Happy New Year

Days on the trip: 203

The plan was for both of us to take an overnight bus from Melbourne to Canberra, spend a few hours sightseeing and then hop onto a bus to Sydney. Unfortunately we  (Martin) only managed to book one of the bus tickets for the right day so we had to split up. Andi took the easier and quicker, albeit significantly more expensive route of flying to Sydney. Martin spent the night on a bus with questionable air conditioning being stuck next to a big(ger) guy desperately trying not to lean on him but still get some sleep.

He finally arrived in Canberra at 6am and first of all needed 3 hours to come to terms with the day. When he eventually decided to be brave and face the sightseeing he went on to visit the war museum, parliament, and the commonwealth park. Canberra isn’t exactly the most impressive Australian town, but with it being the capital it’s still worth a stop for a day, or in Martin’s case, a few hours.

Now on a bus to Sydney we would soon meet up again at our air bnb in the eastern suburn of Maroubra, right next to the beach – a surfer’s heaven. We relaxed a little bit, and then wandered around the beach, along the rocks and to the swimming pool, which was essentially ocean water surrounded by a wall of rocks. And for dinner we were both craving fish ‘n’ chips.

The next day was New Year’s Eve and we’d arranged to meet up with Will, Selene, and a few of their friends to celebrate at Mrs Macquarie’s Point. It’s in the botanic garden and has some beautiful views over Sydney harbour – although with it being in a botanical garden it also has a fair number of trees. It’s a popular venue, so when we turned up at midday there was already a long queue of people trying to get it. Not to worry though, we had plenty of time and after about 2 hours we made it in.

It was pretty full inside so when it came to finding our picnic spot we could only get a patch of grass with no view at all. Never mind, we got our food out, enjoyed some drinks, played some games and generally had a good time in the sun. We walked around the area, checking out the views. People with the top spots had been there many hours before us and all looked pretty tired. And the harbour was packed with boats fighting to get the best view from the water.

Just before 9pm we managed to get an upgrade to our picnic spot. Not sure whether (and if so why) people left but we now saw harbour bridge (through a tree). When the 9pm children’s fireworks started this was our rehearsal to check out how much we could see. It wasn’t bad but also by far not the best. Also by now some people started to stand in the walkway, trying to get the best spot for the midnight fireworks. At the beginning the stewards tried very hard to keep the path clear but they soon realised it was pointless because as they send some people away, others will inevitably take that spot within a few seconds.

Standing for 3 hours wasn’t quite our thing, so we were a bit more relaxed and just before midnight went spot hunting. Sure, the prime spots weren’t available anymore but we still ended up with a decent view of the bridge and the opera house. As the countdown started we were ready to welcome the new year. Happy New Year everyone!!

 

After midnight we headed back to Maroubra. Going to bed just after 2am isn’t too bad for new years and so the next day wasn’t a complete write off. Andi was slightly more eager though than Martin and so whilst we both did the Maroubra to Bondi (via Coogee) walk, Andi walked right along the coast and Martin took an occasional short cut.

The walk was really nice and a great thing to do on New Year’s day. Nice and gentle, with fresh seaside air, and doesn’t take up too much time. Also, the coast line along it was very nice with a mix of rocks, sand beaches, pools, lagunes, a bit of green and forest with colourful birds and even a cemetery. We ended at Bondi beach which was fairly packed and had a fun atmosphere, and lots of bars.  We might be biased, but we preferred Maroubra beach itself, but there are probably more bars and restaurants at Bondi, so it wins in that respect.

We continued our sightseeing the next day by getting a ferry to Manly.  It was a lovely, if windy ferry rise with impressive views over Sydney harbour and the surrounding harbour suburbs. In Manly we didn’t have a huge amount of time but certainly enough to check out the local 4 pines brewery, and walk along the beach. It would have been nice to stay longer but we had also planned on having an Aussie BBQ back in Maroubra. Australia is great because they supply free BBQs to use, but you have to finish before sunset, so there was a bit of time pressure. We got there in time though, bought some kangaroo steak and sausages and enjoyed the end of the day in the park.

The following day the plan was to go surfing with Will and Selene. However, the forecast predicted some pretty big waves, too big for them to handle and therefore certainly too big for us. So instead we met for breakfast near the centre. It was a yummy breakfast, followed by amazing ice cream. And location wise it also worked out pretty well because whilst we had now been in Sydney for a while we hadn’t actually explored the city centre. So off we went to walk through the centre, again to the harbour, the rocks and the botanic gardens (including the bits that were cut off for us during New Year).

Originally this was supposed to have been our last day in Sydney, but Martin had really got into the Big Bash League (BBL) – t20 cricket, and we had seen that the Sydney Thunders were playing the Melbourne Stars the following day. So we got some last minute tickets and booked accommodation for another night close to the stadium. The air bnb that night was interesting  – the host had set up a tent for us in the middle of her living room. Her parents (from China) were also visiting. The tent did a good job of blocking much of the living room and whenever we were around she and her parents seemed to be too polite to walk in and watch tv or sit on the sofa. She was really friendly though and for one night it was definitely fine and it was close to the match.

The stadium was in the Olympic park and so we walked around there for a bit before going in. As we got in we were given all sorts of fan things: flags, posters and empty KFC buckets to put on your head. In all the excitement we found a nice standing spot with a great view and never actually went to check out our seats.

The match looked like it was going to be pretty one sided. The Stars batted first and got a reasonable score. The Thunders were up second, didn’t score a lot and lost a fair number of early wickets. Martin was pretty much close to calling it a loss when the Thunders needed on average 12 runs per over (2 runs per ball). However, they kept the game alive. The required run rate was large, but it didn’t get any bigger and they kept delivering the 12 runs per over. So maybe all was not lost. But then their run rate went down again. In the last over they needed 16 to win.  They started well, got a few boundaries, and in the end it went down to the last ball. They needed 4 to draw (and go into a super over) or 5 to win. And the Thunders hit a six. The entire stadium was celebrating and we very much enjoyed our first live BBL cricket match.

 

Most of our Australia trip was going to be along the coast, but a couple of hours inland by train from Sydney are the blue mountains. So we decided to stop there for a couple of days. We had a relaxing trip up to Katoomba and then the next day went to Scenic World where they have several ‘rides’. The first was a cable car down into the valley, followed by a board walk in the rain forest and a steep train back up to the top of the mountain. Our last ride was a cable car across to the other side of the mountain. We had lovely views of the rain forest, the valley, cliffs, mountains and waterfalls.

From the other side of the mountain we continued walking along the cliff and to the three sisters, three rocks next to the cliffs. From our walk we once more had lovely views and enjoyed the scenery and saw some weird small animal sculptures. Our plan was to continue along the walk a bit further to the Leura cascades but then the path was closed, it started to rain and it was pretty late already anyway, so we called it a day and went back to our hostel for some tuna and sweet corn pasta dinner. Oh and a hot shower. Unfortunately the hot water was broken, so instead we had a bath with the hot water supplied by the kettle.

Before heading back to Sydney for another overnight bus up the coast we stopped at Wentworth Falls, had a picnic, enjoyed some more views of the blue mountains from a different town and then got the 2h train back into the city where we found a sports bar to hang out and watch more cricket until it was time to catch the bus north.

Our first warm Christmas

Days on the trip: 194

 

Earlier this year we had been looking for Santa all over northern Scandinavia. Now we were on our way to Melbourne, to spend our first warm Christmas in Australia. However, before it was Christmas time we had a couple of days to settle in and learn some Aussie slang.

 

Chrissie, Martin’s sister, and Bruno, top bloke, are living out there, so we had our own local guides showing us St Kilda and the penguins, Melbourne’s botanical gardens, a pop up croquet place, the river, south bank, the city centre with some awesome graffiti and of course plenty of nice bars and restaurants.

On Christmas Eve, the main day for Andi, we went to a winery in the yarra valley with Bruno’s family and a fun group of close friends. Got to celebrate in style! With some delicious wines and more food than we could eat we enjoyed sunshine whilst singing snowy Christmas songs. A fantastic day out and definitely a different Christmas eve.

One Christmas day, Jessie, Bruno’s sister, did an incredible job of hosting and cooking a delicious meal. It was a fusion between Finnish (where she is from) and Aussie xmas. The Aussie part was definitely the bbq’ed shrimps. The Finish part was the mulled wine, ginger bread and a trip to the sauna. Given that it was about 35 degrees we weren’t sure why people were so keen to jump in the sauna but you can’t stop a Fin, and it makes the outside feel much colder when you get out they tell us. Sensibly, we just drank some more sparkling whilst the others were sweating. Oh and the international part was a very fiercely contested Jenga competition.

It was a fantastic Christmas, thank you Jessie for hosting us and everyone for making ua feel so welcome.

 

After a lazy boxing day doing some washing, planning and various other bits of admin we hit the Great Ocean Road, a 243km drive along the coast about 1h away from Melbourne. We started at the far end in Warrnambool and then headed on the road east. The weather wasn’t quite on our side in the morning (Martin being blown away and the umbrella taking a big hit), but the coast had some stunning rock formations and we took in all the different view points: London bridge, the arch, the grotto, … and of course also the 7 Apostles – and where necessary Martin would stand in a big puddle to get the best angle.

At Apollo Bay we took a nice stroll along the beach before continuing to a koala walk – where we saw a koala, and then to Anglesea lighthouse. This was our last stop for the day, which Martin was quite happy about that after an early start and lots of driving. In a nice hotel nearby we could relax, drink some wine, and Martin could watch his new favourite sporting event on TV: Big Bash League (BBL). It’s a 20-20 cricket game between Australian states.

The next day we briefly went to see some kangaroos (hiding at a gold club underneath some trees because of the rain, and then headed back to Melbourne. We once more met up with Chrissie and Bruno, who had been to Tasmania in the meantime. We had a nice refreshing drink, witnessed super heavy rain showers and enjoyed a lovely evening with Bruno cooking and trying out his new pasta making kit.

From here it was time for Sydney.  For this journey Martin had to buy Andi a flight since he messed up booking Andi’s bus, while Martin took an overnight bus journey via Canberra.

Singapore – the most Christmassy place ever!

Days on the trip: 186

 

On 14th December we headed to Heathrow, made our way through security, and boarded our plane – it was time to say good bye to Europe for a while, and to swap the chilly European winter for some warmer, summery places. Our first flight was to Colombo, Sri Lanka where we had a short 12 hour wait until our flight to Singapore. Cheerily, we were greeted at the airport with the song “snow is falling, all around us …”. There wasn’t really enough time to explore sweltering Colombo, so we spent it exploring the airport … and by that we mean the hand full of shops, one cafe, a burger king and a pizza hut. Thankfully, they had free wifi which kept us entertained and we had some dinner. Weirdly enough everything was paid for in US dollars rather than their own currency.

 

As the 12h were coming to a close we were definitely keen for the next flight. There wasn’t any more exploring of the airport to do, and quite like in the film “The Terminal”, Andi started to help other passengers around the airport and told them how to use the wifi.

 

Next stop: Singapore. One of our friends, Yvonne, lives there and kindly invited us to stay at their place, and it turns out that her entire family were super welcoming. Her mum and sister picked us up from the airport and took us for some yummy breakfast of prawn mee. Then back at their house we had a little rest after the flight before starting our Singapore explorer programme. The plan was to head to the botanic gardens, it now being roughly 4pm. It was still pretty warm but we thought we had managed to  avoid the main afternoon heat. However, as we were leaving, Yvette, Yvonne’s sister, told us it was still pretty hot and it’s more of a morning or evening thing to go to the gardens. Instead, checking out the air conditioned malls was a better idea. Well, maybe we should trust some local knowledge and so we headed to the shopping malls!

We’ve decided there isn’t a single thing in the world that you cannot buy in Singapore. Everything from super cheap to super expensive and from every corner of the world. You can even buy the traditional German Christmas nutcracker and pyramid there. The malls were huge, extending further and higher than we could imagine along Orchard street, and underground. Also, you certainly cannot miss all the Christmas decoration: Christmas trees everywhere, stars, snowflakes, reindeers, Santa’s bakery, elves, … You name it. We weren’t expecting this much Christmas in Singapore.

We were excited to explore Singapore’s extensive parks, so to make the most of a nice sunny Saturday morning we went to the East Coast Park with Yvonne, her sister, some friends and their cute dog, Taro for some roller skating. It was maybe a little warm to do too much exercise but we took it slowly and certainly Taro wasn’t keen on too much running in the heat. So we just went to a nice lookout of the marina and then headed back.

We freshened up briefly and then went to a Hawker centre. This particular market at he York hotel was only there a few weeks a year and chefs from Penang, the food-capital of Malaysia, are flown over. There are so many delicious dishes to choose from, so we tried to do our best to get through as many as we could, although I think for Singaporean standards we were pretty poor. More training required.

 

After that we headed back home, cooled down a little and then thought maybe we should go and see the marina from the other side. So we headed into town, walked along the marina bay area, where we saw an otter family, and then headed to the gardens by the bay. As it got darker and cooler we enjoyed the light show in the supertree gardens, had some Satay and then walked back along the Helix bridge and the esplanade to the smoke and mirrors rooftop bar above the national gallery. On the way we had some stunning views of Singapore at night, and the bar offered a great vantage point.

Maybe by now we should have known that doing exercise in Singapore is a bit more intense than back home. But for old time’s sake Yvonne and Andi decided to have a game of squash in the morning. Usually we would manage around 10 games in a long session but here even 3 games was a push. But it was lots of fun though to play again and we had some really good rallies and games.

Martin gladly sat out on the squash but definitely wasn’t going to miss the next activity: a visit to little India. We wandered around, saw a few temples, plenty of shops with “super crazy deals” and of course Martin wouldn’t leave without some Indian food. We couldn’t eat too much though because in the evening Yvonne’s family invited us to a family meal with all her relatives. It was really nice to see how they meet up regularly, spend time together and joke around. Living right next to each other makes it quite easy but still it’s really nice to see them keep up this tradition.

The following day Singapore sightseeing continued with a very busy day. In the morning we got up reasonably early to a walk around the botanic gardens. It was really pretty to walk around the rainforest, the lakes, (see and smell) the ginger garden, the waterfall and the bonsai garden. Definitely a nice visit. But as it got warmer, we headed back for a little break and then went out again for our River Safari followed by the Night Safari. Both are parks next to the Singapore zoo. The river safari was mainly about animals living in or around rivers: crocodiles (which Martin thought were plastic – but they were real, haha), fish, otters, … but the main reason we wanted to go was because of Kai Kai and Jia Jia, their two giant pandas. They definitely didn’t disappoint. They were so cute, cuddly, friendly and peaceful. Andi didn’t want to leave. Granted, they mainly sit, sleep and eat bamboo but still, a little pet panda would be fantastic.

The night safari was all about nocturnal animals. We first attended half a “Creatures of the Night” show. Unfortunately it then started to rain lots, so the rest of the show got cancelled. But we could get the tram around the park and could walk little sections, seeing all sorts of animals from flamingos, pigs, bulls, antelopes, bats to tigers, leopards, hyenas, … It was a lovely experience although we definitely noticed that our eyes are not particularly good at spotting still animals in the dark – and our phone cameras were also not up to the task.

 

Since we got back quite late, taking all sorts of night busses, and walking over 30000 steps, we had a lie in the morning and then a very relaxing day. Rather than going out in the heat we went to a very nicely (almost too cool) air conditioned cinema to watch Rogue One. Neither of us is a great star wars fan, so we were a little bit worried that we wouldn’t like or understand it, but it turns out that it was a great film that we really enoyed.

 

In the evening the plan was to go to a Yvonne’s favourite curry place, but it turned out to be closed. So instead we went to Newton food court, where there is a huge choice of different foods from different places. We went with Yvonne and her family, as well as her boyfriend and another friend. It was really delicious, and to finish off our last full evening in Singapore we went to 2am, a dessert bar with yummy fresh and chocolaty desserts.

Finally, it was the day of our flight out of Singapore. However, since the flight was at night we still had some time to wander around. We went to the curry place that we couldn’t go to the previous day for lunch and then headed back to the marina bay area. This time the plan was to go up to the top of the marina bay sands hotel (the high boat shaped building) for an absolutely stunning view over the city. The view was incredible!! They also have an infinity pool at the top which it would have been great to go to but unfortunately that is only for hotel guests. Ah well, it was still worth the trip up to the top.

Back down, we walked to the other side of the marina bay to check out the merlion, a mix between mermaid and lion. It’s one of the main symbols of Singapore and so Andi thought she couldn’t leave without seeing it.

Unfortunately that was already the end of our time in Singapore. It was a great city and spending time with Yvonne and her family was fantastic.

Blog update

Greetings from Arequipa!  We’ve just crossed over from Chile, and over the next fortnight will be travelling around Peru before heading up to Ecuador.

We’ve been frantically writing blog posts to bring you up to date this week.  Our blog posting took a serious hit in Australia, so we’re going to post all the Oz blogs in just one or two weeks.  Then, we’ll be en vivo, or as close as you can get when travelling.  We keep the map on the front page up to date, so you can see where we are – so far in South America we’ve gone by bus from the very south in Ushuaia, all the way up to Arequipa – over 6000 miles.

Our route

Excited for our 30 hour bus journey!

Heading home – part 2

Miles on trip: 16103 miles

Countries: 27 (no more new countries)

Days on trip: 179

 

 

On Monday 5th December, we left Dresden with plenty of time to catch our ferry from Calais (4 days away) and had planned for a stop in Wolfsburg, where Andi’s mum works, and in Glandorf, to see Andi’s aunt. The day before we left, Martin did some Baloo checks and drove him around a bit to check everything was fine after the cold weather. So all was ready and good.

One hour into our drive to Wolfsburg, we felt a big bump accompanied with a loud noise. Did we just drive over something super bumpy or is something wrong? A few moments later, it happened again. This wasn’t good. We slowed down as much as we felt we could on the autobahn, and exited at the next stop.  Fortunately it wasn’t far at all, but once we’d stopped and jumped out to take a look, we saw smoke coming from the rear diff and a pungent burning smell. Noooo.  Looking up the nearest garage on google maps, we headed over to see what could be done. Unfortunately the first garage only dealt with BMWs, so couldn’t help us but they could give us the address of another nearby garage.

 

At the garage they immediately put Baloo up on a ramp, and noticing how much play there was in the rear diff, there was a sharp intake of breath and a shake of the head, and then they told us the bad news. We weren’t going to be able to make it to Calais. So close to home, yet so far away. We discussed options and in the end removed the rear drive shaft. It wouldn’t solve the problem but it would reduce the stress on the rear diff, and driving in front wheel drive only, we could hobble back to Dresden with our car. We also discussed removing the rear prop shafts to completely isolate the diff, hoping this would allow us to make it to Calais, but it was decided that this might be too much for the front diff and wasn’t worth the risk.. So this was all a bit of a disaster, but the good thing was that we were still very close to Andi’s parents house and Baloo could limp back there.

 

Arriving back in Dresden, we immediately started looking into options.  Very kindly, Andi’s dad said it would be fine if we left the car there and sorted out shipping etc later, so we decided to first look into flights back to the UK so we could make our flight out to Singapore on time. Unfortunately, meeting Andi’s mum in Wolfsburg and Andi’s aunt in Glandorf wasn’t possible anymore, but fortunately we hadn’t planned to go to Australia with Baloo, otherwise this would have been even worse. So a couple of days later we flew from Berlin to Manchester. It was sad to leave Baloo behind, but we were backpackers now, and hopped on the plane for the next part of our adventure.

 

Back in the UK, and at approximately the same time as if we’d driven without incident, we put our plans into action.  This meant that the first evening we made a beef roast, along with a yummy crunchy pie, and the second evening we went for a Chinese with Martin’s dad. Cravings sorted, it was time to check in on the turkeys.  No milking on the farm for Andi this time round, but with it being close to Christmas, Andi was tempted to help Uncle Dave with the turkeys.  She saw sense, and left it to them to get the turkeys ready. Poor turkeys.

 

After a brief catch up, we headed into Manchester with Martin’s mum to visit our 4^th Christmas market of the season. We had a nice time wandering around Manchester, the stalls and the shops. We learnt about the famous (hmm) Manchester soap sponge, a sponge that is covered in soap – pretty cool actually. [Ed. Future Christmas present idea]

Now it was time for us to head back down to London so that we could catch up with friends and catch our flight to Singapore. Being back in London is always nice, especially when Martin’s brother put us up in his flat in Kennington.  We spent a day back home in Brixton, visiting our old favourite sites, playing spot the difference, and visiting a couple of newly opened bars/restaurants. The next say we met up with Adam for lunch in Fitzrovia, and then we went to winter wonderland – our fifth and final Christmas market of the season. It’s been tradition for us to go there the day after Andi’s work’s Christmas party. Obviously there was no Christmas party this year but we went anyway, walked around the stalls and very importantly had our 3pm ice skating slot.

In the evening, our last in Europe for a while, we met up with a few friends for a cracking night in the Bavarian beer tent. It was great fun, and lovely to see Adrian, Becky, Stef, Emily, Filipa, Keo and Stephen. Thanks for coming. 🙂

Heading home – part 1

Miles on trip: 16063 miles

Countries: 27 (no more new countries :-()

Days on trip: 170

 

 

Our next longer stop was Germany which meant we had to cover about 1700km in a few days. Better get going then. Our plan was to drive for as long as we could during the day, find somewhere close to the route to stay the night and then continue the next day until we found ourselves further up north.

 

Day 1 was through Albania and into Montenegro. We didn’t cover as many kilometres as you might expect from a full day’s driving which was partly because we enjoyed a late breakfast and also because the bad road conditions and speed limits only allowed us to go 50km/h. We stayed somewhere just outside of Budva in Montenegro, close to the sea but unfortunately without a nice sea view – we were a little rushed finding a cheeky spot to park up for the night as dusk approached. It was fine for another nice home made dinner though. 

 

Day 2 was a good day for crossing borders. First we went from Montenegro to Croatia. Usually Andi dealt with the border officers, but this time the customs hut was on Martin’s side. The border guy asked us where we had come from today to which Martin responded very confidently: “Montenegro”.  Given that we were about to leave Montenegro, the border guy could have figured that one out himself. He was after the name of a town really and so Andi quickly said “Budva”. Close enough.

 

Back in Croatia we drove past Dubrovnik and had the same dilemma as last time about how to cross the Neum corridor, which is part of Bosnia. This time we decided to drive through it. It’s only 20km in Bosnia but technically we didn’t have the right papers. Luckily nobody asked for them and after a slightly nervous 20km we were back in Croatia and the EU.

 

Croatia has one bit motorway from the south to the north. Not sure how many people take that motorway the entire distance but since we had done the scenic coastal drive and we were just after doing as many km as possible we went on it. It was very empty, which made it more relaxing to drive but just before sunset we pulled into one of the parking / rest places on the side and stayed there the night. Certainly not our most scenic of stops, but we were far enough from the traffic and it was safe.  We began to feel the cold for the first time in a while, so we were wrapped up fairly early. 

 

Day 3 we realised we were making great progress up north and decided that we could think about visiting somewhere for a couple of nights. Originally we thought about Bratislava since Andi hadn’t been and we had skipped it on the way south. However, the weather wasn’t supposed to be great and also we weren’t keen on paying the motorway toll for Slovakia. Looking over a map at what other places were nearby we spotted Linz in Austria. Neither of us had been and obviously Austrian towns are usually gems – so we decided why not.

 

Unfortunately Linz doesn’t have a campsite and this late on, the hotels and airbnbs there are very expensive. However, our cunning plan was to stop just outside of Linz along with all the lorry drivers and then drive into Linz the next morning and only have to pay for one night. This worked out very well. The parking just off the motorway was actually very good. They had facilities, even including a shower, and an information board for Linz and surroundings. This was probably better than some of the camp sites we had stayed at and it was free. Yay.

 

The next day we headed into Linz, checked into our hotel (luxury) and then went straight to the Christmas market. Christmas market season, one of the best times of the year! Linz has several smaller markets, which are very nice. They weren’t too busy (maybe because it was still quite early in the season and a work day) but our first (and second) mulled wine of the season tasted great. We also checked out the churches and the pedestrian zone in Linz, which was all very cute, then went for a typical Austrian dinner of schnitzel and walked back to the hotel via the river. Overall, a nice relaxing stay and good to have a break after all the driving.

We were now close enough to Germany to be able to make it there in one big day. First stop: Dresden, to see Andi’s parents. We arrived there just after sunset and had a fun evening, catching up on the last few months and relaxing with some lovely wine.

 

The next day we had a quiet relaxing break in Dresden, planning our visit  to see Peter, Andi’s cousin in Berlin. Originally our plan was to drive to his straight from our big drive from Tirana, but we managed to make such great progress that we could stop in Dresden before. And now, being in Dresden and having driven a lot, we thought it might be more relaxing and easier to go to Berlin by bus. So we booked a Flixbus to and from Berlin for the next morning.

 

It was our first experience with an intercity bus in Germany and it all worked quite well. It was much cheaper than the train, dropped us off at a great place and we got there reasonably quickly. In Berlin we met up with Peter, who gave us a great tour of Berlin. We went up the Kollhoff tower for a fantastic view over the city and then walked around some of the main sights, like the Holocaust memorial, the Bundestag, the museum’s island and the Berliner Dom. We also went to one of Berlin’s Christmas markets for a quick gluwein and a small bite and then for a wander around the Gendarmenmarkt Christmas market. This is now Christmas market number 2 this season. We’re doing well. Berlin doesn’t have one main one, but rather lots of little ones, all with their own charm and plenty of treats to try.

The next day Peter had to work, so we would entertain ourselves in town and then meet him for dinner. We weren’t exactly sure what to do. Berlin of course has plenty of options but we have also been a few times already. But then Martin found the Trabi Safari. It’s a 75min sightseeing tour in which you drive one of the iconic east German Trabis. Martin was especially excited after reading all the reviews of Trabis breaking down during the tour, so we signed up for one of these at once.

 

The tour was with three other groups (three other Trabis) and we managed to pick the giraffe Trabi, i.e. a Trabi painted like a giraffe. When familiarising ourselves with this vehicle it definetly wasn’t the most comfortable one. Basic seating, small, no heating, no fancy displays, … Baloo would definitely win a comfort competition against one of those cars. Driving wise, the pedals were the same but the gear stick was next to the steering wheel. Each of the cars had a walky talky receiver, so the guide could tell us what way to go, where to turn and give us some background on the sights as we passed them. The guide himself was driving in front in an electric car and then we followed in a convoy.

Martin was the first to drive the Trabi. He quickly got used to it and enjoyed driving through Berlin in it. At the half way point we swapped and Andi got to give it a go. She won the competition of going fastest (which still wasn’t very fast), going into third gear the most number of times but unfortunately also the stalling competition. Ooops. Anyway, we had a great drive.

After the tour we visited a few more of the sights that we had passed: part of the wall and checkpoint Charlie, then we bought some gloves and went to another one of Berlin’s Christmas markets until it was time to head to see Peter and enjoy a curry.

 

Since a couple of other friends, Sarah and Klas, also live in Berlin, we arranged to meet them for brunch the next day. It was really nice seeing both of them and also meeting Freya, their little baby girl, for the first time. We had so much fun chatting and time flew bye until we had to head back to Dresden.

 

The rest of the week we spent in Dresden with Andi’s parents. It gave us some time to chat with them a bit more, plan the next parts of our trip, go to the Strietzelmarkt (Christmas market number 3), go ice skating, check out the bars in Neustadt and enjoy some delicious wine and food. Andi also got some pampering at the local hair dresser and her parents arranged her some Spanish lessons for the South Marican leg. In Chile, we would later learn it’s a common German thing to do to be so prepared 🙂

We had a great time back in Dresden, enjoyed all the evenings with Andi’s parents and had a lovely pre-Christmas celebration. Now it was time to continue on our way to the UK.

Quickly passing through Bulgaria

Miles on trip: 13130 miles

Countries: 25 (+ Bulgaria)

Days on trip: 135

 

After out extended stay in Romania, and with the increasingly chilly weather, we were keen to head on down to Greece in short order.  Unfortunately, this meant our Bulgaria trip was going to be very short, and we’d miss out on many of its highlights.

 

On our way to Sofia we stopped at Veliko Tarnovo, with its pretty town centre and impressive castle. Unfortunately, parking wasn’t the easiest and frustrated, Martin relaxed with some wifi at a nearby McDonalds whilst Andi had a walk around. It was a beautiful day and the castle area is more like a park, with lovely views, lots of ruins and a very pretty chapel / memorial at the top. Occasionally they also have light shows there, something which we think would be really spectacular.

In Sofia, our sightseeing was mainly about churches. There seems to be a church at almost every corner and they are all very pretty, especially Alexander Nevsky cathedral. We also enjoyed some general walking around the Borisova Gradina park, and in the evening, Martin even got to watch some American football and formula 1.

Since we were in a city, we stayed in an AirBnb.  This is our usual tactic, and especially affordable over here at under £25/night for a whole apartment.  So overall, a very relaxing stop.

Whilst we saw lots of churches in Sofia, we definitely also had to go to the Rila monastery nearby. It’s situated in the Rila mountains with beautiful architecture, stunning paintings and lovely surroundings. A very pretty stop and we were lucky to get parking. No idea what it would be like in summer when there are far more tourists, since there were barely enough parking spaces for the winter tourists.

Unfortunately this was already the end of our Bulgarian sightseeing. Andi really wanted to see the Rila lakes and go for a hike there to see all 7 of them. However, with it being winter there is snow up on the mountains and the general recommendation is that unless you have proper winter hiking equipment, and know what you’re doing, you should not go there. Guess that ruled us out. A big shame but maybe we can go back sometime in summer (along with the crowds of tourists).

 

So with that it was goodbye to Bulgaria.  That night we stayed in the car park of a “Happy” restaurant, a place that does sushi and pub food. Great for Andi’s sushi cravings and Martin’s non-sushi appetite.

The Search for Dracula

Miles on trip: 12583 miles

Countries: 24 (+ Romania)

Days on trip: 131

Number of Dracula venues visited: 7

On Friday 7th October, we drove back into the EU from Serbia.  Once we crossed the border into Romania, the road conditions worsened – there were pot holes everywhere, and we reduced our speed considerably.  This was not a great first impression, but on the other hand, there were also beautifully decorated houses with ceramic tiles in the villages and lots of horse (or donkey) carriages on the road. One of the first sites we visited was the Bigar Cascade waterfall in the Cheile Nerei national park. It’s a pretty cool small waterfall, looking a bit like the mushroom waterfalls that you find in water parks. Interestingly, they were selling entrance tickets for 1 euro, though we’re not sure why since you can see it from the road.

If we thought the roads were bad now, we were in for a surprise. One of the blogs we had read recommended a nice route around a lake in the Domogled national park. The route is a national road throughout, but turns into a sand road part way along. Initially, the drive took us through some nice forests, past rivers and fields, and had some spectacular views, but then the sand road started … then the road got a bit narrower and stony… then large holes appeared, and because it had rained the night before, they were filled, so now we couldn’t see how deep they really were. We were desperate to just find a pretty place to stop by the lake, and stay the night…

As the road became more windy, the pot holes got worse, the puddles bigger and there just wasn’t a nice place to stay the night in sight. We were now also quite worried about getting stuck, or whether something might break… No mobile phone reception and no one anywhere nearby should anything happen. We go through another puddle at a moderate pace and a light illuminates on the dash.  The fog light comes on.  Whaaat?  Minor panic as we both fear Baloo has had enough.  We round a bend and the trees thin, then we see a house in the distance.  Certainly more civilisation than we’d seen in the last two hours.  Our spirits were raised as we thought the road would improve, and fortunately it did.  Baloo kept going, and once dried out, the fog lights no longer came on randomly. We found a nice flat area by a stream to wild camp, we made a camp fire, ate sausages, and it looked like we also acquired a pet.

The next day, on the improving road, we even saw other cars! So we continued our tour and it was time to tick off our first Dracula sight: Hunedoara castle. The real Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, was imprisoned here, and it certainly looks scary.

Passing the red stones in Sibiu (a disappointment) we found a wild camping spot with a lovely view and then the next day, we continued to Sighisoara, where Dracula was born. The entire town was very pretty and quaint with a clock tower, cobble streets, narrow paths and a church with big wooden stairs up.

We’ve definitely made it to Transylvania now! The decoration on the houses changed to more oriental (pagoda) style roofs, and the weather changed to constant grey (for 3 weeks! – who knows whether it’s ever sunny there).

Next castle on the list is Peles Castul, another very pretty castle, but situated in an area where there are bears!  We had planned to wild camp, but we were recommended against it due to the local wildlife. Anyway, the campsite we found was a bargain, had wifi, and also gave us a chance to go to a restaurant to try some Romanian cuisine. It seemed to consist of lots of smoked meat, smoked cheese, and bits of animal we weren’t sure about – not our favourite unfortunately.

We weren’t done with castles just yet.  Next is Bran castle, often seen as the Dracula castle. The real dracula never lived there, but this is the setting for the story by Bram Stoker. Whilst Andi was excited to go in, she soon thought it was more interesting to people watch than the castle watch. It was so packed with groups inside that you could barely see anything, and everyone was complaining about other people being in their way, usually in their own language, so the offending party often had no idea.  Anyway, the outside and the park of the castle were pretty.

According to Top Gear, one of the best drives in the world is the Transfagarasan. Crossing the Fagarasan mountains, the highest of the Carpathians, you climb to over 2000 meters, travel along switchback turns, all the while with beautiful views down the valley around you. This road is closed every year between November and April because of snow, and heading there in October we were worried that with all the grey, cold, and rainy weather we’d had recently, it would have already started to snow at the top, and might be closed. In fact, they had already closed the road and we didn’t know whether they would open it again. It would be a big shame to miss out on it, so we thought we’d drive as far as we could, and camp for the night.  Our wild spot was just below the snow line near the Balea waterfall, so Andi went off to take a look… or at least she tried. The walk quickly turned into a climb after the snow line, and as it got harder, she was eventually crawling on all fours – as the safest way to progress.  Needless to say, it wasn’t long before she turned around.

The next day the road was still shut. The weather was much nicer though and finding some wifi near a cable car up to the top of the mountain, we saw that there were clear skies at the top.  So while we waited, we thought we’d take the cable car up, since that way at least we’d still get to see the scenery no matter what happens to the road. Unfortunately, it turned out that a recent snow storm had damaged the cable car, and it was closed for repairs. Unsure what to do, pacing around, getting bored, we looked up at the closed road and started noticing a few cars coming the other way, and then one car going up – he reopened the road. Yay! We jumped into Baloo and started driving.

The drive up was very pretty, we had some lovely views of snowy landscape, mountains, a valley (partly covered in clouds), the Balea lake at the top, a view of the bendy road up and Andi threw her first snowball of the season (or second, if the snow ball in Norway in July counted as the first of the season). It certainly wasn’t the usual experience, given that most photos of the transfagarasan are not in snow but it was very picturesque. And on the way down we saw some pretty forests and fields and camped at a nice lake.

Our forth and last castle (and fifth Dracula sight) was the Poenari castle on the transfagarasan. The castle is mainly (rubbish) ruins but after you’ve climbed the outrageous 1500 steps (!) you do get a pretty view and a sense of achievement.

The sixth Dracula sight was the princely court in Targoviste. There is a nice park outside it with a lake and sculptures of all the Romanian Emperors, including Vlad. And then in the court there is a nice church, a tower with a pretty view and ruins of where the emperors lived. Unfortunately due to some spectacular food poisoning, Martin decided to skip the inside of the court, and take refuge in a cafe nearby.

After this we finally made it to Bucharest. We ended up staying there for 1.5 weeks –a little longer than planned – because it was time for Baloo’s 12000 miles service. We’d arranged a slot for Monday at a land rover garage, but our increasing list of service items (oil change, windscreen replacement, renew some corroding wiring) outgrew the time allotted. They also found a few other pieces which also needed attention (naturally), but unfortunately they couldn’t do anything until Friday. Then on Friday, it turned out one of the problems was different than originally diagnosed and they had to order spare parts, which meant another few days.  It was a faff, but we had no stresses and enjoyed the change of pace (and warmth).

Bucharest itself is pleasant. It has another princely court (Dracula sight #7) with a very pretty church, it also has some interesting roads and buildings and a few nice parks (Carol park and Tineretului park). Carol Park was supposed to have a reconstruction of the Poenari castle, which would have been Dracula sight #8 but we couldn’t find it anywhere. Other than that there isn’t much in Bucharest except lot of bars. No matter what time it is, you should always be able to find a drink there.

The extra time there meant that we could do our clothes washing again, plan the next leg of our trip (booked flights to singapore and australia) and catch up on things like blog and our machine learning course. It also gave Martin enough time to sample the best Indian restaurants in Bucharest, of which there are a few. Thankfully the Bucharest curry club had already done the pre-selection, so we just had to check out their better ones. Indian food for breakfast, lunch and dinner … or at least it felt that way to Andi.

Before leaving Romania we still had a couple of stops planned. The first was to the Danube delta. The drive up there was pretty and we had arranged for a campsite to give us a boat tour on the delta, but we were a bit worried about the weather. Clouds we were used to, but forecast of rain was not what we wanted on the water. Anyway, we went out on the boat, quickly filled up at a boat petrol station and had a fantastic time. It was very pretty to go on the different arms and lakes of the delta, to see all the different birds and simply enjoy the scenery and wildlife. We had some rain but it could have been much worse. On the way back, our boat got stuck – but the tour guide, with a bit of rocking and pushing with a handy wooden pole, got us out of it. It’s often described as the most beautiful part of Romania and it certainly was very pretty – despite the weather.

Our last stop in Romania was Constanta. It’s a reasonably small town, but we liked being at the seaside with the typical view of the casino and the port. While it was nice to be back at the beach, it definitely wasn’t beach weather, but the town had some nice bars to enjoy.

Overall we had a great time in Romania. Oh and we saw lots of chickens crossing the road. Totally forget to ask them why they were doing it though.

Raki anyone? – Serbia

Miles on trip: 11322 miles

Countries: 23 (+ Serbia)

Days on trip: 110

We spent a good while worrying about going to Serbia, since there was a lot of confusion on the internet regarding the validity of UK car insurance, and the cost of green card insurance.  Fortunately, it was simples. In fact, getting into Serbia was extremely quick, the officer spoke great English, and was very friendly. His recommendation for Serbia: “You have to try Raki!”

Our first stop was in the Uvac nature reserve, at a campsite 1100m above sea level. The campsite was in the middle of nowhere, at the end of a winding unsealed road, and with beautiful views over the rolling hills of the reserve. As we got there, we tried to talk to the owners. “English?”, we asked. “No”, came his reply… Then, unexpectedly, “Espanol?” he inquired.  At this point, Andi became very excited as she has been learning Spanish for a while now and could say “Un poco.” Incredibly, Andi sailed through the rest of the introduction in Spanish.

That evening we enjoyed a locally farmed dinner, and booked a boat tour for the next day – which is the best way to see the reserve. The boat meandered along the river until we alighted to take a walk up to a stunning view point. We also stopped in a cave which was impressive but bone-chillingly cold, and saw some vultures. The captain spoke a lot on the tour, but all in Serbian.  Fortunately, one of our campsite friends translated for us.

Back at the campsite we enjoyed dinner and spent time with some of the other people there (1 German and 3 Serbs). We had a great evening talking about flowers and apps to determine the type of a specific flower (one of the guys was a florist), Martin got into some political / historical discussions [ed. Did I?] and we learned more about Cyrillic writing and that in school in Serbia around 50% of essays have to be in Latin writing and the other 50% in Cyrillic. It was a lovely evening and then it was Raki time. Hmmm, since we are not the keenest on spirits we smelt more than we tasted. Anyway, bed time … oh wait no, the sky was super clear, there were no other lights anywhere nearby and so it was the perfect opportunity to admire the stars. … and then bed.

The next day was our last chance to submit our programming assignment for our machine learning course, so the plan was to find a place with wifi for lunch, quickly do the assignment and then continue on our way. Unfortunately, we hadn’t yet done any of the exercise, nor used the submission system before, and worse still, we couldn’t find a place that had wifi. Predictably, the wifi we eventually found was rubbish and we pretty much spent all afternoon getting the assignment done.  By the time we had finished, we had spent way longer than expected and weren’t going to make it to our next stop before dusk.

Serbia doesn’t have many campsites, especially in the south, and since we were there out of season, very few sites were open. We also weren’t sure whether wild camping was allowed, so we adopted a new strategy. We found restaurants slightly out of town with parking and asked “If we eat in your restaurant, can we sleep in your car park?” … followed by smiles in case that makes the difference. It failed once, but all other places agreed to it, even those that had a hotel or motel as part of the restaurant. … or at least we think they agreed. Communication was often via pictures, sign language and a few hopefully pretty international words. So we found a restaurant in Novi Pazar and had some food (which is really quite cheap, and deliciously meaty, in Serbia).

Our next stop was devil’s town, one of Serbia’s wonders. It’s a group of 200 narrow thin rising rocks with black caps. After some strong volcanic activity millions of years ago the formations were created by erosion of the soil. However, the popular legend is that the rocks are an incestuous wedding party which was prettified by the devil. The red spring near the rocks, consisting of very acidic water with high mineral content, also adds to the feeling that something devilish went on here.

Whilst devil’s town is in the middle of nowhere and far away from everywhere in Serbia, it was still a great visit (hmm) and/but Andi was very excited to see it.

From now on the rest of Serbia would be far more peaceful, continuing with a scenic drive along the Danube. While the size of the river and the grey thundery clouds did make it look slightly threatening, it added some mood / charm to the scenery. Also on this pretty drive we passed the Iron Gate, a large hydroelectric power plant (no photos allowed) and Fort Gallubac, which is in desperate need of renovation.

Final stop in Serbia: Belgrade. Happy birthday, Martin! We opened one of the last bottles of wedding champagne, went to a bar where one of the Serbs we met in Uvac had done the interior design, and then a nice restaurant where we had waaay too much delicious Serbian BBQ.

For our Belgrade sightseeing we joined the excellent free walking tour. We walked past the old palace, republic square, the bohemian quarter, the student quarter all the way to Kalemegdan, the Belgrade fortress and finishing at Saint Michael’s cathedral. The guide was friendly and it was much better to have a bit more information on some of the places rather than just walk past them. Dinner was at another nice restaurant with a performing choir – booked especially for Martin’s birthday weekend of course.

During the walking tour we missed out Saint Sava temple. So for our last day in Belgrade we had lunch at McDonalds – to use their wifi to submit our coding assignment and then went on the see the orthodox church. It was very large and impressive but under construction / renovation still inside. A nice way to finish our time in Belgrade and in Serbia.

English? Da, da, da :-S – Bosnia

Miles on trip: 10549 miles

Countries: 22 (+ Bosnia & Herzegovina)

Days on trip: 103

Number of times we have visited a garage/mechanic: 6

The border crossing into Bosnia and Herzegovina took quite some time, and was the longest one we’ve had so far.  As usual, we showed our passports and vehicle registration documents, and as expected, they wanted to see our green card insurance certificate.  Unfortunately we don’t have one as Admiral don’t/won’t issue them, and instead we need to buy green card/third party insurance in each non EU country we visit at the border. But this time the border guard didn’t understand us. He kept repeating green card and we tried many different ways of explaining that we wanted to buy it here. Eventually, when we showed him our insurance certificate for Montenegro, he understood. He then introduced us to a guy who could speak English(!!), directed us to the insurance office, and finally we thought everything would go smoothly.  The insurance guy wasn’t in though, so they called him and we waited for 30 minutes for him to arrive. During this time we’d also been stewing over our lack of currency – either Bosnian marks (bam bams as we would come to call them), or Euros.  Magically, after the documents had been filled out, we asked if he accepted British pounds, and he did.  £20 well spent.

Back to the border agent now, and there had been a shift change.  We showed the new guys our insurance and they stamped our passports. All done, we thought. Then they wanted to chat … in Bosnian. We responded :”English?” and ignoring that request, they went on in Bosnian “Da da da ……”. The only words we got were Mostar and Sarajevo, our two planned stops in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They kept talking, we didn’t understand a word but we think they just tried to tell us a bit about the country and / or those two cities.  Nice of them.

Mostar was our first stop but the closest camping is in Blagaj, which is supposed to be a nice little village with a monastery. Unfortunately, just after exiting the border crossing point, we noticed that the car battery wasn’t charging properly. So we drove to the campsite and tried to figure out what the problem was, which involved getting our multimeter out. It seemed that the alternator was faulty, so the plan was to find a garage in Mostar the next day.

We drove to a garage we found with a bit of research on the internet and fortunately the team there were keen to help.  They agreed that the alternator needed looking at and in short order set about whipping it out.  Yay. So whilst Baloo was in the garage we explored Mostar, which consists mainly of a pretty bridge and some cobble streets with markets. We also arranged accommodation in Mostar so that we didn’t need to worry about when Baloo would be ready. But soon we got the call, Baloo was fixed! Apparently the garage we went to in Klaipeda had bodged a fix for the alternator, and simply replacing the diode pack and rectifier was the best strategy (Klaipeda had attempted to get the soldering iron on it).  Fortunately, the guys in Mostar did a great job, and for only 50 euros – a fraction of the price of the bodge!

Our next stop was the Kravice waterfall. We had only just found out about this while in Mostar – a waterfall you can swim in. Andi was very excited about this and so we drove there. The waterfall was pretty and the water was freezing cold but it didn’t stop Andi from going for a swim there and getting as close as possible to the waterfall. Great experience. And suppose the advantage of very cold water was that not many people dared to go in and it was quiet in the water.  Naturally, Martin wasn’t so brave, but did take some photos.

Since we left Blagaj very quickly to get Baloo fixed, we hadn’t yet had a chance to visit the monastery. The monastery in the rocks is well regarded, but perhaps we were spoilt by the waterfall. Ah well, at least we knew a good campsite nearby and enjoyed another evening there.

The next morning we headed to Sarajevo, where we had an airbnb near the centre. The sights in Sarajevo can mainly be split into three categories: 1) Religious, there are plenty of churches and mosques. With 1/3 of the population each, Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox they have quite a mix. 2) War monuments or museums, mainly about the Balkan crisis (photos, museums), WWI (the bridge where Alexander II was assassinated) and WWII (the eternal flame memorial). And category 3) Other – a fountain with lots of pigeons and a small archaeological site.

Even though Sarajevo is quite small it was a nice to wander around the old town, and for dinner we explored the outskirts. We found some lovely bars and restaurants but unfortunately smoking is still allowed inside which we struggled with a little.

From here on the plan was to head into Serbia. There were some warnings because Bosnia and Herzegovina recently had a referendum about introducing a Serbian national holiday. The majority of people who voted (mainly Serbian Bosnians voted) were in favour but the government said it wouldn’t accept the vote. So there were warnings of potential unrest and staying away from large crowds and protest. Having said that everyone we spoke to thought that whilst there are still a lot of political problems here it is perfectly safe to continue our planned route.