On a steep hillside, about halfway between the electric blue waters of the Aegean and the snow-capped peaks of Crete, our Land Rover, nicknamed Spartacus, grinds to a sudden halt.

Our 4WD safari guide, Geoff, jumps out and grabs a handful of silvery sprigs from the side of the gravelly road. “Do you know what this is?” he asks in his Cornish accent, unfaded by two decades of living in a tiny rural village on Greek’s largest island.