Day 28 - 39 Bela Crkva to Budapest (Hungary)

Hello!!  It's been a few days since the last post & the best part of 2 countries, Serbia and Hungary.  With the deadline of meeting Mamma Pike in Budapest on July 3rd we had a goal in mind & so apart from an extra day in Belgrade were on a bit of a mission to make up the KM's in time. 

The ride has continued to be mainly flat (which has suited us greatly) and mostly followed the Danube all of the way.  We've tried to follow the Eurovelo 6 route as much as possible, although I doubt how often the organisers have cycled with heavy panniers considering it's taken us over two 10km stretches cycling on grass.  That said, it's helped us avoid the busier highways which is a blessing. 

John unimpressed by the route ahead

Once again the locals have been amazingly hospitable & we've been overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers.  Our first camping experience was with Dragan, right on the banks of the Danube in Serbia who let us camp for free in his garden (even though he advertised as a campsite) and kept us fed & watered with Schnapps for the evening. 

Tan marks starting to show!

As John mentioned, food has been a bit of an issue and it came to a head when hanging out with Dragan and his friends.....basically I'd been ravenous for weeks, feeling very unsatisfied and sick of living off bread, cheese and salad.  Dragan and his 6 friends were having a BBQ, and on hearing I was vegetarian kindly produced a plate containing a block of cheese, couple of tomatoes and a cucumber.  I nearly cried.  For the previous hour they'd been BBQing a whole bunch of fish they'd caught on the river and were whole heartedly tucking into the feast.  Peer pressure & pure hunger were just too much and eventually I caved....after nearly 13 years of being vegetarian (which I still like to think I am) I caved and ate some fish...and it was delicious.

Another clone of our lovely Roo

Another stroke of luck came our way a few hundred kilometres down the line when we were trying to find a place to camp for the night.  We'd set our sights on the small village of Bac Monostor and amazingly it turned out there was a free reggae festival with camping on while we were there.  We met a great bunch of Serbian young people and had heaps of fun dancing into the small hours (well, 11.30pm actually when we both hit the deck with music still blasting in the background) and got back on the bikes with fuzzy heads the next morning.

Hungary has been equally as hospitable and after a hardcore couple of days we finally made it to the capital city.  What a luxury it has been to have 4 days off the bike, see family, have an apartment to stay in and somewhere to cook hearty meals of our choosing.  John's first port of call was the local supermarket to buy cereal & soya milk - something he's been craving for months. 

Hurray for bike signs!

SO!  We're basically half way through the trip.  It's great to have reached a real milestone and we're very excited about the next few weeks, meeting up with friends and family along the way.  Unfortunately our computer that tells us how far we've gone seems to have broken but we've done about 1700km so far and are feeling slightly proud of ourselves.  Now all we need is to reach our sponsorship target (we're not quite half way yet) so it would be amazing if you could spare even just a couple of pounds to help us support New Life Foundation.  Our fundraising page is here:  www.simplygiving.com/istanbultoamsterdam

Next stop Slovakia!  The 2nd half of our trip should be great fun and takes in some amazing cities; Bratislava, Vienna, Prague, Dresden, Berlin and Amsterdam.  Bring it on!!!x

One of the many sunflower fields we passed along the way

A well needed afternoon nap

Waiting for the fun to begin at the Bac Monostor Reggae Festival

Crossing the border into Sebia

A couple of days in the not-quite-so-beautiful Belgrade

Kicking back with Dragan and friends near the Danube.  Not sure where the women are?!

Happy to finally meet up with mum in Budapest

Day 22 - 27 Calafat to Bela Crkva (Serbia). 319km (total 1206km)

Ahoy!
Thats what I always say.  They keyboard is Serbian, so advance apologies for this taking me so long. Not that you'll notice, obviously.  Its john this time, by the way, after a long time off the keys.  I lost the mojo for writing them, so lets see how this goes.

Romanian traffic was a nightmare. ROADHOGS!

As i told you, (via a clue), we are now sat in Serbia! That's exciting.  We've covered a lot of Km's since the last post, at least it feels that way.  We're working things out, working out our pace and meeting people with more information about roads ahead.  Its been physically harder than id thought (my age???? I hope not), due to the heat, which is way over 30 every day, and near the 40 mark sometimes. This puts the pressures on the body, but also mentally challenging.  So we've had our ups and downs, but its all part of the game isnt it.  Laura has been a right powerhouse, and handling things really well.  I put on a brave face and weep inside instead.

So we hugged the south and western Romanian border with Serbia, following the Danube.  Capitalizing on the beautiful flat and notching up the distance nicely.  Camping and accommodation has been trickier than I'd thought.  Wild/free camping is actually legal in Romania, its just a case of hiding from nosey's and the omnipresent barking dogs.  I've had enough of dogs.  Although as laura says it could have been worse, it was still annoying.  They are fast and make a lot of noise and want our food.  So we've been 'pushed' into some pretty swanky hotels for lack of choice.  Having said that, once you're checked in and showered, the pool and air-con are a welcome change to the furnace that is being outside on the tarmac. 

The scenery from Orsova and along the river, with Serbia on the other side is stunning.    Its been a beautiful ride, with mysterious Serbia keeping watch.  All the little villages we pass through continued to be friendly and welcoming, our waving arms getting almost as tired as our legs.  I did see a sign of foul play though, in this depressing crime scene...

Someone's robbed the no doubt sweet rims off this Lada

We've been meeting other cyclists, (all but one going the other way to us- did we do our research??) from all over the place.  Its great to meet people doing the same things and feeling the same pain.  Though we've been a bit privately embarrassed at the daily distances that some people manage.  We've settled at about 70-90km a day, and our latest rest-day strategy is a short 25 or 30km ride and then stop.  I feel better to get some distance done, although I know that the rush is not important.

Nice spot

Bad spot. Truck stop camping! Concrete surface, which had been nicely  heated by the roasting
sun.  The tent was like sleeping in a pizza oven.  We worked out the reason 2 days later.

We had an AWFUL nights camp the other day, leading to zero sleep and some stress to boot, which gave us an early morning start.  End result was an unintentional 80km ride on no sleep, not being able to find camping or a hotel in Romania, and opting to reluctantly push over the border into Serbia and stop where we are resting up now.  Its not ideal to go into a country on a bike, having not slept for about 36 hours, with no money, no language, and no knowledge of where to sleep.  Luckily the border guard was nice and spoke english OK, and here we are.  However! all this camping bashing is not fair, as we do like camping.  Just yet to find that 'killer spot', un-aided.   It has led to some funny nights drinking cheaper than water beer with a fine cross section of people that don't speak a single word of English, and you cant beat those kind of nights, no sir-ree!

The food is boring, as we sort of expected.  Vegetarian for Laura translates as "you will only eat salad and bread", again..  

Another drive-by mulberry raid gets messy

If our van Roo was a Romanian builder, this would be her.  NICE! I want one.

Beautiful people who took is in from a thunder and lightning rain storm and fed us coffee and
home brew prune liqueur while we dried off.  Nice!
Just catch those chickens quick!!  They had 70 rabbits too..

Post coca cola'd laura ready to jump back into the frying pan again and get moving

We are only 2 days away from Belgrade, and from there, only 6 days ish from Budapest -  Halfway point!!  Feels great.  

John