Six Degrees of Procrastination

After waking up on the beach and enjoying a morning dip in the black sea, we started to get some breakfast ready. Before the water had even started to boil, a local man turned up and without knowing barely any english, started talking to us. One of the words he did know was “problem” as he pointed at Berrys knees that were heavily covered in gnat bites. He then produced a bottle of home made mud that he forced Berry to rub on his knees to “solve” the problem. He also explained how Neil’s hair was “problem” due to the heat and how Romainian women how much nicer than Bulgarian. He also was very adament on us all having some of his beer, even though it was half eight in the morning. After an awkward breakfast, we set off into the heat for a long day of driving, planning to cross the entire Bulgarian Black Sea coast into Turkey.

The Bulgarian border force merely glanced at our passports before ushering us through. We then drove flat out the entire height of Bulgaria, hugging the coast. It was another very hot, sweaty journey for the SDOP team.

The Turkish boarder was a lot more strict and took more time as we had to get car insurance and Visas. After initially accidently trying to get enter Turkey illegally and without any of the required documents, we parked the ambulances and spent roughly an hour getting the Visas, Insurance and Customs documents. Due to the unusual nature of our vehicles we created quite a queue of people behind us whilst trying to sort out documents. The customs official wanted to search our vehicles, but a glance of the messy and smelly ambulances cut his search very short.

As soon as we passed the boarder we switched the drivers to Berry and Rich for their first stint of driving on the rally. Because they were not insured for europe, they had been navigating and passaging until now. The road into Istanbul was wide, flat and empty, so a perfect opportunity to ease them in……….until reaching Istanbul.

Insane, Chaotic, Anarachic. None of these words come close to descibing the Istanbul driving experience. It is every man for himself with few road markings, and even less drivers willing to obey them. Adding to this, for the first time on the rally, our Open Street Maps – a sort of wikipedia for maps, where all the mapping is done by volunteers – failed us, with Istanbul turning out to be poorly mapped. We spent about two hours in the city, first trying to find an inner city campsite that turned out to be a campus, and then fruitlessly trying to leave the city for some more camp friendly greenary to set up camp in.

We eventually found a lay-by, and managed to get some food on, but just before heading to bed, some Turkish locals turned up, demanding money to stay the night where we were. After deciding to move on, with some of the team already asleep in the ambulances and rolling around the ambulance floor in their sleeping bags during the drive, we headed further out, a found a more secluded spot to camp, and at 1am, we finally settled down to sleep.

Berry enjoying what is either a local custom or a practical joke in Romania…

Starting from our wild camp, we drove towards Fagaras in the hope to find the Transfagarasan mountain road. We had heard it had only recently re-opened and many of us were looking forward to the spectacular views that we had heard so much about. On the climbing of the hill, it was found quickly that Adventure was developing an overheating problem. A quick pitstop in a layby and the engine fan was rewired to a switch, allowing the fan to be switched on at will.

Further up, the road that was already stunning only improved. With the trees surrounding the road on the way up, the views were tantalising as we could only see glimpses. Then, the road opened up for the final ascent with amazing driving and spectacular views. The ambulances themselves tried to prove their handling capability on these winding roads, with Endeavour struggling with the vibrations but this could not detract from the epic setting. We then continued up to the top of a rather sketchy peice of road. On reaching the top we were surprised to find most of Romania is seemed sitting with tables and chairs having the lunch and realised just how much of a perfect setting this would be to wild camp – if only we had found it the night before!

We decided to move through the tunnel and away from the tourists to stop for even more amazing views before the 1800km decent. The destination was the town of Constanta on the Black sea. To get to Constanta we intentionally avoided Bucharest to make sure we did not get stuck in traffic. The ring road looked the best option although it turned the surface had yet to be laid. On reaching the motorway that took us away everyone was feeling a lot more comfortable. With a false sense of security we drove down the very smooth motorway until Alex spotted a boulder about the size of a beachball lying in the middle of the lane. Both A&E managed to swerve to avoid and continued to Constanta more gingerly. We drove east until we hit the Black sea, before continuing north to find a beach. With it being the perfect camping site, we had a dip in the sea before a chilled out evening in the sun. Pretty crazy roadtrip just for the beach!

Greg and Berry enjoy the cool Black Sea waters

Awaking quite a lot later than usual and with sore heads for most of the team. Nethertheless we set out with the intention of reaching the beginning of the famous Transfagarasan Highway, a road across the Fagarasan mountain range in the centre of Romania. As we journied further south towards Romania, the clouds that had been following us disappeared and the baking hot sun appeared. This was initially pleasant until the temperature climbed to 38C and the sweating began…

Today turned out to contain some of the most fantastic scenery of the trip so far, with views across the flat farmland interspersed with forested peaks. We settled down to camp in a small pebbled country lane in the shadow of the mountains with nothing but millions of flies to keep us company.

After waking up slightly later than planned again, we soon realised we had camped right next to a climbing area. A quick pack up and shop at Tesco meant we were well prepared on our way for a short day. Two issues have been niggling us on the road for a while: only having one spare tyre; and more importantly the vibration in Endeavour between 50 and 60 mph. Since we will soon be out of the EU we decided to sort these problems today.

A quick drive into Budapest and we found possibly the best Opel garage in the world. The gentleman that ran it spoke great English and had no problem giving us 4 tyres from the pile of used ones they had at the back of the garage. After trying to fix our spare wheel he then sourced a spare for us and we had the tyres swapped to this. Unfortunately no amount of his mechanics head scratching and arm folding managed to fix Endevour’s shaking problem. They concluded the gearbox was on its way out. Bravely we have decided to plow on and just drive carefully….!

We quickly found a campsite in the centre of Budapest and everyone had a well earned shower and another pasta and sauce dinner. There turned out to be a number of fellow travellers in the campsite, and we met a couple who have been on the road for nine months already! After dinner we headed into town to find out what Budapest had to offer. Soon after venturing towards the centre of town we found what is reported to be “The Best Bar in the World” (according to the Lonely Planet guide) and with cheap beer, live music and friendly punters we were inclined to agree. What followed was an awesome night and a painful hangover….

The Best Bar in the World is in Budapest!

Oops, bet they didn’t expect to see two ambulances at their wedding!

After a quick breakfast of boiled eggs and bread, we set off early to Prague. Due to time limitations (also finding parking for two ambulances in the centre of the capital was impossible) we opted to have a drive-by sight seeing tour as many of the team had previously visited Prague. Cruising around the centre resulted in getting lost once again. Despite crashing a Czech wedding, we managed to get back on the road and we left in search of Austria.

Czech dual carrigeways have easily been the worst roads we have encountered so far. A bump every 5m or so (possible due to the road beng made from stone slabs) resulted in 2 hours of uncomfortable, noisy riding. Getting on the smaller roads after was the best decision of the day. Unfortunately, these roads developed a vibrating issue in Endeavour giving the entire team a sense of déjà vu.

Vienna did not provide the saving grace in the form of a good garage and after a mega traffic jam trying to escape our driving tour we decided to press on to Bratislava. We started by scouting out a place for wild camping later and stumbled upon a huge national park style woods with some great looking cycle trails. A quick drive to the centre then found us eating and drinking some local food, Goulash all round!

The most awesome eagle in the world.

As the required parts to fix Adventure were not due to arrive at the garage until the morning, we had a later start than previous days; giving us a much appreciated lie-in followed by a swim in the local lake for Greg, Berry and Ian.

We headed to the garage prepared for a long wait, however upon arriving we spotted the other ambulance parked behind the garage. Upon closer inspection we found that the new CV joint was already fitted! Talk about german efficiency! They also replaced the upper ball joint that was kaputt! The fix was a lot more expensive than we expected, but a fix by a german mechanic almost garantees that the parts replaced will not break!

We are hugely grateful for everyone’s support, as without it the cost of the repair would have been a massive hinderance on our rally.

While Greg, Berry, Ian and Alex were off collecting Adventure, Neil, Matt and Rich headed off to town to buy a few bits and bobs. The first stop was a car parts shop to buy some grease. After gratuitous use of Google Translate we determined they didn’t have any, but with helpful directions to another parts place we finally got the grease. We also visited a German electronics parts shop and got some stuff to make a power supply for the Spot Tracker, the thing keeping the Real-Time Tracker up and running. No more worrying about finding obscure batteries for the rest of the trip!

Once the guys returned from town, Ian and Neil greased up the remaining driveshaft joints and then we headed onto Poland, all the while taking in more and more breathtaking views through Germany, now the favourite country of the rally so far.

We reached the 1,000 mile mark just before the Polish boarder at around 9 o’clock.

After crossing the boarder to Poland, with the welcome sign listing all the new drving restrictions, we were astounded to see how different the town was. Lots of degrading buildings and everyone walking about at the time was drunk. We decided it would be better to camp and eat dinner in The Czech Republic, but not after a cheeky photo by a huge war memorial eagle.

We eventually found a secluded area next to a castle near the town of Liverez. We quickly set up camp and cooked dinner, in order to get as much sleep as possible for our long day tomorrow.

The lovely town of Kassel

After posting the blog yesterday, we set out to explore the little-known town of Kessel. We hit the town centre and picked up some much needed supplies and then took a tram to the town park. Once there we spent the next 2-3 hours climbing up the natural gardens and incredible stepped waterfalls to a hercules shrine that lay at the top of the local peak. The sun was out and everytime we reached a higher level the views got grander and we could see more of the town. After climbing the final 552 steps up the waterfall and finally getting to the summit the heavens opened and we got truly soaked!

We decided to seek refuge in possibly the most posh restaurant in Kassel; we were first asked for our reservation, and then our flip flop and drenched t-shirt wearing party was paraded in front of well dressed dinner guests to our tables at the far end of the restaurant (away from other guests). After ordering beers and nearly choking while looking at the food prices, the rain thankfully ended and we could walk back down the mountain, all the while savering the same amazing views we’ed already enjoyed.

Here are a few photos that we took, but they hardly do justice to how amazing it really is.

After an early morning wake up, we drove the vibrating ambulance to the Opel garage in order to get it fixed. After a long difficult conversation, a test drive done by a mechanic and lots of phrases including “kaputt” (our new favourite German word), it was discovered that the front left drive shaft is broken.

The plan is to get the drive shaft delivered tomorrow morning and fitted in the ambulance and if Lady Luck is on our side, we should be in Prague by tomorrow evening. However due to the ambulance being made in England and the drive shaft made in Germany, there is a small chance that it might not fit. If that is the case then we have a few other plans to put in place. We doubt that a German mechanic could be persuaded to “bodge” in a drive shaft if it didn’t fit perfectly.

We had no choice but to spend the rest of the day in Kassel sight-seeing in the glorious sunshine and first hot weather of the trip.

After a very rainy night’s sleep at the campsite, we arose nice and early, courtesy of Berry and set off from the campsite by 9am. Upon finding a petrol station that is open (almost everything is closed on Sundays in Belgium) we discovered that the “slow puncture” on the front right tyre of Endeavour had made the tyre pretty much flat. Thus, 2 days in, SDOP had its first tyre change. Luckily the spare tyres arrived the day before departure.

Fully refuelled and tyres checked, we set off on a 3hr journey to Amsterdam. After a sight-seeing tour round Rotterdam, we found a nice campsite next to a river just on the outskirts of Amsterdam. “Camping Zeeburg” probably has an website if you want to check it out.

We are now sitting in a pub in the middle of Amsterdam writing today’s blog post just as the sun starts to shine for the first time since we left the Eurotunnel!

Tomorrow’s adventure: Germany and Czech Republic.

Standings of the countries we like most:

1. Netherlands
2. Belgium
3. United Kingdom
4. France