The sun was up and it was already hot! We made our way out of Elbasan without any problems and followed an old disused railway track up into the mountains. We passed groups of villagers selling fruit and veg at the roadside, I wondered how much they would make sitting there all day.
Getting low on fuel we pulled into a village station were the pump attendant saunters over with a fag hanging out of his mouth and start to fill us up !!!
We didn't get blown up so carried on arriving at Lake Ohrid and the campsite about one and half hours later. It was a wise choice not to continue last night, we would have been traveling over the mountain in the dark.
We passed groups of young lads selling live fish from fish tanks at the side of the road that ran along the lake side. The lake is huge, more like a sea surrounded by mountains in the distance. The sky was clear and a deep blue as we headed for the next town of Pogradeci, from here we would pick up the main road to Bilishti and the border crossing into Greece.
It was 11.30 when we arrived at the border to be greeted by a huge tailback of traffic. I flipped the side stand down and resigned myself to a long wait in the midday heat. Angie sat in the shadow of a nearby building while an old Albanian guy tried to tell me to ride around everyone and basically push in, I did the typical Englishman thing and waited in line. After a good thirty minutes the guy came back and tried to tell me again, in the end I thought stuff it and road around the traffic only to find that they all ques for one kiosk while another remained free, I drove up and presented all our documents and rode to the Greek side , after a friendly hello and please rise slowly we enters Greece.
We stuffed a Greek version of a burger down and got under way heading for Kastoria and the motorway.
It was now approaching 12.30 and unbelievably hot and we were still high up in the mountains.
The motorway was almost empty with good visibility so I gunned it only stopping for fuel and toll fees. After getting a little lost at Thessaloniki we soon came close to turning of for the campsite. Then a slight problem, we were now in the middle of nowhere and the fuel light came on a good 40 miles early thankS to the tree figure cruising speed we had sat at for the last four hours no doubt, with only 20 odd miles in the tank we passed a sign Alexandroupolis was within reach but only just! We pulled in to the station and must have been running on fumes, it was a close one.
After furling up we arrived at the site at about 7.30? Pitched the tent and had supper at the local Taverna.
It was another extremely long hot ride but so worth it.
Miles today - a hot 439
Hours in saddle 10
No comments:
Post a Comment