The Tranquil Lake Kerkini – Bird Watchers Paradise

We have spent the last two days/nights wild camping on the edge of Lake Kerkini (N41.20742 E023.09626), tucked up near the mountainous Bulgarian border - our 100th place we have stopped the night at since leaving England on 27 December 2017! We are parked alongside the Brit couple Linda and Pete who we met at Thessaloniki, and a Scottish/Brit couple who live in Bansko and had come across the border for a couple of days.

Sonny, the motorhome on the left enjoying his tranquil spot

Leaving Thessaloniki we took the free motorway for a long stretch, then through flat farm land around to the lake.  There are so many fields throughout Greece growing crops/fruit and veg but noticeably here it was sweetcorn, tobacco and sunflowers.
At Lake Kerkini we met Vasili who runs boat trips; he said he was taking a Dutch couple out on the lake at 7am the following morning and if us 6 would like to join him.  Mel and I haven’t seen 7am for a while, so it was going to be a shock to the system getting up at 6.30am to be ready for 7am but it was worth the sacrifice!

The lake is home to over 300 species of birds - terns, egrets, grebes, squacco and grey heron, flamingos, geese, ibis, avocets, cormorants, pelicans, bee-eaters, and many many more.  We saw so many of these birds and Vasili was so knowledgeable about them all and the lake, he has worked here for over 20 years.  Unfortunately, with our naff camera it wasn't easy to capture the real beauty of it all but hopefully the below pictures will give you a bit of a flavour of what we saw in the 3 hours we were on the boat and all for only 7.50 euros each - fantastic value for money!

Setting off just as the sun rises

One of many of the pelicans we saw

Little Egret

It is an artificial lake created in 1932 and redeveloped in 1980.  Huge expanses of water lilies stretch across the anvil-shape lake, from which the River Strymónas flows out of and into the Aegean Sea.

Heron hiding in the lilies

Flamingoes

Pelican in flight

This squacco heron is camouflaged so well

It is also home to water buffalo who graze the banks.  These 3 seemed to like swimming around the lake together though and Vassili called them 'the crocodile'!

The lake is also home to snakes!

Vasili parked the boat up at the side of the lake so we could get a closer look at the Pelicans nesting.

Purpose built nesting area for the pelicans.  Unfortunately, viewed from quite a distance as you can't get across parts of the wetlands this time of year - apparently, it's better to come in May time.

Enjoying an evening meal of Buffalo meat at Oikoperiigitis in Kerkini Village - apart from Linda, who is a vegetarian.  Vasili works for the owner of this hotel, who also built the boat we went out on the lake in.

After the boat trip we took a scooter ride up into the hills to a monastery of Timios Prodromos in Akritochori, a working monastery and home to 45 nuns. We got a fantastic welcome and the nuns we spoke to, their English was quite good. We were invited to take coffee and biscuits with them and all for free! They wouldn't accept any money and we felt really guilty as we're not catholic or very religious, so we offered some money as a donation towards the monastery and they were so grateful.

Timios Prodromos Monastery in Akritochori

Behind the monastery there is a fresh water lake that you can swim in but on close inspection it didn't look that clean and  we decided it wasn't a wise thing to do! We did get a great view across the lake though from here.

We cross the border into Bulgaria later today and will be sad to leave Greece, as we have had a fabulous 17 days in this beautiful friendly country.  We hope to return next year maybe in the spring or autumn though when it is a lot cooler!

Sally x