Crosposted from !camping@sh.itjust.works.
When I was about to break down my tent, six white Sardinian shepherd dogs showed up. Beautiful medium sized dogs. They were barking a bit, kept a bit of distance, eventually figured I was alright, then left. Guess they had work to do.
I left camp and cycled along this dirt track, which seemed to be a real promising panoramic path to go, when I ran into the group again. The sheep were right at the track and the dogs blocked my way. I stood there for a bit, tried what happened if I pushed my bike a bit more towards them, but they did not seem to like that whatsoever. Bummer. Well at least they left me alone through the night, i heard the sheep's bells and dog's barks all around me when i got here yesterday and was a bit worried they'd bark me out of the spot in the night.
.
Anyway, i did not want to test how far they would go and decided to turn around and take a different route along some asphalt road, which was also real nice, nobody around but some cows, sheep and cork trees.
Renting a car? This is an interesting form of bike touring!
And you managed to get the bike on a bus, too? Is it foldable?
Ha. Yeah just to pick up the passport.
I left my bike at the place where I spend the night, it is not foldable, no. I could have cycled back to the coast in a day I guess, but I really wanted to continue the way I was going and not ride that stretch three times really.
Already picked up my passport. Now I get to have a dip in the sea again which is also kinda nice, haha. Then get back on the bus, back to my bike.
Where in Sardinia? How is it for cycling? And are you doing it as part of a larger trip?
No it is just two weeks of cycling Sardinia. Basically all around, I have no fixed plan but I am loosely following the Bikepacking Sardinia routes, have them as an overlay along with some others. But I also want to make it to the west coast. Not sure if i'll go all the way to Cagliari or turn west earlier, got to see how I will cope with the heat.
That camping spot was actually a marked possible camp spot "with a view" on the bp route, so I did not end up there by chance. And the dirt track that was blocked by the dogs was along the bp route.
It's nice cycling here, even though it is Italy so it's got Italian drivers. But inland there ain't much going on at all, it's quite lonely, which I like. Hardly any traffic even on the bigger roads other than sheep farmers etc. Bit hot for my taste, but I can't complain about that now, choosing to do it in summer.
Interesting, thanks! Yes, very hot already in early June, that was when I went too, but not on a bike. Almost got heatstroke when I spent a day walking in Asinara national park in the far northwest. But that's the problem with southern Europe, it's too cold till about March then you have about 6 weeks until it gets too hot!
How's the experience camping?
Camping has been good so far and I think it will continue to be like that, easy, I see no reason why not, other than shepherd dogs. It's really lonely inland, there is quite a bit of fenced off terrain, but lots of spots without fences. And the fenced off stuff has often been just some cork tree orchards where it'd be easy camping too I guess.
And Sardinian shepherds kidnapping tourists is luckily a thing of the past, haha.
Should have brought my sleeping bag liner though, bit warm in the night for the sleeping bag.
So wild camping is feasible? I believe it's mostly neglected farmland over there - no problems with farmers?
I have only wild camped here twice yet, but yeah, I don't see a problem for the coming days. There seem to also be a lot of agriturismo places in the mountains, I guess farms where you can camp and probably get some food, also not opposed to use those. But I like wild camping too.
Keep posting! Especially about any agriturismo experience, that would be really interesting to hear.
Yeah I can post something when I'm done with the trip.
Now I have looked up agriturismo on Google maps, and most of them do not mention camping but they have rooms, even a pool, I am a bit surprised to see this now because i have passed "quite some" of them, they seemed to be littered all over the no-mans-inland and they all seemed camping ready and much more simple from the outside than what I see on google, some had a camping sign on them too. They were also all not listed in osm, not as a camp site at least.
I think they would expect you to eat there if you stay there, but I don't know if that is true.
I'm sure I will end up on one or the other, but not so sure if my sample size will be a good measure by the end of the trip.
Well I for one will be interested to hear how it went. I'm planning a bike trip later this summer and accommodation is (naturally) the big question mark. I hate camping so that's out. But proper hotels are basically unaffordable in much of Europe. AirBnb (ugh) is hit and miss. Hostels tend to have great locations but they're few and far between and becoming pretty poor value too, in my experience (crummy bunk bed in dorm for 2/3 the price of a private ensuite etc). So I'm always interested to hear in whatever other options exist.