Romania/Bulgaria

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Trans Fargasian Highway

The last 10 days have seen us travel from Hungary to Romania (the Romanian Embassy issued our visas next day in Budapest), through Bulgaria to Greece where we are now on the coast in Thessaloniki and where I am slowly but surely becoming addicted to Ouzo and Rich getting the required levels of Mythos beer back into his system.

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Medievil Sighisoara

We’ve ridden across endless hot, flat, sunburnt plains and fields of corn, grapes and sunflowers and up through cool, sweet smelling, pine clad mountains (although mostly the former and not enough of the later). We had cooler temperatures for a couple of days (low 30’s) but its been in the high 30’s each day since and we’ve seen no rain. Each country has been slightly different with Bulgaria perhaps proving the friendliest, having the best wine but also for us arguably, the most unfortunate.

We left Hungary on 19 August, riding from Budapest towards the Romanian border of Oradea. It kind of felt a little like a celebration day because we had, after earlier problems, obtained the visa and also because we knew today Rich would clock the bike. He’d purchased BOB (recently christened Bloody Old Bike) in 1997 when it had done about 50,000 miles and now 6 years later we were passing the 100,000 mile mark. We pulled to a stop on the long stretch of road just short of the Romanian border and I got off with the camera. Rich rode forward about 100 metres to get the clock reading 99,999 where we would get a photo and again at 100,000 miles (yes, sad isn’t it).

It was with great amusement when I pointed the camera towards him to find anther person in the frame. This stretch of road is riddled with young ladies plying their trade with the truck drivers of eastern europe and one of them had realised this was Richie’s lucky day. She was surprised but not upset when I arrived with camera in hand and even gave us a friendly wave when we rode off eastwards without having parted with any money.

Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria all have visible remnants of their communist past with perhaps Romania feeling the most impoverished, having the biggest number of large scale industrial projects lying empty and/or still polluting the country and knowing least how to clean their toilets. Romania and Hungary had some beautiful architecture, mostly sadly fading in its glory and we felt the rush of early capitalism that many of the people are embracing and some taking advantage of. We avoided the cities as much as we could, preferring the traditional villages with their simpler ways that gave us insights into what their culture had been like. Many families are still living without running water in their homes, using animals and manual labour to give them food from their fields and using the labour of their children to boost their family income. For us, the Romanian sights at Sighiosoara, Premjer, Peles Castle at Sinaia (built by Romania’s first king) and the trans fargasian Highway really impressed us.

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Lisa has finally found her dream home

We would have liked to have visited the Black Sea coast and the east of these countries but our programme has allowed us one month to get to Turkey and an Iranian visa deadline of 4 October so we’ve pushed on averaging 123 miles/day (this includes days when we are not riding). Surprisingly we get on the road at about 8.30 – 9am most days but don’t get to camp until about 5 in the evening. By the time we’ve had a couple of breaks, contended with the roads, eaten, taken photos and had 2 or 3 petrol fill-ups the day is almost over and we are too tired from the ride and heat to do much else. Once we reach Turkey we’ve allowed ourselves time to take things slower so the pace and what we do and see will change a lot.

We crossed the Danube between Romania and Bulgaria by ferry arriving at Vidin ($US12 for the 3 of us and a 15 minute crossing). BOB’s green card insurance had expired before we left London and Rich hadn’t wanted to pay £200 for one month insurance. So we risked it and although the attentive border guard leaving Romania requested our papers, we managed to stall him for so long searching for it that he let us depart without viewing it as the ferry was by then running late. On the Bulgarian side we admitted defeat and paid 15 Euros for 5 days 3rd party insurance.

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Harvest time in Bulgaria

On 25 August we headed south towards Rila Monastery to spend a day or two hiking and cooling ourselves in the mountains. Just short of the turnoff from the main road we had a mishap with the bike not going into gear and graunching horribly when the clutch was released. We had stopped in the midday sun outside a car wrecker come dodgy mechanics and pushed the bike off the road into their driveway so Rich could have a look. He thought the clutch had broken so proceeded to remove the clutch hub but had to contend with one of the non English speaking mechanics also trying to help. To cut a long story short, we ended up with one of the 6 clutch spring castings breaking off due to mechanical incompetence on behalf of the Bulgarian butcher.

We only saw about 4 bikes in Bulgaria and most of them looked liked overlanders so were not surprised when we were told that we had to take the bike to Greece to get it fixed as there we no suitable bike mechanics in the country. We left Bulgaria at 4am, the bike strapped down on the back of a truck owned and driven by two big, deep fried pastry, coffee addicted Bulgarian brothers who had had 3 hours sleep between them and with me having to sit on Richards knee for 5 hours in the cab. Amazingly, we arrived safely in Greece, also on a caffeine high around 9am and delivered the bike safely into the hands of one of the 2 Yamaha dealers in Thessaloniki.

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A possible trade-in for the TDM

Thessaloniki has proved to be a god send for us as it is ‘practical city’. A huge suburb for the boys with auto accessories, bike shops, mechanics, spare parts etc. Not amazingly attractive but practical, it has loads of cafes and we’ve managed to get our clothes into a washing machine for the first time in a month and have also had the luxury of being in hotel rooms rather than the tent as we have been every night so far.

So we are chilling, relaxing and are happy with the service on the bike. The problem has turned out to be worn teeth on the gearbox output shaft (yes, I had to be told that) so the chain wasn’t turning properly and this explains all the problems we’ve had so far – not carburator probs etc as had been previously diagnosed. The guys at the shop are fantastic, they’ve taken the engine out of the bike and are giving it a complete overhaul and understand what we are trying to do. Rich was going to get this done in London but the price was prohibitive so its fortunate that this has happened now as Greece or Istanbul are probably the last places where we could find mechanics who know ‘big bikes’ before we hit Asia. The price of parts and labour are probably 50% of what London would have cost and Rich now realises the 15-20,000 miles he put on the bike for work since March when we were going to depart have taken their toll detrimentally.

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Hot to Trot

We plan to leave here tomorrow for a few days of sun and exploration along the Greek coast before we hit Turkey and a new experience.

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Hungary

We're still knocking around Hungary rather than exploring Romania due to visa hassles - but more of that later.
We left Slovenia 6 days ago and continued on to Keszthely on the shores of Lake Balaton. Not so impressed with Lake Balaton – seems like half of Germany is holidaying here and everyone seems unimpressed at our inability to speak German.
Budapest was our next stop. Very pretty city with fabulous art deco, art nouveau and neo-classical architecture everywhere but we've seen enough cities during our time living in London so it was a pleasure to leave and continue exploring the back roads and small towns.
We've both been feeling a bit let down with Hungary – nothing here had grabbed us until Eger. Within stumbling distance of our campsite was a valley full of wine cellars featuring the famous Bulls Blood wine amongst others.

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So much to choose from

A very convivial evening was spent going from cellar to cellar tasting their wares and enjoying music and fine wine with some partying gypsies.


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A shot of wine

It was with numbed heads that we packed up the next morning and rode to the Romanian border where we had a very unpleasant surprise.
Our Lonely Planet stated that visas were available on the border for New Zealand passport holders however, we were informed that visas were no longer issued at the border crossings (for Australians and NZ passport holders) and sent back to Budapest to apply for one there. To make matters worse it was Saturday morning – so we have the weekend to kill before we can apply tomorrow. Fingers crossed they can issue us visas quickly……

Italy - Slovenia

Bugger.
My Kiwi 'she'll be right' approach to the amount of miles I've clocked up on the TDM over the course of 2 years blasting around the south of England for my job has finally caught up with us.
The bike had started running a bit rough through the south of France and into Italy so I gave myself a maintenance day at Lago D'Orta, stripped down and cleaned the carbs & replaced the plugs & leads.

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A fun way to spend the day at Lago D'Orta

Put it all back together, seemed OK on a test ride, loaded up & headed off down the road & found the problem still existed.

Rode on to Verona for a change of scenery and a bit of advice from a mechanic. Their diagnosis on the symptoms I described was that the rubber on vacuum seal for the carb slides had probably perished.
So another day stripping the bike down. Bugger.
However the mechanics diagnosis proved way off the mark. Carb slides were fine, problem proved to be nothing worse than a sticking choke cable.
On the bright side we had the best part of a day checking out the sights of Verona. We followed this up with another day wandering around the canals of Venice – too beautiful a city to bypass without playing tourist.

Being in holiday mode now we had stopped keeping track of the days and didn’t realise that it was Saturday morning when we packed up and left from Venice and that all of Italy was on the road heading off on the start of their summer vacation.
I have never encountered such a traffic jam. The traffic was solid all the way from Venice, around past Trieste and up to the Slovenian border and the temperature was in the high 30’s. We were very thankful to be on a bike and able to ride down the side off this mess, past cars and drivers that were getting hot under the bonnet.

Huge queue for the border, which, of course, we jumped, then… a Slovenian traffic jam all the way down the coast. We were heading for Piran which our guide book says is heaving at this time of year so we were worried that everyone was heading there.

Such a relief to finally park up and get off the bike and to find that it was all relatively quiet. Had our first dip in the sea and spent the afternoon enjoying this delightful little town.

Slovenia is great. We loved the pretty coastal towns, roads are great for bikes, countryside really pretty with half the country still covered in forest and the people are friendly. It is slightly cheaper but not a lot than Italy but we found Slovenian camping grounds more expensive than France and Italy.
I’m writing this lying on the shores of crystal clear Lake Bohinj, having had a relaxing swim after a days ride with the mountains as a backdrop; this sure beats working.

Any map readers out there may notice we have failed to make any progress in a South-easterly direction today. Well worth the detour though. Tomorrow we head east towards Hungary.

England, France & Italy

Finally, we've done it!
Only 2 days later than planned we finally managed to depart on our oddessy on a fittingly grey and drizzly English morning.

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Leaving London

On Wednesday morning we finally departed London, crossed the channel and started heading southeast.

We are now 5 days into our trip and relaxed for the first time in at least 2 months. The amount of stress and sheer volume of effort involved in starting this undertaking amazed and appalled us, but now it feels like a weight has been lifted off our backs now we have packed our lives into little boxes and untangled the web of paperwork involved in London life.

We spent our first night in Epernay in the heart of the Champagne region, so of course had to celebrate the start of our voyage with a glass of bubbly – or at least Lisa did. A cold beer somehow seemed more appealing to me.

Thursday was spent exploring the back roads down through Burgundy and enjoying a last taste of French village life. Fridays ride took us through the foothills of the Alps on some lovely winding scenic roads ending on the shores of Lake Geneva.

Yesterday we rode through the heart of the Alps, up through Mont Blanc and into Italy with stunning alpine views all the way.

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At Mt Blanc

We chose to take the 3km tunnel du Mont Blanc which connects France with Italy and were horrified at the 18 Euro charge. We continued on to the beautiful Lago d’Orta and are now enjoying a restful day in true Italian style.

We have been camping all the way and are enjoying the last taste of Europe but are looking forward to hitting Eastern Europe with new cultures and lower prices.