It has been quite a while since I last posted so i'm going to have to try and fit the last few weeks into one big ass post. Here goes....
Divin, Slovakia
Rusty finally arrived in Divin a week after I had. The day after he arrived it absoloutly pissed it down with rain... so we jumped in his 4x4 and drove up into the mountains, I dont have the photographs at the moment but I will say one thing... he did nearly flip the car.
I told Rusty over the phone that I will wait for him under two conditions. 1. I get fed gulas and 2. we fire of loads of guns as it will be good training for when I get to Syria.
We drove over to pick up his mate Robo who is a lisenced gun and knife maker, meaning he can legally build a gun from scratch and sell it. He is the bollocks and his knifes that he makes are awesome. Anyway, he grabbed a load of guns and Rusty took his AK 47. We set of through the hills to a remote shooting range.
Most of the way I have been taking videos and am having trouble uploading so I will just be putting up a couple of photo's and the video's when I get home
I ended up shooting Rusty's AK, a winchester (which I loved), German Pistols, Czech pistols, Colt's, Cowboy revolver's, a WWII Russian infantry rifle (the one from enemy at the gate) and a ton of other's I cant remember, all I know is that I shot a ton of bullets all day and had a 'blast'!
These are the boys
After the ranges we went to see the owner. An old chap called Barney... now this guy... is a bad ass
Barney is a multiple Senior champion of Western Shooting. Meaning revolvers and cowboy guns etc. He travels the world for competition's and apparantly wins all of them. He has more medals and trophies in his house than we all shot bullets that day. There were plaques, medals, cabinets full of trophies from Italy, Germany, Slovakia just everywhere. He is quick. He is also a super nice dude. Didn't speak a word of english but saw me eying up these strange small axe's. They are traditional Slovakian shepherd sticks so they have a long thin oak staff with a small axe on the top and are used for protection. Barney had about 3 or four on his wall (along with about 30 Knives, swords and countless guns and believe it or not... cannon's)... So Barney pull's one down and hand's it to me... Rusty translates the word present. We only met a 15 minutes ago! I told him I would take it to Syria for protection....
In case your wondering about the groovy trousers, they're work trousers I was given to help chop down trees.
I had a great time in the tiny little village of Divin and met some great people. Ludka the next door neighbour insisted on cooking for me; breakfast and dinner. I would go for a chat with the women working in the village 'supermarket' although they didnt speak any English and we would all stand around one of the till's and one of them would pull of packet's of crisps from the shelves and we'd all be standing there eating them. When a customer would walk in they would get hidden and the giggling would commence. It was all kisses on the cheek when I was leaving and in a weird way I was sad to leave Divin. But of course I will be returning.
Rusty is a very good friend of mine and I have spent a very long time with him in the past and we have worked together through some absolutely mental, strenuous, arduous months 6 days a week and he is a good man. He has decided to ride his BMW with his 9 year old daughter Tamara with me to Cyprus where another good mate of our's is getting married. Because of that I am more than happy to ride with him. We set of after two weeks in Divin to Hungry.
Onward!
Hungary
We have both been through Hungary before and so decided not to take our time. We went through the Hungarian planes and into Romania.
We camped one night on an overgrown football pitch by the side of the road which was amusing.
Romania
I have been to a fair few countries. Over 23 in total, I never thought that I would fall in love with Romania... but I have.
It is beautiful and rugged at the same time. The people can be very kind, generous and giving. But Romania is very poor and some parts you can feel the poverty is hitting hard.
I had two points that I wanted to visit in Romania.
1. Transfargarasan
2. A lady called Monica
The first night of camping in Romania the sun set quicker than we anticipated so we found a top country club and managed to wangle it with the owner so that we could sleep in his customer's garage.... His facial expression when being confronted by a weird looking English guy on a dirty bike saying: "Do you mind if I put my tent up one of your garages mate?" was quite funny... "so you dont want to sleep in of the country club hotel rooms?" nahhhhh thats for ponses (but I didn't say that bit)
Me and Rusty both enjoy what we call wild camping. Translated to rough camping, by river's, lake's, forest's you know... out of the way where we can make fire and be men etc. So before we did the Transfargarasan road we went and did some serious off roading in the middle of no where and found a beautiful little river.
The water was perfectly crystal clear right to the bottom and parts of it were up to my shoulder's. It was such a hot day and we were drenched with sweat... as soon as we arrived we just dived in. Gear on and everything.
We set up camp by the river and made a fire. The fire is an amazing thing... as the South African's call it a Bushman's TV. It truly is, I can watch one for the entire night.
We set up camp just around the corner. In the background you can see the Transfargarasan mountain road, some of you may know it from Top Gear as apparently they drove the rode with some supercars.
Time for some wiki facts:
The Transfăgărășan is the most dramatic and second-highest paved road in Romania. the 90 km of twists and turns run north to south across the tallest sections of the SouthernCarpathians, between the highest peak in the country, Moldoveanu, and the second highest, Negoiu.
The road climbs to 2,034 metres altitude. The most spectacular route is from the North. It is a winding road, dotted with steep hairpin turns, long S-curves, and sharp descents. The Transfăgărășan is both an attraction and a challenge for hikers, cyclists, drivers and motorcycle enthusiasts alike. Due to the topography, the average speed is around 40 km/h. The road also provides access to Bâlea Lake and Bâlea Waterfall.
The trans is only open for usually 2 months a year due to snow so there was no way I was going to miss that bad boy.
Needless to say... it was breathtaking
In the background of the below picture you can see one of Vlad the Impaler's castle's.
It was built as a punishment for the villagers for not being obedient enough to him. His men gathered all the strong men and children to lug the massive stones up the mountain. They were ordered to work until their clothes had fallen apart. All of the elderly were impaled (meaning a large spiked stick was pushed through their backside and came out of their neck whilst alive) and scattered around the village as warning. Hence his name.
After the mountain road we headed to Monica's moms house in a village called Lunguletu. Monica is a friend of Alissa's and had said she would love to have us all over.
Little did we know that Lunguletu was a type of farming village and the road we took to get there was absoloutly caked in dust. There were tractors moving at snails pace along it. The road was terrible and there were deep ditches peppered all over the road. Rusty decided to go first and I literally had to stop and wait ten minutes for him to go further ahead as the dust his rear wheel kicked up meant that my visibility was literally 4 footsteps ahead. I LOVED it, standing up on the footpegs, visor down, jacket zipped up, I teared along the bike performing well, jumping in and out of ditches. When we reached the village, I asked some truck dudes for direction's to Monica's... a kilometre up the road and their directions didn't work out.... hmmm, well let's just wait and the road will take care of us! 2 minutes later a girl on a moped turns up... doesn't speak English but motions us to follow her, 3 minutes later were outside Monica's house.
Monica and her family were unbelievably kind to us... we had our beds made, dinner, lunch, breakfast cooked and home made cherry alcohol. The back of Monica's garden leads to a gorgeous little fast flowing river where we spent about 3 hours on a rope swing jumping in with all the local kids.
The next day Barney rings, and says he's in Bucarest, so we go and pick him up, have a mooch round the city and all ride back to stay at Monica's for another night. However.... this time.... it was pissing it down with rain..... We arrived at the dusty road which was by now mud. Barns says: "you up for it?" Now when Barns asks you a question like that.... you can either say no... and never live it down.... or you can pull your visor down, shout ONWARD, stand up on the pegs and ride into the unknown.....
At first the muddy track had stones and was easy to ride over... then it turned into a thick, gooey, unbelievably slippery, hellish mud. Now bear in mind none of us have off road tires fitted to our bikes. You could barely stand without slipping. I was leading and so was the first to go down...
Picked up the bike and carried on... but the mud just got ridiculous, when Barns and Rusty reached the mud they soon both went down too. All in all, we must have all come off about 5 times each. With Tamara standing on the side as it was too dangerous for her on the back, Rusty decided to turn back and go on the normal road to Lunguletu with all of the other normal people. As one turned back we all did as it would be silly to split up incase someone came off and broke something. When we got back we had to clean the bikes incase the mud dried. It was pouring it down and Monica's mom wouldn't go inside, instead she stayed out helping and we all had a laugh!
After washing up, having a wonderful dinner we were ready to head off the next day... or so we thought.....
We got about an hour away and then Rusty's bike broke down. It wasn't sparking and one of the sensor's had gone... we had to get it to a BMW garage. Luckily he broke down outside a nice cheap Motel. My first motel of the trip! BMW came to pick up his bike and we found out that its going to take until Tuesday for the part to arrive.We have all moved our gear to a campsite closer to the garage and now were sticking it out there until then. Once the bike's back on the road were off to Bulgaria, Turkey and Cyprus for the wedding. After that we say our bye's and i'm going on to Syria and Iran (hopefully).
I have a ton of great video's, crazy riding through river's and on the mountain but will have to upload the lot back in the UK.
Much love
A few other pictures below:
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