Mt. Etna

17th May 2016

Today's blog is a photo shoot of Mt. Etna -and one of the best/most interesting camp-sites we have found for quite awhile! 

Photos like these are often labelled -"hope"!

And the mountain!

Etna -smoking! 

Earthcruiser at Etna-smoking! 

We camped here, enjoying the black landscape, but soon became aware of the rumbling from the mountain! This was a new experience for us. Should we assume this was normal? Or was the mountain about to erupt? 

There was a small amount of passing traffic and none of it seemed to be pannicking. So the locals didn't seem to be worried! But do we trust the locals? Well at home we know that the locals very often underestimate the risk from our own hazards -like cyclones, crocodiles, and stingers. 

Oh well. We found that we couldn't hear the rumbling from inside the camper -so we decided to sleep on it. I did though, veto the idea of going further out of sight where we wouldn't be seen by any authority evacuating the area.....😅

18 May 2016

Well if yesterday impressed us with the rumblings of the mountain, today had more! When we awoke the rumbling had increased and the mountain was much more dramatic! 

We travelled on to Etna Sud where there is a cable car and 4wd drive tours much closer to the crater. 

But when we got to the top of the cable car we found that the 4wd trips had been temporarily stopped because of dramatic action from the mountain. 

The rumbling had become much louder and more often and the emissions from the crater more dramatic. We did eventually get taken up closer to the crater but the walks had been cancelled because of the increased risk. 

In fact we noticed that the staff were bringing down buildings from near the crater, presumably because of the risk of a significant eruption. We were told that last time the volcano was this active was Dec 2015. 

As the day wore on we noticed increasing activity, with increasing solid matter being erupted and occasional red molten material being thrown up. 

It was an exciting day! We felt the money we spent on the cable car and 4wd tour were well worth it. It was definitely an experience of a lifetime for us! What more can Sicily bring up for us!

I did get some great videos of the action but so far haven't managed the technology to get them from the camera to the blog. If I do manage this I will load them on to the Facebook page. Search Facebook for "Waltzing Matilda -our Earthcruiser journey around the world". 

Ciao.