September 2007

It was a quiet day at work when Barry set his mind to a possible road trip to see our friends Mali and Janice now living in Bulgaria. Enough of the “Appy Wanderers” had said yes to make it a possibility so he set about organising it.

So, early one Saturday morning in September 07 we rolled gingerly out of the dark warm bowels of the ferry onto the damp steel ramp, nodding at the Belgian custom chap before clearing Zeebrugge, hitting the motorway grinning broadly for the first 360 mile leg to Wertheim in Germany and our first overnight stop, as far as dramas go I’m afraid not a lot happened today except to count the aircraft landing at Frankfurt airport as we passed close by it.

We landed around four in the afternoon at the hotel in Wertheim, our half way stop, this is a nice place in a small town. We had been here before so the garages had been made ready for us again.

The next morning everyone packed early and hit the road for a second 300+ mile run down to Vienna in Austria. This day was going smoothly too until we ground to a halt midmorning. The autoroute was gridlocked in both directions. We managed to pull over at a service station to discuss options. It was decided to try to filter and see how it goes, filtering is not the done thing in Germany so with extreme care we set off into the huge jam and began moving up. Generally everyone moved over and let us through and we waved thank you at them, though a few refused to move, so with a deft lane switch here and there they were passed on their other side. “Danke vanker” muttered Janet of the Falklands as her Brian huffed and puffed hauling his boxy looking 1500cc Goldwing after me slipping from one lane to the next! It was getting extremely warm now; I was unzipping as much as I could but it was still hot. Was this going to be an Indian summer? The road ahead was closed so at the next junction the police turned us off to find our way to the next junction along minor roads, it took a while to get our bearings so cost us some time but hey, we were on holiday, and we have never seen this part of Rothenberg before!

We rejoined the auto route again heading south east towards Austria, the scenery and the weather was most pleasing when we hit another hold up on the motorway, it was by now late afternoon, we were still 50 miles from Vienna. We were stuck between junctions and hemmed in by those huge protective concrete barriers, one driver at the side of us smiled and asked which part of England I came from I replied Wakefield, he said he had lived in Dewsbury for several years; his English had a definite Yorkshire twang! we had a good old chat before the traffic got moving again.  This long hold up lasted about two hours and by the time we got to the accident site the police had more or less cleared the smashed vehicles away, we saw just two wrecks by the time we got there. I was thankful to be moving again, the temperature was in the high thirties, sweat oozed out of every pore.

By the time we reached Vienna it was getting dark, we closed ranks as we hit the city centre and homed into the hotel over cobbled streets and tram lines.  It got more exciting as darkness came over us and we ran as a pack through the traffic trying not to let anybody in between us. We were six machines it was easy to do, people stopped and stared as the Goldwing light show hit town, we cleared some traffic lights at a right turn as folk suddenly stepped out in front of me without looking., I guess I should have stopped, unfortunately I was committed to the corner so I tooted and shouted as I passed through them, it made me giggle to see them suddenly wake up and jump backwards, sorry people! We circled once or twice due to one way signs stunting our progress, eventually we got to our destination and pulled over. It was a real run down looking building wedged between two modern buildings, ‘Fatha’ and Barry must have been wondering “What the hell kind of place is this then? We need not have worried though. Yes it was a really old Austrian hotel but they looked after us really well and provided us with secure parking for the bikes.

People were late for dinner tonight, the boys were messing with the purple trike, because the water leak was worrying John and Lynne. The result was that it was close to being U/S and it would be impossible to continue. After consulting the Honda Goldwing help guide of 2007 Barry contacted an Austrian called Wolfgang who came to the rescue, Wolfgang would guide John and Lynne to a garage that would be able to ship in and replace the old pump. Wolfgang would prove to be a big help to them. We stayed here a day or two taking in the sights and really loved the city, I think all of us said we would come here again.

Monday came, we waved our goodbyes to John and Lynn and departed into the morning rush hour traffic, we did a few circles as is customary before picking up our route to Hungary. A few folk wound down their windows to chat whilst we sat at traffic lights. On the way out of Vienna we attracted the attention of a local cop on his bike, checking us out before settling behind Jane and Steve on their red trike, maybe he had never seen one before? After half a mile he turned down a slip road and left us to it. We were soon on the right road to Budapest, it was getting hot already, and it was only 09.30 in the morning.

Though seasoned in Europe none of us had ventured so far in this direction. The land was vast, flat and featureless here save for the endless pylons and the TESCO signs…yes TESCO signs, huge storage depots, we saw several of them near the junction’s exits for a mile or two. The temperature had risen higher, the clouds scattered as noon arrived and we came to the Hungarian border stopping to get tickets to display. We rode up to the slovenly looking border guards, they looked at our passports, one guard asked the price of the bikes “50,000 English pounds my friend” I lied; his eyes widened and waved us through! The motorway was empty of traffic and we had fun taking pictures of each bike in turn side by side, cruising along at 80 mph. It’s not often you find roads this empty for so long, it was a photo opportunity not to be missed especially after the last few days of long sweating traffic hold ups.

We approached the Budapest ring road an hour or so later under the shadow of a high rising ridge line to our left, away in the distance sat a huge black monument of an eagle with outstretched wings. We curved away from it on the auto route around Budapest, a truck fire on the opposite side had stopped the traffic for miles and within a few miles we too came to a stop. I got off the bike and sat on the Armco, some people got out of cars and took photos of the bikes, truckers strained over to look down at us, we were clearly an unusual sight, some smiled, some chatted and some just looked. Its amazing how many spoke English, it took a long time to finally get clear of this mess. We saw the accident, it was a big old high axled lorry with long steel pipes sticking out of the rear, this had stopped suddenly causing another truck to slam into the back, the huge pipes had moved, killing the driver.

As we cleared the accident fierce showers now blew across us from right to left and they were really heavy. I was keeping pace with Brian at the back, he had one of those wipers attached to his screen, which was a full on barn door type of screen, he kept swinging it across every minute or so with his hand, I thought it utterly pointless yet highly amusing. We battled through for another fifteen minutes before the rains passed, the sunshine reappeared and all was well again just as we left the motorway onto ordinary roads. It was soon time to stop again for petrol and a break; we’d done about 280 miles so far. Our intention was get through Hungary and into Romania before nightfall.

We filled the bikes as a ropey little bike pulled into the garage, our jaws dropped, the guy had a huge propane cylinder lashed to the side of the bike with a couple of bungys and he had scraped along the concourse as he pulled off the road, he swapped it over for a full one and drove away helmetless with flip flops flapping as he grinned at us. The little garage seemed to be run by a large extended family, they all came out with mobiles to take pictures of the bikes, the remaining trike drew the most attention. After a breather, drink, and topped up tanks we too left.

The roads through the hamlets were in a very poor state, one had to lookout for lumpy tarmac especially on bends where it had been stretched and pushed to the edge sculptured by trucks and the hot weather. It was about here that a new phrase came into being as we began to hit these lumps…. “OOOHYABASTARD!” it was used quite a lot over the next week or so. I can still here the thumping of the shock absorbers as they bottomed out! Kiskunfelegyhaza was one of the larger town we passed through, it was in need of some TLC, the buildings were quite tatty. We had to weave to miss potholes and lumps in the road; there was an absence of cars, just people bicycles and horse drawn carts. We saw a beautiful looking church in the centre everyone stopped and stared at us as we passed. When the trike came they pointed wildly I could imagine then saying “Look Ivan, that one has got 3 wheels!” We were on the open road again, but it was still quite bumpy so the speed stayed down, hovering about 50 MPH. In places the edge of the road was disintegrating and just fell away. We tried to avoid the humps and holes but it was difficult, we hit some, some as big as bloody shell holes, I swear, every now and again we saw a dozen or so dilapidated houses, not old but seemingly abandoned, amongst them now and again stood an opulent house along the road side that also appeared abandoned and in a half built state, incredibly folk produced mobile phones and pointed as we came by, we came across an abandoned articulated lorry in a ditch with all its cab smashed in, strangely nobody was about, another truck was on its roof down an embankment its trailer poking into the air. These articulated lorries were basic things really really old tractor units they had no advertising, no signs or anything, just basic trucks. The road got even worse and we had to ride more to the centre, that is until a truck came towards us and we moved over, time and time again we did this. The thing I noticed was the total absence of motorbikes, the land appeared vast and bare, no buildings or monuments, an endless skyline all around us…we bounced onwards, I muttered to myself “Are we nearly there yet mother?

The city of Szeged was next to pass under our wheels. Szeged had proper wide roads and bloody deep tram lines. I was struck by the over use of overhead cables and wires, I’m sure every photo of mine will have at least 500 feet of cable on show. Cars began to keep pace with us in an effort to look at us and point mobile phones. Trams passed close by everyone pressed to the windows looking down at us, I waved and nodded, the city had lots of space with really wide roads and even wider paved areas but again the buildings looked quite tatty. We cleared the city as their rush hour started, no rush though just dozens of trucks with some cars trundling along slowly in convoy, I remember one had a Skoda on a trailer which was cut up neatly to fit in the trailer. I couldn’t think why this would be, passing by them was fraught with the perils of holes, lumps, tram lines, greasy surface and lunatic youths in powerful black shiny cars intent on coming through the middle of everyone; it was to be a mad period!

The Hungarian/Romanian border at Nadiac soon approached. We stopped just short of the barriers to get road toll passes, and to clean road residue from our windscreens. This place looked deserted, we then moved up to the border, we passed by the young shabby looking border guards. They looked like they had been here for days on end, I just smiled as they checked the passports, I wondered if they were going to ask how much was the bike was worth, but no, they waved us through, the other side was busy with people and trucks, lots of them. Swarthy looking men approached us dressed in ill fitting leather jackets sporting thick mops of black hair; they waved calculators at us offering good rates of exchange. A firm “no thanks” was the only answer to give. I really wanted to get moving I didn’t care for these people, our girls had checked for toll stickers but we didn’t need any. We got sorted and cleared the area in double quick time, this was not a place I wanted to hang around in I felt bits of the bike could quite easily have gone missing and pocket could quite easily have been felt!

We passed a never ending line of idle trucks, waiting to cross the border. Nobody seemed in any hurry, drivers stood around drinking tea, their monotony broken only by our passing, they nodded and waved arms in salute. Others sat in their cabs looking down at us. The land to the left and right was being worked, they were filled with rows and rows of sweet corn, all the rows were marked by signs, half a dozen rows or so marked off to one buyer and so on all along the edge of the field. With darkness approaching we picked the Hotel Phoenix on the outskirts of Arad. We had stopped miles short of our destination but enough was enough. The girls went of to sort out room keys etc. We parked outside the front door in the glare of the hotel lights, I put the bike cover on and fitted my bike chain, our research wasn’t very positive about the place. However the young hotel night porter was eager to practice English and told us he would keep a look out for the bikes and all the staff were fantastic, we said if possible we would stop here on the way back.

Dinner was eaten along with Romanian beer before sleep finally consumed us. We had covered 0ver 350 miles in about 10 hours on slow bumpy roads, we have about the same distance again in the morning according to the maps and GPS. We judged it should take us about 8hrs! The journey actually took 15 hours on the worst roads I have ever travelled.

The next morning we did a tour of a seemingly bombed out Arad trying to find our bearings  towards Timisora. We moved carefully in the morning rush hour dodging noisy and rather large iron trams as they clanked past us as well as trying our best to miss holes, bumps and raised tram lines. We were getting good help from people as to which direction we should go and that was the next right turn.  Luckily the traffic was slow so we were able to pick our way round little hills of tarmac and deep holes through the slow traffic and pick up the signs.

The next four hours were extremely difficult, the road got worse, we only managed sixty miles.  Traffic was heavy and slow as we pushed on through the next town. There just isn’t the money here to build ring roads, so through the middle of towns we had to go most of the time. I began to wonder if we were ever going to get there; the bike was rattling a lot too now. That one big jolt you have now and again back in England was happening every ten minutes as one in twenty holes claimed us. I thought we have found our very own “Road of Bones”. We rarely got above 45 mph it was so rough. Somewhere on this road Jane declared she had lost the will to live! How she coped with the trike getting banged about three times more than the rest of us was amazing, she could have thrown the towel in at any time but she didn’t.

Just when we thought it got better Barry was yelling down the CB…. “HOLES, DEEP FUKKIN HOLES AND LOTS OF THE BASTARDS!” his brake lights winked as he bounced on through.  The top surface of tarmac had been scraped away for miles at a time so long ago that grass tufts were growing on parts,  some of the tarmac had melted away to nothing replaced by gravel and soil. In places one lane was higher than the opposite lane by as much as two feet.  Small bridges that we came across dropped away or rose above the level of the road so harshly that it was like mounting the curb. We had to approach these with the utmost caution, crawling so slowly that trucks backed up behind us. Even at crawling pace Jane and Steve still clanged the trike frame into the ground several times. Between this we had the usual lumpy tarmac and big fuck off holes. The tarmac would drop away suddenly then climb up 6 inches like a black wave to knock the stuffing out of our arms and poor bloody bikes. I knew now why we saw no other motor bikes. Practically the only vehicles on the road were those big bland white trucks mixed in with the horse and carts, carts incidentally with car wheels and I didn’t see a decent car in sight outside of the towns.

We had another fuel stop and met a keen Romanian rugby fan and his girl, who took photos of us with her mobile phone.  I too took the opportunity to take photos of the horses and carts now passing at a steady plod, most had a man at the reigns with a cart full of straw, corn, or veg, the wife and kids on top. Some waved and grinned broadly when I pointed the camera, others just sat hunched over the reins and starred and the horses ass, they were dressed in an assortment of rag tag clothing, head scarves, woolly hats, cardigans with holes at elbows and black “wellies” to round off their attire, they looked as if they were all wearing somebody else’s clothes, some looked ever so sad, whilst others laughed smiled and waved as we passed. After cleaning more road dirt from windscreens we looked on the map where we had to go and groaned “Bloody hell, how much more of this is there?”

We had ridden through a long twisting slow damp forested section up close behind the trucks, unable and unwilling to open up the throttle and nip round them; we would have shook into oblivion or bounced of the road and into space! Now an Italian coach enjoyed our company until we saw calmer tarmac and nipped by, he hooted shouted and waved as we passed, “crazy bastard” I thought. Poor Margaret bounced out of her seat as “Fatha” crashed over some speed bumps, speed bumps on this shitty poxy road, I ask you!

Timosara to Drobeta was a really hard ride, it sapped the strength from us, the bikes took an awful clattering but still kept going. Nothing had dropped off so far. A few miles to go on crushed white dusty rock before the new road finally. Wow how good this felt, we were doing 60 mph too!  We ran alongside a dam at the head of this long lake in glorious sunshine now that we were down from the wet cloudy hills.

I was staring at the ground 20 yards in front for so long that I hardly noticed the land back there. I do remember seeing the peasants sitting by the roadside selling fruit and veg, in particular marrows, lots of marrows, but most of all I remember that awful road. The road did begin to improve after the last town, in fact it got really smooth and sweet, it was new and it went for miles, we began to stretch our legs and moved up into top gear for a long run.  We swooped free as eagles cutting left and right, up and down, hugging the ground all the way into Craiova glad to be able to force air through our clothes, 130 miles soon passed as we stopped again for petrol on the outskirts of the city.  We passed a huge disused refinery which seemed to go on along side the road for miles, it would make a fine backdrop for the next Terminator film! I saw that it was still in use or at least part of it was, it struck me how rusty and broken it all looked.

We fuelled again and had our picture taken by mobile phones before turning south through the suburbs. The tarmac had disappeared altogether in places to be replaced by compacted soil, we trickled through the bustling suburb, kids jumped up and down, cars drew closer as they got a better look at us as we picked our way south finally onto a minor road toward the ferry.  A sign said BULGARIA, thank god it was only 40 Kilometres away now.

Being the back marker means several things, I am the one that gets all the dust, I am the one that gets the most warning of road conditions, unfortunately I am also the one the village dogs attack. These dogs are hardy looking mongrels, they could be Alsatian, Retriever, Collie or whatever, but they all have little 4 inch legs a big mouth and lots of teeth.  Frequently we saw one of these dogs squashed, killed so long ago that they melted away in a long dark stain into the road. I got attacked on at least five occasions. The villages were all small and poor just having shacks and huts that ran along the road side.  It’s early evening now, the sky is turning first orange then a deep red and it’s quite warm again.  Everyone is outside on benches and word precedes us via mobile phone and everyone is watching for us.  These folk are real Romany folk, shabby yet colourful in dress especially the old women. The kids were dressed in assorted rag tag clothes.  Older men in dirty jackets and trousers wore trilbies on their heads and showed toothless grins. The older women looked to be in charge, they looked grumpy and unsmiling. Other younger women wave at us and smile, the kids go bonkers and wave at our red trike…always at the bloody blinding red trike! What about me at the back then? One could easily have been a hundred years in the past looking at all this, the huts, sheds and few brick houses their borders marked by all manner of tatty fencing and string and tin. Cows wandering up and down the road followed by old women with long sticks, sometimes we had to stop as the cows broke into a trot, one teenage girl was last seen chasing one cow as it ran madly down a side lane flanked by a grape vine on one side and corn the other. Goats were tendered by old raggedy men at the road side. This was fascinating and wished I could have stopped a while and taken photographs but the day was quickly washing away into night. My last image was of a farmer leaning on his stick with a group of goats munching at a shrub, one had climbed to a lower branch, then another little bastard dog went for me again, thank God they had little legs!

The Campiaromana Plains that carried our perfect little B road stopped at the river crossing to Bulgaria, the map showed a ferry, the signs say ferry so ferry it must be. Imagine our faces when we saw it. It was just two flat topped barges lashed together, a wheelhouse welded to the rear and an engine, rudder and propeller glued on. We passed a mile or so of those damn white articulated trucks parked up waiting their turn, the ferry only took about a dozen vehicles so they were in for a long night. Julie counted them on the return trip and stopped at 105 trucks! We were shown a corner of the ferry to park by noisy Romanian crewmen, the steel deck was quite damp and slippery we moved slowly on board, the trike had a problem loading and needed the ramps altering, it was funny to see the crew buggering about, funny to the point of exasperation.

‘Fatha’ talked to some of the truckers about our best route to Pleven, instantly he was surrounded by friendly truckers all talking together and being ever so helpful. He looked like he was being overwhelmed, they gathered around him in an excited group and got louder as finally they agreed on the way to Kneze “Da Da” they would say and point off into the dark distance! It seemed we should head for KNEZA. It was a rare and funny sight to see our Barry bustled aside, even he was laughing as he was elbowed out of the way.

Kneza lay on a small road in the direction we wanted, but first we had to get off the ferry on the other bank. They unloaded some trucks from one side which now meant one barge was lighter than the other and had risen about ten inches, a truck could not get over it whilst turning at full lock. It was parked right on the edge of the lip and couldn’t get enough momentum, it bounced and strained in the darkness whilst trying to pull its trailer up and over. The crew were shouting and waiving, they pointed at the wheels, the wooden wedges, the driver, then back again, throwing logs under the wheels and generally getting nowhere with the problem, eventually someone hit on the idea to bring some trucks back onto the barge to balance it all up. I found this remarkable because these boys must do this a dozen times a night how come they appear to be in disarray?  We told the crew to move because we were going to get off now the barges were balanced, we had to be a bit forceful but they got the picture and left us to it and we were clear in a jiffy, we just had to get checked by the Bulgarian custom guys before moving off into the gloom. The time was now about 22.00hrs a 15 minute crossing had taken us over an hour and it was now pitch black. Barry had been in touch with Mali on the mobile because our arrival had moved from around dinnertime to late….very late! Mali and Janice set off to meet us somewhere north of Pleven.

It was so bloody dark, there were no lights anywhere, as we headed out looking for Kneza, it’s no wonder that we missed the sign in the blackness. We stopped in a village lit up by a cafe which was full of youths, “Fatha” did the done thing and got of his bike to ask for directions, the bar emptied as they all came to look at the bikes and….take pictures with their mobile phones! Some got into a car and led us in the right direction to the correct turn which was just half a mile back the way we had come. We shouted our thanks and headed of into the night again, Barry and “Fatha” lit the way ahead with headlights on full beam as we dodged holes and lumps, the road looked as bad as ever here in Bulgaria. We saw not a single person for miles or a single dot of light, had we left planet earth I wondered?  Then a car approached, lights were dimmed as it passed it turned and caught us up tooting its horn,  it was Mali and Janice. Ah ha! Finally we meet!  After hugs and stuff he tells us we only have another hour and half to go before we get to the hotel and the waiting camera crew. Did he just say camera crew? What bloody camera crew??

We arrived at the hotel sometime after midnight I think, and yes a camera crew were waiting. They filmed us as we landed and stayed with us for the weekend, we were to feature in a Bulgarian “fly on the wall” documentary about people buying properties in Bulgaria. They filmed as we unpacked, unzipped then sat gingerly, not moving for a few minutes as our bodies got used to not being jolted every couple of seconds. We hit the sack completely drained an hour later. During the night our bodies reacted to the long 15 hour ride; I for one got cramp in my calves and kept muttering “Oooyabastard” Shock was setting in.

Late next day we rose, had a lazy morning and lunch in the market; John and Lynne joined us, they had flown down from Vienna. We were quite upbeat as the waitress took our order without a smile on her face as seems to be the normal thing according to our friends.

That evening we gathered in the hotel taverna.  We found the Bulgarian way of things very hard to understand at first, our two waitresses took huge orders by memory only, for example one evening she took 14 orders and got everyone correct! What made things confusing was a nod of the head means no, whereas a shake of the head meant yes. It was quite a noisy confusing evening.

The next afternoon we took taxis out to Mali and Janice’s place in the village of Drenov. A feast of food and drink was consumed by all, later Mali let us take his quad bikes out into the country side, once through the woody lanes it opened up into a huge plain that went for miles, here and there you could see groups of sheep, goats, cattle and the occasional person hunched over his stick, it had a timeless look about it. I wanted to just keep going to the horizon far far away, but I was crap with the quad, it had 4 wheels for a start, and when I set of I crashed into reserve gear at speed and nearly shot over the piggin handlebars! I didn’t stray too far nor did I give it large handfuls of throttle. It was a great afternoon, standing back to watch, it looked like we had gone back in time as raggedy locals mingled with us and stoked the big red trike that we brought with us and took the kids up and down the lane. The next few days passed quickly, the camera crew filmed us all the time we were there and the few days passed quickly.

It was time to head back home.  We filled our bikes with fuel on the outskirts of the town as a famous old East German car called a Trabaunt, I think, pulled up for fuel and the driver got out and lifted the bonnet.  This time it was our turn to stop and stare the engine was really tiny and packed in a sturdy black plastic jacket! In stunted English the chap told us the car was made in 1956, a joke these may be by western standards but show me an ordinary car of ours still on the road from 1956? We said goodbye to Mali and Janice here and steeled ourselves for the trip home.

We made good time to the river crossing and tried to keep the speed above 40 mph because the heat of the day was rising fast.

This ferryboat was more organised then the previous one, the crew didn’t seem to get as excitable and seemed more organised.  They had welded a huge plate down the middle of the two barges which kept the two hulls level when loading and unloading.

The engineer took time speak to us, practicing his English.  He told us he was retired and he said he used to be a radar operator in the Bulgarian Air Force; he took photographs of the bikes as we chatted. We told him of the earlier crossing to which he shrugged his shoulders and laughed “Ah ha! It will have been a Romanian ferry, this one is Bulgarian!” we all chuckled at the apparent disdain at the Romanians by this fellow.

It was a much shorter crossing and we were soon riding past the dozens of Lorries again waiting to use the ferry, they lined up for about a mile, the drivers just standing around talking and drinking tea.

We now began to pass through the same colourful villages as on the earlier journey, folk were sitting about selling fruit and those damn huge marrows, all the villagers waved at us again. I slowed to take photos and look at the people, once again we saw the  dead squashed dogs, today we also saw a dead horse on the road side, its legs stiffly pointed in all directions nobody took any interest in it whatsoever.

We went through Craiova city town centre with no trouble, this time we stayed on the tarmac going through the middle of the town though GPS was sometimes trying to pull Barry away from obvious road signs.  There are times when you have to ignore GPS, that was plain to see really. One odd thing I noticed was the traffic lights, they had a digital counter above them which counted from 70 to 0 before they changed (not a bad idea, maybe we should have them over here!).

We went for miles through dozens of villages and by lunchtime we were ready for fuel again but nobody would take Euros from us, in Romania we tried a few places with the same result. I suggested we ought to stop get food and fuel on plastic, we only needed one fuel stop as the next would be Arad which is near the border so we would be all right there with Euros, so we pulled over and began to eat some lunch on the forecourt. Almost out of nowhere people began to gather, mainly kids and lots of them, they arrived and gathered round the bikes, they were happy excited and wide eyed.  Adults also began too gather and before long cars were stopping to look and the garage forecourt filled up. A bike or two even arrived, the first I’d seen across three countries. We stood around our bikes partly to keep an eye on them as with so many folk milling around us it would have been easy for something to get stolen or damaged.  A policeman arrived and began moving people away from the garage.

As we cleared town and hit the road it continued to ambush us with huge potholes, ruts, and huge lumpy deposits of tar. One minute we would be pressing on at 60 mph when suddenly in front a twenty yard piece of tarmac had been ripped from the surface, we crashed through it at speed, it rattled our bones over and over “OH no not again” I muttered on more than one occasion, then the road would be OK again for miles before happening again.

We were going into Transylvania now and the countryside changed from flat huge and featureless to hills, mountains, rivers, trees and more trees, we passed quite a few cars mingled with the trucks. This area looked touristy with hotels and parking areas. The locals were out in force having picnics, whole families enjoying Sunday. The road was narrow and twisty and we had no option but to wait in the slow Sunday traffic for a gap to pass them which were few for the next ten miles or so.

We relaxed, eased off the throttle sat in the traffic and took in the views. We seemed to climb from one level to another higher up, this region was more populated, maybe the roads were better…CLANG! OOHYABASTARD! Then again maybe they weren’t! On it went 40 to 60 then down to 40mph again all bloody day, but still it was a better road this way. We came across another small dusty broken down town, we turned for Deva then onto Arad on better roads. We fuelled up one more time and saw a rare local biker on a cruiser at the garage, we smiled and said hello as he lifted his little daughter up plonking her on the handlebars of the bike before riding off  helmetless!

We hit the glare of the setting sun and dodged between ever growing convoys of trucks and Arad was reached in complete darkness. It seems there is not enough electricity to go round for everyone so some areas have their street lights turned off! We had great difficulty in picking out road signs and stopped a few times to ask locals for directions. When we arrived at the hotel and prised ourselves from the sticky seats, we had done 480 miles on hard roads. That evening we had another fine dinner and drank fine Romanian beer paid for by fine English plastic! It’s amazing how a hot meal can change ones mood. The same man watched over our bikes again.

The border was only about ten miles away, I was never so happy to be on a motorway as I was this morning. We came to the border and I asked Julie to count every truck waiting to cross the border into Hungary. We passed truck after truck, 111 to be exact, that’s not counting the dozens in the compound at the border, so maybe 150 or more in total? We were checked quickly and waved on through by the customs officers who piled out of offices to have a look at us. Goodbye potholes, goodbye lumpy mountainous tarmac, goodbye to huge gaps between roads and bridges goodbye to upstanding grates and tramlines, goodbye ripped up roads for no goddamn reason and a special goodbye to all the damned dogs. Hello instead to you huge, boring smooth motorway system…all 500 miles of you, what can possibly go wrong now?

The ring road around Budapest was nice and clear, in no time we were heading back along the shadow of that huge ridge with the big black eagle statue perched atop. The authorities had set up an inspection at the next service station we came to and all the traffic slowed as it was channelled through various checkpoints and compounds. Trucks were looked at, cars had their bonnets lifted and were given a close inspection by teams of people dressed in yellow jackets, emissions, tyres and engines were checked. We were all given yellow jackets; this is a legal requirement if one breaks down on the motorways on the continent. I had mine on already but was still given another.

We decided to pull over and have a bite to eat and watch the customs and police conduct stop and search operations. They also checked vehicle emissions which I found a bit odd considering what I had seen over the last few days.

We were somewhere just to the south of Vienna when Julie said “I think we ought to stop” “What?” said I “..think I’m going to be sick..” she gurgled. Hitting the indicator and stopping quickly on the hard shoulder, I looked round to see Julie puking all down the side of the pannier, I couldn’t do much for her here. What we needed was to catch the others up (who had probably stopped a few miles in the distance) then head for a service station. I moved off into the traffic and came upon the group just a mile ahead. I pulled in behind and explained, we would stop at the next service station. We encountered motorway bridge repairs presently, the lanes were narrow and  divided by those huge concrete blocks, they would stop a tank by the look of them I remember thinking, all was well and the service station wasn’t far away.

Ten minutes later whilst passing heavy traffic in the slow lane we had a bit of a drama. We were passing a truck pulling a big trailer; Brian was along side of it when it began swaying a bit, like these things tend to do sometimes, only this time Brian began to sway with it, slowing at the same time. Before I knew it I had half a wheel down his outside and was a yard abreast when he swayed out, I had to move over sharpish I swayed my hips and straightened up almost immediately when I hit the fekkin concrete wall with an angle grinding BBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!! It bounced me STRAIGHT back into the lane behind Brian; Julie awoke from her ill like state and complained “Bloody hell David” as though I was bloody joy riding. I said nothing; I couldn’t, for my heart was in my mouth. “ OhmyGodShitbolloxfuck” I could imagine millions of deep, jagged scratches all down the left hand side of our bike. I started laughing, and I don’t know why. The service station came up not a moment too soon. I stopped at the pump, lifted Julie off, she went to the toilet to get cleaned up, I was amazed as I looked down and found just a quarter inch graze on the underside of the rear crash bar, not a single mark was to be seen anywhere. I must have hit the wide part at the base of the wall. All  the pannier was coated in concrete dust, It must have been a shock to whoever was behind me when I hit the wall, sending up a huge plume of concrete dust.  I made contact for about 3 seconds at 80mph, that’s one hell of a signature I’d created! I called Brian over and told him what happened, “Oh yes? that was thee was it”? He said “I thought I heard summat back there” I was fairly buzzing now as the adrenalin sped round me with nowhere to go! “Fatha” came over and gave me little pat. Meanwhile Julie was throwing up again. We sat for while, me grinning and thinking about what could have happened, and that we had got away with hitting the concrete central barrier and leaving our mark, Julie was still too ill to give a damn.

We still had miles to go so it was onwards and upwards towards Germany and our beloved Berchtesgaden in the foothills of the Alps of Southern Germany.  It was late in the day when the lovely Petra greeted us at our hotel in Berchtesgaden but it was really nice to see her again, she had the biggest smile for us, this was to be our third time here. Lynne and John had arrived during the day too having flown up to Vienna first to collect their now fixed trike and riding up to the hotel. Julie was still not feeling at her best so we decided to stay here instead of moving again in the morning as arranged. One group stayed here whilst the second went on to Landeck.

During our stay we took a boat ride around Lake Konigssee. It’s an amazing place, its eight Kilometres long, about a quarter mile wide and over six hundred metres above sea level. An interesting moment is when the boat stops and a crew member plays a trumpet towards the mountain wall, it echoes back, he is stood there playing a duet with himself! It was a short rendition but really nice.

The next morning saw our bikes packed ready for the off again after a deserved break, yet another headlight bulb had been fitted, all the bikes had been cleaned again and we were ready for the run up through Germany. We said goodbye to Petra and hit the road, the first hour was easy in a light drizzle although it was cooler and down to 19 degrees. Today was to be the coldest of the whole holiday.

The drizzle never left us alone, in fact it got worse and worse, the whole day was coated in heavy rain, all 360 miles of it, through road works and heavy traffic as we skirted major towns heading north. At the 3 fuel stops we had we left huge pools of water all over the coffee lounge floors, we were all soaked through to the skin and it was a testing day, boy were we glad to reach Wertheim our last hotel. The owner came to speak to us as we pulled up thankfully outside; he said “I hope you all have rooms?” I muttered to Brian “You don’t see many Germans with a sense of humour like that” Only, the man wasn’t kidding, his wife had inadvertently wiped away our return booking. As we stood there drained and shivering he got on the telephone and within minutes he had found us alternative rooms a few miles away bless him!

Margaret phoned the second group who were somewhere south of us on the road heading up to this hotel. She gave them instructions on how to get to the other hotel. Getting back on the bike was a real test as the hoteliers wife led us the 10 miles or so to the other hotel where the day’s journey really did end. The hotel staff pulled out all the stops and took all our kit into the basement and draped everything over the hot pipes, I personally used 4 toilet rolls in an attempt to dry out my boots. The trikes arrived about an hour after us, we were as one again. The trikes had encountered better weather than us on their journey north.  We sat at the bar as they went through the process of booking in as they were not as wet as us it didn’t take them as long to come back down. We had a very nice hot dinner in the hotel and soon began to feel warmer.

Obviously I hadn’t prayed hard enough during the night because it was still drizzling! We packed up and moved out on the last leg. All my four headlight bulbs were out now but I wasn’t over concerned, it was getting brighter and had in fact stopped raining, we were only about 350 miles from the port. So we put Brian at the back, and I settled within the group minus my front lights it would be OK on this last leg but we were nearing Brussels when the bloody rains hit us again and it got darker again. So, we pulled over at the next services and had a poke around under the seat, one idea was to squirt oil liberally into the handlebar switchgear, magically it all came to life again! When the reverse switch is activated it cuts out the headlights where water had founds it’s way in and sent everything mad.

The boat was boarded on time with no more problems and we gathered in the bar dressed in dry clothes and drank the afternoon away. Evening came, when everyone dined and said hello to my 50th year on planet Earth with a huge cake. A big “THANK YOU” to you all for that.

The 2007 adventure quietly died out on a warm Sunday morning on the King George dockside in Hull, a round trip of roughly 3,500 miles.

Dave Sharp