boarded another boat bound for the Dodecanese. 
I loved every minute as we ploughed through busy sapphire waves across the Aegean in the stern of a ferry threading our way through the island mazes among louche Scandinavian backpackers, fit blonde godlings all.  Mykonos, Kalymnos, Lesbos. We sampled various islands en route, disembarking at whim, until the final destination: Rhodos, irresistible for the immediate impact, street appeal of its massive ancient fortress walls. 

Massive fortress walls surrounding Rhodos port town.

 Once inside the town I felt immediate affinity. This was more like it. I was entranced, locked in a love affair that revisits as I write. Such an amazing place.

Here, in a first “real” bath in a proper bathroom in months, provided by our intelligent and sensitive landlady, I felt my baby quickening.   Reality.   

Pregnant - a la grecque

Our child would govern our movements from now on.  Greek doctors I visited all seemed to think I was looking for an abortion.   I knew we would have to go to England before the birth.  I was not going to risk my child to unknown hygiene or language difficulties.  But first we had our remote island destination.  Kastellorizo. The boat to that remote island didn’t leave for a few days so we set out exploring Rhodos, visiting Lindos for my birthday and meeting a fey couple of Kiwi artists in their sculpture studio tucked in a tiny lane where we spent some hours enjoying travelers’ tales while feasting on figs, walnuts, yogurt and honey out of the mid day heat at a cool table under a shady tree.

Winter was now well established.  I had settled on a formula for travel clothes.  A brown corduroy tabard, or a mid-thigh length big man’s jumper, over brown ski pants or black tights, with good walking boots I had bought in a flea market in Florence.  A capacious comfy duffel coat over the lot.  Very beatnik. My bulge was beginning to show and I needed warmth and comfort.  Forget the fashion now woman, practicalities rule, OK ?  I covered my hair in the Greek style with a flowered cotton scarf. I wanted to blend, be a part of the crowd.

We had left the big suitcase bulging with my best linens and silks, velvets and crepe de chines, with Aphrodite in Athens.  Colin complained endlessly about having to lug it from trains and buses. Up to this point I hadn't quite made the transition to traveler, clothes-wise. The suitcase was full of the beautiful things I couldn't bear to part with,  chosen from years of working in Sydney as a model and in Advertising production. Really stupid choices in retrospect. When I returned to Formentera from Morocco, years later, My Dear One had extracted his revenge, dispersing its contents, my beautiful clothes, away to his harem of girlfriends.   Everywhere I went I saw the personal treasures of years of careful garment selection being worn by other women.  Someone buying bread, or disappearing around a street corner. At a party, or getting on a bus. Formentera was a small island.  But clothes were the last thing on my mind, then, when I returned after many months in Morocco...to find...but...read on.. we are still in 1966 coming to my Greek island idyll, making realization I had to travel light as we crossed the Aegean.

Still on we traveled.  Hour after lurching hour on an ancient steamer breasting sloppy choppy seas in driving rain to the east close around the Turkish coast. Finally, after nine gut wrenching hours out of the gloom materialized: Kastellorizo! The ship turned out of the vile weather into the tranquil sheltered harbor port and dropped anchor.  Gathering our wits and bags, very grateful for the safe arrival,  we climbed down into the tender and were taken the short stretch to the stone quay where we were greeted by the Mayor and several excited and effusive dignitaries who explained the ship's captain had notified them of our impending arrival. They took us to a tiny taberna on the quayside, the only place open and after about an hour of questions & hospitality, led us out and down the quay to a tiny house which was to be ours apparently, for the duration of our stay. One of many empty houses as I later found out as I pieced together the sad history of this devastated island.

The little house still stands on the quayside today. 

Thanks to Kazzigraphics for this recent pic

Freya Stark, that extraordinary traveler and writer recorded her impressions of Kastellorizo. In 1952, some twelve years or so before me,  she set out in the sail boat "Elfin" to explore our cultural origins along the Lycian coast following the trail of ancient Persian and Greek traders:  "We had sailed into the harbour of the little Greek Castelorizo without landing, and seen its stricken streets, which the fire ate when the people had been carried away to safety by British ships in the war.  The wounded little town on its eroded hills has painted and rebuilt its houses around the harbour. It shows that gaiety with starvation which one may call - in the Greek nation, as in the Arab horse - the "endurance heart".

I can never think of Castelorizo without a stab as if someone had hit me, for we visited it again a year later, and it still wore the same clean look among its ruins, but with more houses closed and fewer people, as if the ashes had increased and the spark grown smaller at its heart." The Lycian Shore: p137-8.

We stayed for some 3 months, much to the bemusement of the islanders who rarely had any visitors and who certainly had never had a visitor from Australia.  And yet six thousand people from these islands, who had been taken to refugee camps in Palestine during the Second World War, had afterwards been resettled in Melbourne without ever returning to the bombed out ruin their beautiful island home had become. Melbourne has the largest expatriate Greek population and the Kastellorizon community in Melbourne outnumbers all the rest.  Every one of the remaining one hundred and twenty people had a relative in Melbourne.  There was Australian money in the tills and Bex powders on the shop shelves.
I don't know what I had expected of Kastellorizo, but it certainly was not what I found.

Kastellorizo - the Point with Mosque and Turkish coast just 3 miles away beyond.

Next Blog #13 - Kastellorizo Part 2

Footnote - photos by David John at www.my-favourite-planet.com

In this blog I very grateful to David John for allowing me to include some of his images of 21st c Kastellorizo from his very comprehensive My Favorite Planet blog. I encourage interested readers to visit this site to fully appreciate the island  and all it has to offer the adventurous traveler seeking an ultimate Greek island experience.

The photo of Athens comes from

https://sabbatikos.net/2013/06/29/acropolis-and-the-plaka/

  with permission pending. Enjoyed this blog of a 2013 family trip through the Sporades. A good read with great pix and fun observations..

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