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We left Budapest having not fully decided which route to take to Bulgaria, through Romania or Serbia so headed to the border town of Szeged to decide.  We couldn’t find an open campsite and so went to the first hotel we could find which turned out to be 2 stars of pure yuck which hadn’t been touched since sometime in the 1940’s.

We went for a walk in the evening hoping to stock up on cheap supplies and ended up coming across the biggest Tesco I’ve ever seen.  A very bizarre experience walking through the same aisles in a completely different language!

Returning to the crummy hotel we vowed to get out of the place early the next morning.

We headed to the nearby metro station to be met by some very grumpy train inspectors who seemed to spend their days standing in groups, smoking and occasionally barking at the odd passenger.  Having spent a bit of time trying to understand the unrecognisable station names we hopped on the metro and headed to the castle district of the city.

Having spent days and nights on motorways and camping in the countryside with only ourselves for company, it felt very strange to be in the city again and surrounded by tourists.

We spent some time dandering around the castle and parliament areas admiring Budapest’s stunning architecture on either side of the Danube.

On returning to the campsite I had a chat with the guys who ran the place to try and gather some thoughts on where we should head next.  We had two choices, Romania or Serbia.  Serbia would cost money for insurance at the border but was reported to have very good roads and so we could make good progress.  Conversely Romania had poor roads but was very cheap.  The campsite guys seemed to think that Romania’s roads were very slow and not great for motorcycles.  We banked the information and would decide towards the border.

That night we made a new friend in the form of a little kitten who came over to our tent.  After a little rummage through our things he went again, only to return later and curl up on Neil’s knee!

250 miles to Budapest and we covered them all in one day… Happy Birthday Neil!  The going was tough as very strong crosswinds blew over the motorway.  At times the bike  seemed to be going forward at 70 degrees to the ground rather than 90 and so it was probably best for Neil that the autocoms weren’t on as all he would of heard from me was ‘aaarrrgghh!’

The wind continued to wrestle with us all the way across the border into Hungary but it seems both the Austrians and Hungarians had made the most of these conditions as we were surrounded on all sides by massive wind turbines as far as the eye could see.  It was a little like passing through some sort of alien landscape. unrecognisable as anywhere in particular.

The road was quiet and we only really had trucks and lorries for company and the occasional bird of prey.  We stopped with 20miles to go to Budapest for a rest and commented how Neil had spent his birthday in 2 countries and didn’t even have a present from me to show for it! (I couldn’t fit it in my panniers, honest!)

We were headed for a campsite in Budapest called Bikercamp, run as the name suggests, by 2 motorcyclists.  Unfortunately. after braving Budapest traffic for over an hour, we found them only to be closed.  We headed instead to Haller camping which turned out to be a good twist of fate as it was a really well equipped campsite right in the middle of Budapest.  We were camping in a little patch of green surrounded by high rise flats!

Exhaustion had set in and we were starving so after hurriedly setting up the tent we headed to a local eaterie for some beef stew and some very suspect potatoes.

I discovered that my bike seemed to have a small fuel leak from the fuel lift pump. Maybe it was recent or maybe it had been there for a long time. I then decided to add it to the list of worries to keep an eye on and then forget it. I‘ve 2 spare ones anyway.

The rest of Germany was rather uneventful. We stayed on the Autobahn and avoided the Ausfahrts for fear of repeating the Hamm experience (only this time in the rain). One tall blonde toned German lady in her 30‘s apologised for the rain, as she stepped into her big black gangster style BMW 5 series, at a service station. Would anyone even notice a traveller back home?

As expected it rained the whole way down Germany until the last day as we neared the Austrian Border. Then the clouds started to part a little and we felt the weight being lifted from our shoulders. I am sure we missed a lot of good things in our fly through but admit a little part of me felt good to be out of the constant rain (and ads for TUV approved dating sites?)

The air was freezing but at least we were dry. As we crossed the border there was a confusing layout of lanes depending if you wanted to buy the vignette for the roads or not. We ended up in the service station despite trying to avoid it so Helen went off to enquire about the price hoping it would be the same story as Germany. 95 eur? erm what do we do now?

Its quite annoying having the phone with gps and also a file full of campsites but not being able to mash the two together. The classic/techy side of me is still trying to figure out a way round it like using grep and a load of other stuff but he is being slowly beaten into submission by the romantic/non-techy side who is not in work anymore.

Anyhoo, what we do have is a downloaded copy of travel wiki called “oxygen guide“ and it reckoned wifi at mcd‘s was free in Austria. So in we pull to the first one we see and I fired up the phone to be presented with a screen full of german. Guessing, I clicked Acsepten (or something like that – maybe I just gave away my birthrite) and we were in business. We got directions for the nearest campsite and discovered google navigation will cache them so we could follow them to the site (just don‘t make a wrong turn or yer stuffed!!)

OMG – the site it took us to was an amazing old guesthouse. Total result. Not only that but the road to it was fantastic too. Had it not been for the satnav there was no way we would have found it, not least of all because half of the roads felt like someones private lane through beautiful fields of corn. We were both absolutely elated after the prolonged low we‘d been through. All for the want of a lousy couple of Kb. Definitely need a sim card, at least in Turkey/Iran.

We celebrated with a couple of pints of the local beer in a room full of people who we could not understand before going to sleep in the freezing cold. I had weird dreams that the lost planes and ships in the Bermuda Triangle turned out to be due to pockets of Carbon Monoxide. When you think about it, it kinda sounds plausible but I wonder about my subconscious sometimes..

We woke up the next day to the sun shining on the hills below us and set off in the direction of Wien (Vienna).  We stocked up on supplies of food at the local SPAR (yes that’s SPAR!) and received many a bewildered stare from the locals.

We’ve noticed that the further we get from home the stranger the looks we get.  Some just blatantly stare but thankfully most smile, wave or even take pictures!  We were approached by a lovely Austrian man at a rest stop who enquired in perfect English as to what we were doing.  He explained that he was a motorcyclist himself and wished us luck on our journey.

The day ended in a campsite in Tuln beside the Danube about 30 miles from Wien where we camped for the night ready to head  toward Budapest the next day.

We vowed to one day return to Austria as even in our short stay we had seen some amazing scenery.

Spent a day trying to get some unsecured wifi or a internet cafe in Hamm and failed miserably. Therefore spent 103 eur on a hotel instead of being able to find Brauhaus Wilhof which would have been free. Later found it on the internet in the hotel that night and made the rule to stop by 3 to give us time to find accommodation. We stayed there the next night for our first night in the brand new tent and a few of Willie‘s lovely dark beers. I also fitted the chain oilers.

The morning brought rain as promised by a couple of local people we met at an Aldi up the road. Helen remarked that Germans seemed lovely and I asked what she expected? She replied that they seem to get bad press at home. It was finally dawning on both of us that the real world is very different from that in the Media where so much effort seems to be spent on scaring people to keep them under control (or something)

Anyway from my previous trip to Germany with Jonny for the Hamm Diesel bike rally last year I knew this is not good. Rain in Germany is nothing like it is at home. In NI you can expect some breaks in the showers whereas in Germany it rains constantly for days and nights on end. We managed around 100 miles to near Frankfurt where we found a motorway hotel for less than half the price of the Hamm one but much nicer.

After pushing the “defekt“ sign out of the way on an internet terminal and thus wasting 4 eur we grabbed some oil for the bike chain oilers in the shop over the road. some decent looking 15w40 that would perhaps be the nicest stuff to end up flung off a chain. hmph

Just a quick post to say that we arrived in Amsterdam this morning after catching the ferry from Newcastle.  We’re staying in Hamm tonight after doing 200 miles today.  Heading to Frankfurt tomorrow and will hopefully have a chance for a longer post then.  Thanks for all the messages of support!

When you live on an island, the first boat signifies the start of an adventure. a departure from the known mundane repetitive nature of modern day life into the unknown, unseen and mostly unplanned that invariably happens. Life is experience.

So it was both with trepidation and simultaneous excitement that we boarded our first (and unbeknownst to us – only) boat of the day from Belfast to Stranraer. For someone who was worried about riding a bike onto the boat Helen showed no issues. We were both still getting over the shock of the heavily loaded bikes. I could not believe the difference it had made, especially at low speeds. It felt like the front was disconnected from the back. Almost as though some git had half filled the top box with water and it was sloshing about. This can‘t be normal…

As any biker knows one of the biggest concerns is leaving the bike on the boat, strapped down by whatever means the dude could be bothered with that day. This depends on a number of factors such as how nice you are to them, what the weather is like and what mood he is in. That day the guy seemed chirpy enough and sensing our concerns (which we as bikers do our best to hide) he said “like a duck pond out there“. Happy days. He then asked if we were just over for the day? Um no. Not with spare tyres etc.

We rolled off the ferry and I chose that moment to setup the satnav. In truth the past week or so had been filled with frantic, much too late tweaking and servicing (as usual) so it hadn‘t got done. luckily it worked well enough to get us on the right road to Newcastle before it started crashing. Thankfully I had installed other software that used the same maps and it worked ok.

So we cruised along rather uneventfully for a while until I decided to open the bike up a bit in top gear to see how it went with all the gear on. We got to about 60 before the bike died and the engine fault light came on (installed a couple of days previous). I was all arms and feet trying to find the hazard lights in my blind panic while we were still rolling. I am sure I had them someplace. In a pannier maybe?

One feature of the engine warning lamp is you are meant to use a button to get it to blink out the fault code. I had wired this to the horn so that you effectively had to beep to get the code. Helen had no idea why we were stopping or what I was beeping for but went with it anyway. No blink codes came up so I tried restarting the engine which was ok.

Around 30 miles later it happened again. This time the bike restarted ok but when we pulled away it cut out again. Not good. I started to panic inside. Not even out of the UK and the bike is stuffed. I was taking it personally and starting to feel like a failure. My fate and destiny intertwined with that of the bike.

We pressed on and my mind was racing round in circles. What is the problem? Is it something I did in the last week or so? Engine failure? ARG!

I caught myself on and forced myself to think of the “when does it happen“ instead of “why does it happen“. Both times had been uphill so perhaps it was oil level? Or power demands – fuel rail sensor? Or Injector or something?

I thought about fuel a bit more and then drifted laterally to the rest of the fuel system. Fuel tank has fuel in. Pump is lifting and pressure gauge shows ok. What else. hang on a sec, gauge is BEFORE fuel filter. What would it do if that was blocked? Maybe that’s it? I‘ve never had to replace the fuel filter yet and its quite small. I had a couple spare with me. I‘d noticed the pressure gauge didn‘t bounce around like it normally did with varying engine demands. It was all starting to add up.

By now we were running low on time. 15 miles to go – come on baby just 15 more. Every hill was a challenge to climb without triggering an engine cutout but while also making decent time. 3 more miles baby just 3 more. The bike cutout again but started ok. We were reduced to a crawl just to keep going as it turned 4. Little did I realise that the ferry terminal was on the other side of Newcastle 11 miles away so it was all irrelevant. The bike cut out stubbornly in front of the Hospital at a set of traffic lights. All around us cars were starting to look and some drivers beeped impatiently as I dismounted and pushed the heavy bike up the footpath (gimmie a freakin break a-hole).

The bike was left for a bit and eventually started as we tried to work out the direction to the ferry terminal. We came back onto the main road and managed another 100 metres or so before it quit again. Realisation set in that it was all over. Google maps said it was still 11miles to the terminal and checkin time was over. We reluctantly decided we needed to find someplace to stay but I had to sort the bike either way. We rolled into a little layby and I laid out some tools while also hoping my theory was right.

Some drunk and dodgy people dandered by in what was obviously a slightly dodgy area of the City. So I worked as quickly as I could and in around 10 or 15 mins the fuel filter was changed and I was covered in Diesel. The filter was indeed blocked so I kept it to cut apart later (important to learn from these things). The bike started right up as if to say “finally! I needed that for ages!“

We found a premier Inn where nothing was premier except the price but were too tired to care at that point. Feeling a bit amateur we went to bed and slept right through.

The next day was not so eventful. We only had to find the smart dealership to get some more spare filters. I checked the new ones against the old one and they looked the same. Some more faffing about it turned out they were petrol ones. Lesson well learned from previous experience = Always check parts! Happy days.

We cruised over to B&Q to get some bungys and straps and a new lock for Helens pannier. At the petrol station we met first a young guy on an R1 with a white fairing that looked like it had seen the tarmac once or twice. He rode by then came back to ask if my bike had a turbo and what was it off? Erm its off a smart car and so is the engine. ‘Well kool‘ was the lovely Newcastle accented reply. Turned out he wanted a turbo on the R1 and started talking about forged pistons and all so was clearly not just a pipe dream.

Then just as he left we met Dina, the secretary for a womans biking MCC. Unlike the boat guys she had noticed the tyres and wondered where we were heading. She wanted to do a similar trip so I gave her a card with the address of our blog. As she left I could not help but contrast the different outlooks of both people. One who preferred small bikes and travelling and the other adrenaline junkie who needed more HP than an r1 could supply.

I guess that’s one of the great things about biking. you meet so many interesting people, each getting something different out of bikes, but also sharing the same passion as you. Its like an underground cult that hides in plain view sometimes.

We rolled onto the ferry later that day, expecting the same drill of waiting for someone to come strap the bike down. Only they didn’t come. It soon became apparent we were on our own. “Well screw em“ I thought. If I gotta strap this thing down myself I am sure gonna do it right. I took a good 15 mins and no less than 6 straps off every conceivable point to do the job. Over the seat, off the pegs, handlebars and pannier rack. The boat could have capsized and my bike would not have moved. Meanwhile Helen who was worried about getting on a boat only 1 day earlier had strapped her bike in like a pro and was showing some of the other blokes how to work the ratchets!

We‘d got settled into the boat when an announcement came for us to report to guest services! When we went over they told us the police were looking for us! They gave us a number to call because the captain would not wait and the cops had to get off the boat. We wondered what they wanted and could not speak to them when we called. They wanted a number to call back on but we could not give one since we were leaving the country for 8 months. The whole thing was a farce but it didn‘t stop us worrying about what it could be? where they unhappy about the loading of the bikes? Was there a problem with us leaving the country?

Eventually I figured out that a battery out of a radio would fit my (now dead) phone if I held it with a finger and left the back off. It had same voltage and pin layout so it did the job long enough for me to call back and find out the query was there was no record of Helens registration on their database (because it was ‘exported‘ to NI but kept the GB plate). Confusion sorted the detective explained they were checking for stolen bikes and friendly wished us well on our trip. Mind finally settled we went to bed after watching some of the cheesy cabaret. Money well spent..

For the past couple of weeks it seemed the country was trying to stop us leaving. This morning we got up at stupidoclock and caught it unawares. as i write this we are on the Belfast to Stranraer boat having slipped away quietly under cover of darkness. we wobbled our first 20 miles getting used to the loaded machines. no more garage. we really are in the hands of fate now!

Don’t mean to sound like a broken record or anything but we are still at home. By that I mean at the in-laws as our house was emptied in preparation for renting though I’ll get to that. Helen went up to hospital again today for them to look at her eye and it seems there is still a bit of the metal in there. From what I’ve heard it was probably embedded further in there by the A&E SHO who tried to wipe it out with a cotton bud before. So the Ophthalmologist had another go at it and has made the eye pretty painful in the process. Helen can take quite a bit of pain so I know it must be pretty bad for her. I felt pretty useless since I can’t do anything to help. For now it looks like rest and eye drops are the only option.

Had it been a bike that needed fixing at least I would not have been so helpless. Though while putting new oil into my bike last night I noticed a split coolant hose. Not split right through and leaking but not far off it by the look of it. Taking the bike in this state would be like riding a time-bomb. This footery hose is a reducer and in typical fashion seems impossible to get here in good old Northern Ireland. I had something similar in the garage but have ordered up a silicone replacement which should get here tomorrow hopefully. It seems like we have the time to wait for it now though I am aware of our visas ticking away too. I think the time will come shortly when we will “just leave”.

All good plans…

So our house was cleared out for let. Turns out the person renting it does not have the cash up front for deposit and first months rent. I won’t go into their reasons except to say that they are understandable but frustrating none the less. So for the moment we are here in Donaghadee for a couple of days getting tea and sympathy.