Avakas Gorge

No bus comes anywhere near this gorge. The nearest stop is on Ag. Georgiou Avenue in Agios Georgiou, 3.18 km and 46 minutes of walking from the first step, and the avenue's two sides serve opposite directions: the stop you are dropped at is the 13th, the one you leave from is the 12th, and both mean about the same walk down to the road. The line is the 616 and its Sea Caves twin the 616B, which run between Agios Georgios Pegeias and Coral Bay. Paphos is not on that line, so the city is always a change - at Coral Bay, onto the 615 that ends at the Tombs of the Kings station. Coming in, the earliest chain is the 615 from Paphos arriving at Coral Bay at 06:30, where the 616B leaves again at 06:35 - five minutes, and you would be mad to bet on it - so the realistic first ride is the 07:15, which drops you at the 13th Stop at 07:33 and puts you on the trail by about 08:20. The calm version is the 615 that reaches Coral Bay at 08:35, the 616B away at 08:50, the 13th Stop at 09:12 and the first step around 10:00. Going home the gorge spits you back at the same spot - it is a loop - and you walk the 3.18 km down to the 12th Stop, from which the 616B passes at 15:33, 16:33, 17:27, 18:17 and 19:10, and the 616 at 15:33, 16:53, 17:32, 20:02, 21:02, 22:02 and 23:02. The 616B that leaves the 12th Stop at 16:33 reaches Coral Bay at 17:00, where the 615 back to Paphos leaves at 17:20, so that change is comfortable. The evening is generous: the last bus down the avenue is 23:07, and the last 615 from Coral Bay into Paphos is 23:50 on weekdays and 23:30 at the weekend. It is the morning that is tight, and the 46 minutes of walking in and out is the price of the gorge.

Shade is the one thing this gorge never runs out of: all fifty of my canopy samples fall inside mapped woodland, and the walls keep the sun off the floor for most of the day. So the month is decided by water and by the stone under your feet, not by heat. Of the 6.41 km, three quarters is natural ground and a quarter is stone, and the profile swings between 37 m and 220 m with 185 m up and the same back down - 39 of my 228 samples sit at ten per cent or steeper. That is a gorge, not a walk with a climb attached. Spring is the best of it: the stream is running, the crossing is a real crossing rather than a stride over damp rocks, and the walls are green. Your own July walk stays as the summer frame - the water down to the occasional cool river crossing, the goats on the slopes, and the shade doing all the work the water no longer can. Autumn is drier and quieter and just as walkable. Winter fills the pools again, but the stone floor is slippery under foot, the 46-minute walk in and out eats daylight that December does not have, and the first bus that could put you at the trailhead gets there no earlier than about eight in the morning. Carry water for the whole loop: the walk in and out is 6.36 km, which is longer than the gorge itself. And hold the 23:07 in mind - not because you will need it, but because the evening is wide enough that a slow day is not a punished one.