Walk to the Kamares Aqueduct in Larnaka

It was about ten days ago that I went for a walk with friends around part of the Salt lake nature trail. We had planned to walk as far as the aqueduct, but left later than intended, and met the other friends part-way along. I commented at the time that I had never actually walked as far as the aqueduct.

So, when today was evidently going to be another warm (for January) and sunny day, I agreed to walk there..

Like yesterday, there were huge puddles everywhere:

And, yes, the sky really was that blue.

It's good - from the perspective of the island's water supply - that the ground must be so water-logged that these haven't drained away or dried up two days after the last rain. But it's rather worrying from the perspective of new mosquito breeding grounds appearing in so many places.

There was a mini waterfall with some rushing water, too, a little further along. Last year, apparently, the children splashed around in it and had fun. But it's fenced off now; it did look rather dangerous. So they were dissuaded from going down there.

Elisabeth had sat happily in the buggy for the first kilometre or so, but was eager to walk for a while. And Helen was starting to get tired. So she climbed in:

I suppose three kilometres is quite a way for a three-year-old, although she has done it before. Katie and Lukas were ahead when we caught sight of the aqueduct not far away:

According to Wikipedia, the Larnaka aqueduct (known locally as 'Kamares') was built in 1747 during the Ottoman empire, and was used to transport water until as recently as 1939.

Lukas immediately decided to climb part-way up the side of one of the many arches:

He's wearing a white shirt, near the middle of the photo.

Meanwhile, Sheila and the three girls walked across a plank bridge, beside yet another newly-formed large mosquito haven puddle.

I stayed with the buggy, and attempted to catch the sunlight just shining through one of the arches. I probably should have used one of the manual camera settings...

Katie wanted to stand next to Lukas, so Sheila helped her up:

But she didn't like it, and quickly came down again. So Sheila decided that she would climb up herself. Elisabeth put her arms out and said 'Up!' - so I lifted her up, and she sat there too:

It was all very pleasant, and we stood there chatting for a while.

The only problem was that, it being January, none of us had thought to take water with us, and we were all getting a bit thirsty. And we were nearly 3km from home. So the walk back was harder work, with Elisabeth wanting to be carried, and Helen insisting on being in the buggy for most of the way.

But we made it. I was quite surprised to see that it was 12.30 by the time we were sitting in our friends' kitchen, enjoying glasses of water. We had been out for two and a half hours. I was then a little shocked to find how very tired I felt by the time I walked the last 500m or so to our house.