I hope the bikes have been able to sleep with all the noise.  They’ve got a busy day ahead.  I head out early looking for the white stuff again but everywhere is closed.  Perhaps they were all out last night.

Getting out of Tirana is a lot easier than getting in thank God and after randomly stopping at the same fuel station I did in 2018 we’re out the city and headed for the coast road.  After a couple of hours its time to grace a random cafe with our presence so I just touch the breaks at the first awning I see and in we go.

Its very busy .. and its full of nanas .. surely a good sign

I go inside and start chatting up the nanas, I reckon I’m reaching that time of life. They’re all really friendly and jibber jabbering away, smiling and giggling.  I ask the oldest, and prettiest lady to sign my helmet.  She doesn’t even hesitate.

Then she starts touching my hands and my forehead and sort of chanting some sing song words to me.  She lets out a massive smile and holds my face in both her hands.  I’m obviously looking a bit confused because a young woman comes over from the bar and tells me that the old lady has just blessed me!  I don’t think I’ve ever been blessed before.. amazing.  I give her smooth warm face a kiss and we’re off.  I just nip to the toilet to check .. nope .. the blessing didn’t reach that far .. never mind ..

Get to the coast road and swim south on the most glorious, sinuous and spectacular part of the journey so far.  Forget the Croatia coast road, it’s a lot lot better down here.

And just to add a bit of fun, we hit the squiggles I remember sitting in the dark at home and  zooming in on Google Maps

Get to to the outskirts of Sarende and stop for some fuel.  Albania is generally pretty poor so I assume the 4 Lambos and 3 Ferraris that pull in behind us are the local bad lads turning their drugs and people smuggling into rubber and fuel.  The cars look like they’ve been driven through Twats’R’Us and are covered in stickers and shiny tasteless wraps.  The blokes driving look like they have to shave their eyelids, all small and hairy and wiry, like Wooki-etts.  Keep you distance and just go.  Thats a whole different world I want nothing to do with.

Get to the hotel which is on a road front near the beach.  I asked to use the parking, and I booked this place weeks ago.  It seems though that the boss has decided to bump us in favour of some Serbian bikers arriving later this evening.  I’m not happy but things like this are bound to happen and there really is fuck all you can do.  Thats why a few of us bought locks and chains.  Tie the horses up outside and hope they’re there in the morning

It’s not at all bad here.  These places are not everyone’s cup of tea, but I’m happy to spend a few hours wandering about and relaxing in the sunshine.

If ever I’m reincarnated, I don’t want to come back as a foot.   Feet get a really bad deal, especially mine.  Locked in an airless dark hot and sweaty place for hours on end.  I like to treat them when I can.. and I can today.. so I take them for a delicious lukewarm salt bath.

Relive it

The road from Sarende climbs and twists and snakes up and over the mountains and pretty soon we’re at the border with Greece.

A quick thump from the stamp and we’re in.  I’ve not been to northern Greece before and before I came I looked at the maps for some interesting roads.  It looks like the cartographer either had Parkinsons or was pissed out their head.. and thats the way it turns out to be.    The GPS committee sat for some time yesterday and agreed a route that seems to contain no straight longer than 100m.     I just remember the day as being like one long speed wobble the bars never ever being still even for a moment.  Take a look at the relive and you’ll see.

We’re in Kastraki tonight and approaching it really reminds me of Close Encounters of the third Kind.   Solid mountains of rock just standing clear of the ground with lots of monasteries perched on top.  It feels more like the USA than Greece. Anyway, I take the Richard Drafus suite and start practicing the tune on my travel keyboard just in case .. now how does it go again ..

Everyone is worried about their head bearing the next day due to their overactivity in the mountains yesterday, plus we’ve got a way to go today.  We’ll all just take the quick and easy route down to Pireas and give our concentration batteries a chance to recharge.  Give them a day off and just cruise down in the heat.

But first a quick scoot up to the top of the mountain for some tourist spotting.. and try to get another language on my helmet

Now.. I explained the rules to this lady.  I told her.. girls only.. real girls.. none with penises .. no ‘Mike identifying as Mable’ .. but she still broke them and put both her AND her boyfriends name on my helmet.. this is the last picture ever taken of her .. she was warned :). And I couldn’t get the name off the helmet so he had to go and get a sex change that afternoon.  Be warned.  Those are the rules.. no exceptions!

Stop for the first time in Greece for Coffee and cake and fuel.  Someone has made a mistake on the pumps though.  I’m sure its just a slip of a finger .. but it appears these pumps are suppling molten gold rather than petrol.  Fuck its expensive.  And they double fuck you by disabling the cutout and letting you pour £100’s worth all over the forecourt too.

Time for drugs I think ..

Easy riding all the way down to Athens and then into the melee of any big capital city.  Athens looks odd from the motorway though, all very low rise and sprawling.  Not as I expected at all.  Pireas is south of the city and its the only place I could find with parking in the whole of the city.  It’s one of those underground car parks that looks like it was built by Swampy and his mate after the hotel was built above.  It also goes down about 4 stories into the dark until you can feel the heat of the earth’s core.  I absolutely hate these places.  You just know the builders never got the proper plans out the envelope.  They just dug a big hole and got their mate to prop it all up with columns of feta cheese.   They all just feel like an accident waiting to happen.  Good job I travel light.  I grab my little bag and swim to the surface as quick as I can.

Take a wander down to the harbour to watch the world go by before the sun goes to bed.  The Greeks sure love their boats.

We’re having a day off.  Time to go and see some culture.  And to get a shave.  I never shave myself when I’m away.  I like to take my life in my hands and get some random bloke to hold a blade to my throat just to feel alive.  The older I get the harder it gets to get a kick out of anything.  Kick me.. nope.  kick me HARD… HARDER!!! Nope .. maybe there is something wrong with me.. I dunno.  I live two lives and I step from one to the other when I go away on the bike.. then step back from sauntering down an alley in Bratislava in the dark .. to laying on the couch watching Eastenders .. and there is nothing in between.  My wife just says hello like I’ve come back from the supermarket and its situation normal within 2 minutes.  Anyway.. where was I.  I like being wet shaved.  Maybe its the fear that this barber will be a descendant of Sweeny Todd and my life will end in spurt of my jugular and a demonic smile from a barbaric barber.

Someone tells me there is a barista that has been perfectly pored into a pair of tight jeans just down the street so I go for what could be my last coffee .. its all part of the illusion ..

I’m in Greece so I’m expecting a Greek barber, but it proves unexpectedly difficult to find one willing.  In the end the only one willing is an Iranian immigrant who proceeds to give me at least a dozen near death experiences as he skids and bumps the blade across my throat with all the subtlety of someone pealing an apple.  He then proceeds to pour what feels like battery acid into every open cut and gives it all a vigorous  rub to really make sure each and every nerve ending joins the fun.  Fuck I’m sore, and as I walk back I feel little streams of pain as the sweat adds salt to the wounds.

And this bloke didn’t help by laughing at me

Mind you .. look a the bike he was riding ..

Maybe he had converted it to electric judging by the spare battery ..  take a bit of a wander round the streets to give the camera a bit of exercise

I really dont feel like opening all my pores and liquidating 50% of my bodyweight today but its got to be done.  Take the train into the city and wander up to the Acropolis.  They’ve got the builders back in it seems.  Why didn’t they build it properly in the first place? Its heaving and its hot and if I really want to see ancient ruins I just have to look at the two blokes I’ve walked here with

On the way back Brian takes me to a taverna and fills me with 20 pints of ouzo in order to kidnap me and accompany him into the depths of Modor to check his tyre pressures

You can tell there is a problem when he presses the gauge to the valve and there is just a weedy little fart .. he has some of those shit cheap Japanese tubeless tyre conversions and they’ve obviously committed Hari-kari.  Buggery fuck wombles..

Sarajevo for breakfast, Mostar for lunch.  With loads of lakes and copious curves to consume on the way.  Bosnia isn’t necessarily a place you’d associate with good roads but it has plenty and despite being a really small country it frequently treats you to big skies, open plains and only the thinest sprinkling of humanity.

Thankfully all the riders on this trip are very experienced and completely independent.   Every morning they get a destination and are released into the wild like a box of homing pigeons.  We might spin round a town a few times getting our bearings then we’re off.  We’ll meet at pinch points or when the first rider’s caffeine level reads empty  but frequently we’ll ride a distance apart and keep out of each others way.  Nobody in interested in racing.  Nobody is keen to have the size of their balls weighed and put on any chart.   They are all such good riders that to put them to their absolute limits would be dangerous and stupid.  Having said all that, I have a job keeping up with any of them a lot of the time

We all get to Mostar and head for the bridge.  I’ve been here before but I don’t recognise where I am.  All the satnavs have made different decisions on the best way in but eventually we all congregate like moths to a flame and head in.  Its stupid hot and the place is rammed.  My arse is receiving full lubrication from the sweat running down my back and I give myself a 300m maximum before I hold my helmet in my hand and use it like a divining rod to take me to the closest target it wants adding to its ever growing possie.  It steers me left, right, then up and stars spinning in my hands.  Target aquired ..

And whilst I’m here .. it would be rude not to.  A very smart girl this one.  She’s Spanish and studying something complicated and way beyond my comprehension. She’s come for a short break to let her brain cool down.   Not much chance of that in this heat.

 Mostar is quite a big place but the old town is tiny and very compact.  People are packed into the narrow streets below, shuffling slowly from one set of fridge magnets to the next, queueing for selfies on the bridge.  I’m happy just to watch from afar over the rim of a lovely latte .. and a cake.

Take 2 steps from the table and it’s like exiting the twilight zone and going back to reality.

Ask anyone that hasn’t been to Bosnia what they think it would be like and I doubt they would think its like this.  ‘Surpriiiiiiiiiise’ ..

I’ve not taken this particular route before and it’s really beautiful.  My satnav embarrasses itself yet again but taking us down a single track footpath towards a ‘locals only’ border crossing but both I and the others are used to this by now so we do the pigeon thing  again and find the right road.  It’s a lovely evening and the mountain roads are clear and free to play on.

Another crossing, another stamp, another destination and another garage for the bikes to lay their heads

Tonight we’re just outside Dubrovnik and we pass all the floating cities moored up in the docs as we arrive.  Its going to be busy..

Get a bus down and we all have to flash our gold credit cards at the gate to prove we can buy a small ice cream if we need one.  The place is heaving.  It’s people soup.  I want to take some pictures but it’s going to be tricky tonight.     For me, taking pictures is another kind of therapy, another mental distraction, a 3 dimensional game where I watch and wait, let my brain track the trajectory of 100 bodies all moving in different directions, all the while trying to predict a fraction of a second when I should fire the trigger.  People come into and out of frame, speed up, slow down, stop and laugh, kiss, touch, and my brain is all the time calculating the odds, trying to move my body into the perfect position.  Sometimes that means I will speed up and walk fast to intercept something, or slow down to allow people into a space ahead.. or it will get me to kneel down in the middle of a packed square or it will get me to do a very quick fly by to get a shot before anyone notices.   I used to worry about this.  I used to be really self conscious about it but nowadays I don’t have a fuck  left to give.  I will never see any of these people ever again.  I might enter their consciousness for a second or two while they ask themselves ‘what the fuck is that skinny old twat doing’ but then their concentration will fall on that shiny expensive trinket in the next shop window and I’ll be gone. Forgotten.  Trashed. But it’s still a game of luck.  It’s like writing, or an erection.  You can’t force it.  And its just as disappointing when  it doesn’t happen.

Fuck I do talk a load of old shite sometimes ..

Anyway .. I just go with the flow and let fate decide.

We find a restaurant up a tight alley and sit down. ‘That will be €20 please’.  ‘What will?’ ‘That seat, that’s €20 for 30 minutes.  ‘You what?’  Look at the menu and quickly decide that I dont really want to just turn that many Euros into shit tonight so I pop sticks and take a long walk back to the hotel in the dying evening light.

Relive it

Today is a 2 border day.  It’s always a lottery how long it will take.  I’ve been through both borders before and they were fine but history is no guarantee of the future.  Get to Montenegro and it’s a five minute job.

Until we try and get insurance.  There is a big sign on the booths telling you that you need insurance and where to get it, which turns out to be the building not 50m away.  Last time I think I payed €10 and it took 5 minutes.  We all follow the signs and go up to the office, which is shut.    Everyone takes a patience pill and we settle down to wait.  Its hot and you have to manually shut down, to tie your temper up in a safe place and really think before you speak.  Someone comes back, opens the door and we form an orderly queue.  The bloke just to process the first rider when someone comes out another office and heads our way.  He’s 2 foot tall and pushing his balls in a wheelbarrow and he looks like trouble.  He comes in and just rips the paper from the blokes machine and puts on his best Billy Big Potatoes face.  I’ve seen this before.  My temper instantly pulls and wriggles at its bindings but we need to keep this under control.   He is absolutely adamant that  we don’t require insurance and that our green cards will cover us.  Any attempt to show him our insurance and the countries it covers is met by a sneer and a wave of the hands.  He knows best.  He is never ever ever ever wrong and he will absolutely  not allow us to buy insurance.  In this situation it’s just not worth the potential trouble that escalating the situation would cause.  We’ll be in Montenegro for a few hours max and we’re just going to have to go commando.   I accidentally give the wheelbarrow a big kick on the way out and see his balls hit the big ceiling fan accompanied by a wale of pain.  Twat.

The ride through Montenegro is extremely hot, slow and painful.  All the cars only seem to have 1st gear and crawl along like disabled snails even if there is nobody in front of them.  Its a pretty place though, there is no denying that.

I’ve got memories of Montenegro from 10 years ago when I came through here with an old mate.  An old mate that is now dead.  Streams of thoughts like that always lead to roundabouts with lots of potential turns.  I choose to take a positive one and find a lovely, if expensive cafe perched high above a town we stayed at before.  Relive the good times.  Replay the laughs and the smiles.  Choose the light over the dark.  There is a little isolated community in the bay and the waitress tells us Stallone has a property there.  Not a bad spot at all.

I see a girl being photographed by her boyfriend upstairs.  She’s not shy, but she doesn’t want me to take her picture.  What she doesn’t know wont hurt her

There is a Russian thats ridden to Europe on his bike sitting next to us.  He has an attractive wife that’s keen to add her name to the list.

Talking to Russians in the current climate is tricky.  There are  obviously an awful lot of opinions that we don’t currently share, especially amongst the more wealthy ones we meet down here.  But nobody is keen to start that conversation.

Its taken us a lot longer than anticipated to get through Montenegro than we anticipated so its quite deep into the afternoon before we cross into Albania.  Luckily its a quick process and we’re all queueing up outside the insurance booth/container to get our totally worthless paper comfort blankets.  Another couple arrives on a new GS looking like they’ve just ridden out the showroom.  They both worked in Singapore for a few years and saved up to spunk everything on a new bike and a road trip.  Good to see.  Except they think in their youthful innocence that the entire world runs on plastic.  They don’t have any cash.  At all.

Ok then.  Maybe they can barter for their insurance.  I’m sure they’ll be fine.

First impressions of any countries are quickly formed within the first few miles of the border.  A lot of the time it’s not good.  The money always seems to be concentrated in the middle of the country and not so much seems to flow to the very edges.   This time its better than expected.  A new business being built, ice creams and coffee, toilets with less than a week’s skidmarks on.. its all good.

Get out on the road though and its absolute lunacy.  It’s just like Russia.  All traffic regards motorcycles as vermin and they just pull out and overtake towards you as though you’re just not there.  They have absolute total disregard for two wheels.  Trucks, coaches, and worst of all, the big 4x4s.  They pull out and launch themselves like missiles down the road towards you.  Lights blazing, because obviously thats a safety feature that will stop them actually coming into contact with anything.  It’s not just happening occasionally either.  Its constant.  If you’re not surrounded by cars then the lane is considered to be clear and they just go.  Brian has a very very close call with one in particular.  He’s put into the dust at quite high speed but thankfully keeps it together and lives to fart another day.

Riding into Tirana is a lot of fun.  Thats if you like riding though molten metal, which as it happens, I do.  It’s tight.  It’s hot.  It’s very passive aggressive and you have to ride very ‘positively’.    Its testament to the riders that somehow we manage to all keep together and navigate through the melee.  By the time we get to the hotels, most of the bikes are at melting points and so are the riders.  Its a nice hotel with a garden and I very quickly hear the pulling of tabs and the hiss of beer against red hot tongues.

I dont usually do beer.  I’m a milkaholic. So I head out in search of the white stuff.. no not that white stuff .. though its probably easier to find than milk out here.  Probably cheaper too

Some people come up with really novel solutions to the traffic problems

I find an ATM and withdraw some cash.  I always feel like I’ve turned into a target when I do that in places like this.  Albania is famous for bad men, and I’m very keen not to meet any.  I’m keeping to the main roads, keeping visible.  I come to a little bloke in a cabin watching a car-park for a hotel.  He directs me into the maze and away from the main roads, into the back streets.  Its still daylight and my spider sense isn’t tingling so down I go.  I find the market and walk in, the familiar smell of warm veg and not so clean freezers.  But my quarry is there, all chilled and waiting.  My habit is running between 4 and 6 pints a day at  the moment.

Its Friday night and the building over the road seems to be a club.  We go out for dinner and when we come back the building is almost moving with the bass,  seeming to breath in and out  with the beat.  My kind of place but at my age that level of volume would probably just blow all my skin off.  Still.. why would I want to go out when I’ve got Brian waiting in my room

Relive the day

 

 

 

 

 

My wife is a witch.  But lucky for me, she’s a white one.  She can look down in a field and instantly find as many 4 leaf clovers as you want.  She collected some for me to give to my riders and I locked them away in a very safe to keep them from catching any stray crap or bad karma but now they have to see the light of day and take their chances against the shitstorm.  Them and my little orange travelling companion.  He has a huge smile on his face.. we’ll see how long that lasts.

There is nobody home today.  Close the door, get on and go, down to meet rider No 1 at Cobham on his old Africa Twin.

And down to a cheap.. and not particularly cheerful B&B in Folkestone.  Folkestone doesn’t really seem to do cheerful from what I can see.  Certainly the drunk bloke I’m watching pissing in the street from my window doesn’t seem that happy.  Go out for some ruinously expensive fish.. we I say fish .. but I don’t think a tadpole wearing 25 coats of thick batter really counts..  and chips then back through the time portal  to the B&B where I fully expect to find Rigby arguing with Miss Jones.

Steve is an old mate that I’ve known since I met him riding the Pan American back in 2010.  He’s a very very good rider and a really nice bloke.  I’ve not shared with him before though and there is always a slight awkwardness.. which I decide to break with a small fart.. and he double trumps by continuing to chat whilst having a massive shit with the door open.. oh happy days.

I’ll be picking up riders as I go south and the next ones are waiting at the eurotunnel when we arrive.  New gleaming tyres, perfectly packed luggage, clean boots and shiny helmets.  That usually lasts about 10 minutes

My old helmet smells like a 90 year old’s slippers .. including dribbles.. and skin flakes..  .. so I’ve got a new one and Lisa helped me break its virginity on the train.

And so it begins .. first stop is Metz. I would usually just lie back and let the GPS lead me by the hand the whole way.   Trying to find interesting stuff in Northern France is like me digging into my leathers with numb fingers in the middle of the night in the freezing rain and -stupid degrees cold after a 10 hour ride and trying to find my tummy banana/witchetty grub  .. its dam near impossible, but we’re going to try.   We get off the motorway.. and I dont remember a thing until we get to Metz. Memory is a curious thing, I didn’t make any conscious decision but these were thown in bin and deleted.  The hotel is near a shopping complex as usual but all the food outlets have failed to survive the COVID reset so we fan out and raid the supermarket instead.

From Metz it’s Munich. My riders are all motowayphobics and will need  daily courses of more interesting fare it seems.  Throw a problem like this at 6 different GPSs and you’ll get 6 different answers.   I think I could make a lot of money by starting a company to mediate GPS ‘discussions’.  To put it politely its a fucking nightmare.    At least this time its being done at a nice cafe with a barmaid capable of writing in less than 64 font unlike the last 2.

I’m sure we’ve all been there.  Sitting round for hours staring at little screens .. backing our little buddies decisions against the others. We choose a route via a section of the B500.  More memories for the bin I’m afraid.  I know what you’re thinking.  I’m a spoilt brat.  And you’re right, but I can’t help it.  My brain is completely full and now I’m only accepting  upgrades.

Memories are one thing .. mammaries are another.  Always plenty of room for more.  This afternoon we hit a sweet spot when we went for something to eat.

Some instantly climb to the top of the pile

Especially when they like a rocket under their crotch

At the start of these trips I have all sorts of demons along for the ride.  This time I’ve got the shitstorm devil as well as all his little mates.. all throwing doubts at me.. all shouting things that could wrong with the bike.. or with the people.. or a million other things.  I always have this fight with myself and it’s a fight I have to win.  We are a team of 6 and we’ve got a long long journey ahead of us.  I look in the mirrors and see the others and wonder what they’re thinking .. I don’t think Steve is thinking about much at all .. I can almost see his smile from here.

We’re on the outskirts of Munich.  Another hotel room to build a mental map of.  Another one to navigate in the dark at bladder o’clock.  Most hotel memories are destined for the bin, but not this one.

Go Greek for dinner at a little Taverna and give the shitstorm devil an hour to set the scene back at the hotel.

Steve goes back early because he’s feeling a bit tired.  We sit and eat, sun is going down, eyelids coming down, time to hit the hay.

I open the door and walk back into the room to find Steve tell me he’s dying and I have to get an ambulance.  He’s in a right state, he’s freezing but boiling, he’s almost incoherent and he’s telling me he cannot get out of bed.  He’s breathing really fast and starting to panic.  I’ve only ever phoned the emergency services once in the uk and its not something anyone does on a regular basis.  I tell him I’ll get a taxi and take him to A&E but he is convinced he cant get up.  So.. 112 it is.  This is Germany.  In 10 seconds we will see the searchlight of the air ambulance and medics will appear up the stairs and through the windows, syringes in hand, ready to turn this boiling body in the bed next to me back into my mate.  But no.  ‘Hello’.  ‘Hello’.  It sounds like I’ve interrupted somebody’s Netflix and pizza evening, not like an emergency services response.  I tell him I’ve got someone that is obviously in a great deal of distress and I need help.  He decides that because there are no bones sticking out and all his blood is still inside his body that he can get a doctor out to the hotel.  Great.  Lets do it. ‘Ring this number.. goodbye’.  What?  I’m looking at the phone wondering what just happened.  So I phone the number.  Doesn’t work.  Phone 112.  ‘Hello .. could you just wait a moment when I pause the TV’.  Same bloke, which is a surprise for a start.    ‘OK, try this number instead.. goodbye’.    Try the new number, same result.  112 again.. same bloke again.  Do they really only have one bloke responding to 112 calls?  ‘Oh.. ok.. I’ll put you through myself then’.  WTAF?  I hear the connections being made.. I’m getting somewhere now .. the doctor is looking for his car keys .. he’ll be leaving any time now .. the connection goes through, and its an automated call service, all in German, with no ‘press 5 for english’ option.  Fuck this!! I go downstairs to ask the receptionist for help.. or rather the receptionist’s chair.  Reception is unmanned until the morning, and the barman is absolutely not going to help me.  Back up in the room I think I’m detecting a slight slowing in the breathing.  The brain is a strange thing.  If it thinks help isn’t coming any time soon I reckon it knows it has to sort something out itself.  He doesn’t want to go to A&E and he’s beginning to relax a bit.  I’ve never seen anyone have a panic attack, and its not what this turns out to be in the end, but whatever has caused this episode looks to be subsiding.  He falls into a fitful sleep and I spend the night half awake listening to all sorts of random outbursts as he bad dreams his way to morning.

I wake up early and Steve is asleep.  His breathing sounds normal and he’s kicked off the covers.  He slowly comes round and sits up in bed.  He’s looking tired but whatever he had last night seems to have passed.  But he’s going home. We both know it will only get more difficult to sort anything out the further we go.  There is something wrong and it doesn’t look good.  Day 2.  I good man down.

The weather is looking sad today. Grey and miserable.  We say our goodbyes, wish each other luck and fork east and west. 

Go for fuel, and as I get back on the bike the shitstorm devil makes me slip on some spilt fuel and kick my chain oiler, fracturing the plastic oil reservoir.  I’m getting grudgingly more impressed by his ingenuity .. but my patience is wearing thin now ..

We’ve got to do a bit of autobahn this morning before heading south through Austria.  My bike is feeling a bit odd in the wet.  Like it’s steering from the back.  And whenever I hit even a small bit of over banding its getting well out of shape and scary.

We’re riding along at a steady pace and I’m just wondering whats wrong when I see traffic backing up on the other carriageway.  It’s a downhill section and its busy.  There is a big group of bikes and my eyes are drawn to one in particular.. it brakes .. looses the back end.. then heads straight for the barrier on the inside..  smashes into the barrier sending bits of plastic and bike everywhere .. it all takes just a few seconds.  The riders behind me see more.. and another bike that smashes into the central reservation.. and people running over looking shocked .. the finger of fate could just have easily pointed to us at that moment.   I’ll take any number of small inconveniences and problems over accidents like that.  I hope they were all ok.

We’re aiming to go over the Grossglockner pass,  but firstly, and more important, cake.

God I love cake.  And cake ladies .. I never eat cake at home .. or cake ladies.

Find the pass.  Give the wallet its first raping to get through the gate and over we go.

I’m really not happy with the handling at all.  Bike wont turn and its feeling odd.  As we’re coming down the other side there are lots of concrete retaining walls and it sounds like I’m being followed by a Kamaz truck.. all I can hear is tyre noise and lots of it.  So I stop and look at the tyres – they look ok to the naked eye.  Check the pressures.

The rear is a bit soft.  9psi soft.  Buggery tits arse and farts.. it looks like the rear band is faulty too now.  These MotoZ have such stiff sidewalls that not even the other riders around me had noticed its so soft.  I cannot easily fit the tube because of the offset valve so I’ll have to keep pumping it up and see how it does.  That will be fun for the next 6 weeks.

Still, the ride down to Ljubljana is a real joy now I know the cause of my handling problem.  The last two riders are waiting when we get to the hotel.  One is a mate that has ridden to China with me before, and the other is Brian.  Both have made their way here from different directions and new we’re complete.  We’re in formation.  Ready to go and play.

Its great to ride for a few days, knock on a random door in a random hotel and suddenly feel back at home with an old friend.  We have a lot of shared memories, a lot of which will never see the light of day, and some of which we’ve both agreed to bury completely.  And now it’s time to make some more.

We’re not doing massive daily miles this trip and today we’re aiming at Zadar down on the Adriatic coast.  Why?  I like the name.. what more excuse do you need?

We cross into Croatia and get to Rijeka.  Its coffee and cake o’clock and I’m sure there must be loads of it piled up somewhere in all the concrete I can see from the motorway so I put my super sensitive dog sniffer nose on and take a random dive into the maze.  Its not looking good.. a bit residential.. my head is spinning round like a GoogleMaps camera and my nose is trying to isolate the scent of pastry amongst all the flowers and fumes.  The riders behind me know in this situation that at any moment i am likely to break any road rules and just find the shortest path to my quarry and so it is today.  I catch a glimpse of an open door on the opposite side of the road and my brain instantly concentrates on calculating the shortest distance between me and a cake.. which seems to be via a tight U turn onto the pavement and up a narrow pedestrian ramp.

With the calorie and caffeineometers both showing full it’s and easy, fast and beautifully bendy ride down the coast to the ferry at Prizna.

We go join the bikes at the front.  There is older bloke on a BMW scoot with a face that looks like it is lived in by at least a dozen people.  The resting face belongs to a cagey old boxer but get talking and after a while The Joker suddenly steps in and takes over.

Turns out he has had a big accident and he can’t ride the geared bikes anymore, hence the scoot.

The ferry is just a quick skip across the beautiful blue bay and then it’s a race along the water’s edge to an old hotel with a friendly nana and a strangely haunted feeling about it.

Ever since my mum died years ago I have for some unknown reason associated her with butterflies.  I’m walking into the hotel and up some old stairs with the rays of the warm sun casting shadows all around when a single butterfly decides to accompany me on my journey.  I get to the top.. it stays and hovers for just moment, then it’s gone.  Maybe I’ll be a butterfly myself one day ..

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside ..

On the road out into the morning light and let the sights and the sounds and the smells take care of occupying my thoughts and entertaining my mind.  Keeping my brain entertained and happy can be hard work when I’m at home and a road trip is a chance to hand over responsibility to the ever changing world around me.  Stimulation is usually everywhere but when its not, then I’m happy to be bored too.  To count down kilometers on the satnav.  To eternally convert kms to miles.  To have a simple goal to get the next junction, to that next corner.  Things just to pass the time and not think too hard, to keep my mind from running down dark alleys.  On these trips the future is today.. possibly tomorrow and no further than that.

Get into Bosnia and stop at a cafe that looks to specialise in recently released violent prisoners.  The Bosnians do a good line in death stares and intimidation but the older I get, the less I’m bothered.  Go in and order some coffees and it turns out its a biker hangout.  I find getting my helmet out can often break the tension so it I put it in the hands of the barmaid and a smile makes its way first to her eyes then her mouth, and then her voice.  The blokes seem to see I’ve passed her vetting and their faces soften, heads nod, like dogs sniffing each others arses, they’ve decided to accept us rather than kill us.

I really do like Bosnia.  Every time I come it’s dragged itself a bit closer to the rest of Europe, but not close enough to have lost its soul.  I hope it stays that way.

Get to Sarajevo and rock up at a hotel that Brian stayed at with his wife many years ago, and we get the room right next door to where they slept.  Take the camera out and let it eat up the atmosphere in the old town.  This place has history oozing out of every pore, and the acne of war all over its face.