Greek immigration was only a formality, even for people with exotic Aussie passports, so we were disappointed to be told we also had to make our way to the customs office in the town to have the carnets for the bikes processed. We followed the towering walls of the town�s old fortress onto the main street, which was lined on one side with tour boats and expensive looking yachts, and on the other by restaurants with acres of brightly coloured seats under striped canopies.

The customs office appeared completely chaotic, with everyone striding around purposefully carrying piles of paper and shouting at each other from one side of a desk to the other, while they all managed to completely ignore us. We just sat quietly until we spotted our man from the port. We automatically presented our by now much-stamped carnets but the officer just brushed them aside. He pulled a box of rubber stamps from his desk and clearly not knowing what to do, he scrutinised each one, discussed it animatedly with his colleague across the desk before finally deciding to cover all possibilities and proceeding to fill several pages of our passports with stamps. And then with a smile he dismissed us.

The Lonely Planet had described Kos as exhibiting the worst excesses of European tourism, but our first impressions were far more favourable. Bodrum had seemed far more developed than Kos which appeared to have elements of a real town, with some shops which didn�t sell bikinis or sunglasses. We locked up the bikes and had a wander through the streets, vainly searching for a decent sunglass shop to replace our longsuffering Aussie ones, Mo�s now embarrassingly held together with tape and mine with petrol tank repair putty in a striking blue. There are various archaeological remains in the town and as we had seen in Beirut, these had been preserved and incorporated into the new developments, surprisingly tastefully and expensively built in stone.

We were just about to head off to find somewhere to stay when a familiar figure puffed up to us with a sheaf of paper under his arm. The man from the customs, perhaps distracted by his comprehensive stamping exercise, had forgotten to take a note of our names for his own records.

We�d heard that there was a really nice campsite on Kos so rather than search for a cheap room, we just headed staight for the campsite, 3km out of town by the beach. Although Greece is cheap by British standards, it isn�t by ours, so we are definitely watching the drachmas. The downside to travelling west from Asia is that each successive country is more expensive than the last, and I�m sure Britain is going to be a real shock to us; I think we�d better leave the London trip till after we�ve found jobs.

Well the beach wasn�t really a beach and the campsite was a rock hard field with a few sickly trees offering thin fingers of shade from the midday sun, and it cost almost as much as a room in the town, but we were both knackered after our arse-flattening drive yesterday, so we just pitched the tent anyway. Mo collapsed for a few hours of sweaty sleep in the overheated tent while I caught up on some overdue bike maintenance, changing brake pads and adjusting chains.

When the temperature dropped below 30 degrees, we wandered into the town and found a nice little restaurant a few streets back from the waterfront where people weren�t fighting for tables overlooking the street from where they could watch the promenaders in their holiday finery. Although the town is all set up for tourism it�s clearly not high season yet, and a lot of the restaurants and bars are still empty. We strolled along �bar street�, a line of pubs employing English staff to drag punters in with the promise of two-for-one drinks and super loud dance music. Either they weren�t very good at their job or it really was low season, because they were all empty. Or maybe we�re just old and boring and the bars wouldn�t get really lively until long after we were in our beds.

Our original plan for Greece had been to spend a week on the island of Symi, as recommended by our friends Niki and Douglas who had been there several times. Unfortunately the ferry from Kos to Symi left at 4am, a ridiculous hour, neither night nor morning, and there was no way we�d be getting up that early or staying up that late (well we�d have to ride the bikes onto the ferry, a bit dodgy after eight hours in the pub), so we had to think again. Based more on the ferry times than on any recommendation, we opted for the island of Patmos, three and a half hours away.

After spending most of the day trying to update the website, we caught the 7.30pm ferry, a Channel-ferry-sized boat which arrives with the vehicle ramp already down and does the ferry equivalent of a handbrake turn, stopping just long enough for all the cars and trucks to rush off and on. We hadn�t even parked the bikes before the boat had left and the deckhand was shouting at us to get upstairs, so we just left our stuff on the bikes and dashed upstairs, to stand on deck and watch the various islands slip past. After a leisurely cruise and a surprisingly good and cheap meal of stuffed peppers and Greek salad (which unlike kebabs, you can�t have too much of), we arrived in Patmos. We headed to the car deck in preparation for the mad rush to get off the boat before traffic managed to push its way on, a bit like getting onto the subway in Hong Kong. It was then that Mo realised that her back protector was missing, a bit of a disaster since she�d worn it all the way from Dhaka, despite the heat and discomfort and had come to appreciate the sense of security it had given her. Of course we didn�t have a chance to do much about it as the ramp went down and we had to dash for the dock.

We weren�t in a great frame of mind when the various hotel owners started to hassle us the moment our wheels touched the ground. We certainly weren�t going to camp again but being naturally suspicious, we only reluctantly followed a man who promised a beautiful room for a reasonable price (the same as the campsite on Kos). Fortunately he was right, and when he suggested we go with him to his other apartments for some retsina to cheer us up, he was right about that too. He drove us through the port which is a lovely little town of white buildings and narrow alleys set around a sheltered cove with a narrow stretch of sand and a small fishing fleet of brightly painted little boats. Even the restaurants looked small and cosy and I spotted a lovely bar with timber and brass fittings, the next week was looking good already.

His other apartments were in a white building just outside the town and were surrounded by fields of watermelons and potatoes, with a hillside rising from the back garden. It was really peaceful and the only sound except for the crickets was laughter from the small party that the owner had organised to say goodbye to a couple who were leaving. We just joined in and sat drinking retsina and chatting with the other guests who had just finished (fortunately) a plate of sea urchins.

Everyone was really friendly and it was the first time we�d talked to Europeans for quite a while. There were three couples: Irish, Swedish and English, and they were full of praises for the island, their apartment and their host, so we decided to move in the next day. The English bloke had a guitar with him and at the request of Nico the owner, who had spent a year in New York when he was 18, he sang a few Simon and Garfunkel songs while Nico brushed the tears from his eyes.

The next day we moved our things to the new apartment which was lovely: clean and comfortable, with a balcony looking out across the harbour to the sea beyond. We then had to go and make a police report to claim the back protector on the insurance which was a little depressing, and spent the rest of the afternoon at the extortionately priced internet cafe.

Patmos is just the right size, big enough to have plenty of restaurants to choose from but small enough not to attract the hordes of beer-swilling Brits. We are really appreciating having a choice about what to eat again as well, although Mo seems to have got stuck in a Greek salad rut, and the food is all wonderful.

Patmos is famous as the island where the Apostle John was exiled and where he dictated the Book of Revelation. We visited the cave where he had lived, high on a hill behind the port. It was strange to visit a Christian place of pilgrimage after the many mosques of the last few months, but the same atmosphere of serenity permeated the atmosphere, as devout Christians prayed, kissed the various icons and lit candles.

From the top of the hill an impressive monastery, almost a thousand years old, dominates the island. The main town has grown up around the monastery and is exactly what a mediaeval town should be, with shady tunnel like streets, stone flagged and as wide as a cart, twisting and turning around a main square. We ate lunch on a rooftop restaurant looking across the old town on one side and to the undeveloped side of the island on the other, where steep rocky slopes reached to the sea.

One day we rode to the north of the island where a half hour walk, or a short boat trip takes you to Psili Ammos, a sandy beach in a sheltered cove. It�s an idyllic and very relaxed spot where we encountered, but decided not to join, the only nudists on the island. We swam in the perfect blue water and ate lunch in the taverna on the beach, where like all the restaurants here, we were encouraged to come into the kitchen to choose our lunch.

We had dinner several times with the Irish couple we�d met, Barry and Susannah, who had a few good stories to tell. He had managed to get the franchise for various GPS and fish finding equipment for the west coast of Ireland, which he had built into what was now clearly a very lucrative business. And then a syndicate of workers in his small company, which he hadn�t realised he was part of, had recently won the Irish lottery, so he was in Greece on an experiment to try out very early retirement, and was doing his best not to call the factory. Susanna on the other hand seemed to have tried her hand at everything from working in a French campsite to running a health food shop to being a social worker. She was in Greece to buy a bit of land on one of the islands, which seemed like a good idea to us.

So after five days of lounging on beaches, eating good food, getting burnt and generally recharging, we booked the ferry to Piraeus. Before we left, we went to collect the police report, and what should we spot behind the reception desk but Mo�s back protector. We have no idea how it had been returned but we�d heard that the islands have a very good reputation for honesty and suspect that the ferry captain had put some pressure on his crew, and it mysteriously reappeared.

We felt pretty good as we sped up the ramp onto the night ferry, our visit finishing on a high note. We made sure we didn�t leave anything on the bikes and went upstairs to find a place to sleep. Fortunately travelling deck-class didn�t limit us to the open deck, where we�d have to have tied ourselves onto the benches to stop the violently gusting wind from lifting us in our sleeping bags into the air like empty crisp packets. The ferry was really quiet so we got to lie out in the lounge downstairs, which seemed ideal at midnight, but not so comfortable at 3am, when woken for the tenth time bathed in sweat and blinded by the lights, by a Greek singer on TV or by the crew laughing heartily at some nautical joke.

We eventually arrived in Piraeus, the port of Athens, a little dazed and wearied, at 9am and got onto the bikes ready for the rush. It was already high in the 30s and the car deck in the bowels of the ship was like a furnace, reeking of oil and sweat. Halfway down the ramp Mo�s bike stalled, her worst nightmare, and she had to paddle out of the way while the other trucks and cars barged past in both directions. The little DR has been amazing, we�ve spent much of the trip waiting for it to break down but Mo has coaxed it this far and only has to manage another 4,000kms. Unusually, and despite all her cajoling and cursing, she couldn�t get it started again so in the growing heat we had to bump start it, and headed into the famously hectic traffic of Athens.

Amazingly Mo managed to prevent the bike from stalling at the head of a queue of traffic or at some awkward junction, and we somehow also managed to avoid the bulk of the traffic, so with some relief we found ouselves on the motorway west. We had been aiming to reach Igoumenitsa by lunchtime, a town in the northwest of mainland Greece and opposite the island of Corfu, where we intended to catch the ferry to Ancona in Italy. However, once we were on the motorway, we realised that it was much further than we�d thought and we really didn�t feel up to another 400km day.

The highway followed the coastline of that southern portion of Greece which is all but an island, and is only joined to the northern half by a narrow strip of land in the east, and in the west by ferry. The road soon narrowed into two lanes of speeding traffic of which we were the slowest, and we were already exhausted when we came to the port of Patras at 1pm. We�d heard that at some times of the year it was possible to get an Italian ferry from here, so on the off-chance, we stopped at the first travel agent we saw. To our relief there was a 2pm ferry which we immediately booked before running out of the door and speeding straight for the port.

And what a ferry it was, only a year old, finished in polished timber and plush carpet, complete with swimming pool and four bars. Travelling deck-class, we immediately settled ourselves on the deck, next to the pool and the bar. We spent a few enjoyable hours chilling out and watching the German and British truck drivers drink copious amounts of beer in the sun and get redder and redder, drunker and drunker. I�m ashamed to say that it was a decisive victory for the Germans, as the British truckies (or is it truckers now that we�ve left Australia?) gave up at 6pm while the Germans went on for another three hours.

Five hours after leaving Patras, we stopped at Igoumenitsa, and watching the various traffic waiting to join the ferry, we recognised a familiar looking campervan. I couldn�t place it until I saw the big Yin and Yang symbol on the side which we had last seen on the India/Pakistan border, when the German couple driving it had helped me avoid paying baksheesh to the slimy customs official who had claimed to be their �friend�.

As soon as the German couple, Renee and Doreen, arrived on deck, the German truckies immediately adopted them and by the time we spoke to them, they were clearly catching up with their drinking partners and as we said "hello, remember us?", we watched the recognition dawning on them gradually. It was really strange to catch up with them and to find out how our routes had wandered since we last saw them. Apparently they had spent several days at Pakistan customs for some reason and had genuinely got quite friendly with the officials on their trip east, but Renee reckoned the friendship was based largely on the fact that they had fancied Doreen. Their trip had certainly been very different to ours, spending 9 months in a camper, most of them in India and Pakistan. Renee had been searching for somewhere outside Germany to settle down but hadn�t found his idyll, so they were continuing the quest in Europe. They asked if we wanted to come with them to a place they knew in Italy where they knew some people who set up alternative circus shows with lightshows and fireworks. Regrettably we had to decline and head north...

We didn�t have the option not to stay on deck this time so we settled down on our plastic benches for the night. They hadn�t seemed so narrow during the day and I never did work out what to do with my spare arm, but at least it wasn�t too windy or too hot and we didn�t wake up until the other passengers started to arrive for breakfast by the pool. We then had the usual hectic rush from the car deck, with Mo skillfully keeping her bike running until we cleared the dock, and then we were off into Italy.