Slovakia

As I enter Slovakia, the rain follows me. I look in my mirror and see it coming up fast behind me. Within twenty minutes it overtakes me and brings it friends thunder and lightning. I ride past Bratislava and head in a North Eastern direction. Using the Horizons Unlimited Website I found a lady called Julie who had moved to Slovakia from England and had emailed her a week or so ago about camping on her land. So I had a direction to head and potentially to get out of this storm. After an hour or so of riding the storm clears and my clothes finally dry. Obviously bear in mind that I only have jeans and my jacket is not what one would call waterproof. I ring Julie and she tells me how to get to her village Podluzany, but also says its raining and thundery there. To ride back into the storm or not? Why not! 

Finding the village

By the time I got there it had luckily cleared up. In a little village called Podluzany, somewhere in Slovakia I met the nicest most hospitable family I have ever met whilst travelling. The Talbots. Richard, Julie and their two children Jinx and Garett. Richard owns an motorcycle Enduro track in his back garden, a motorbike workshop and used to take people on off road tours up the mountains...Theres a horse, cant remember how many dogs and a couple of cats....

So the family take me in straight away and I get a meal, hot shower and a bed in the house to stay the night. The next day Richard performs a service on my bike and they invite me to stay another night. I really enjoy spending the time with the family and listening to their funny stories.

To be honest, and im sure they will agree, they are truly a crazy bunch but I do love them and they have really added to my trip. I do believe its not the places you go or the sites you see that you remember when travelling but the people you meet and friends you make. 

I left the next day, we bid our farewells. The sun was shining, I had my lid up and a big smile on my face. Not for long.... whack, straight into my eye goes a huge bug. Im used to flies and bugs in the eye but this one absoloutly stung like a *****. I pulled striaght over as it was painful, I squinted into the mirror and saw it wriggling about, I pulled it out and rinsed my eye with water. It took ten minutes before I could open it again. I rode on and checked it after another 5 minutes and wouldnt you know it it had stung my eye and made it swell up, I looked like bloody popeye. On I rode. I pulled over and had to release some oil from my bike. Sods law I drop the bolt and oil falls to the floor. I arrive back at the Talbots an hour later, a little red in the face. Thankfully the piss isnt taken too much, Richard fixes me up, tightens my exhaust and sets me back off on my way! 

Slovakia is stunning to ride through, even when I take the motorway the views are fantastic.

I decide that I want to see more of Slovakia and make my destination towards the Tatras mountains. I head closer but decide to ride past them to the castle Spissky Prodhradie... apparantly the largest in Europe! Again the roads are beautiful.

I make camp that night not too far from the castle.The next day I plan my route for Divin. A small village West of Lucenec as that is where a friend of mine is from. Once there my plan is to set up camp for a few days and wait for him to get here. That night camping near the castle, I meet Berty, a Dutch dude, cycling through Romania, Ukraine and Slovakia and I meet him again randomly out on the route through the mountains.

En route to Divin, I decide to only take mountain roads and veer of the main road whenever possible. It took the entire day to get to Divin but it was so worth it. The roads wound and bend all over the place. There were continuous inclines and declines. I was constantly turning and leaning the bike right over. It was biker heaven.
I did feel as though me and and my bike connected together a lot more yesterday. For the first time it felt a lot more real. Sounds gay but we were as one.