|
Expedition Diary A dash through Europe - at 40mph! 
After six months planning, we left Clapham Common at 10am on the dot, heading for the Channel. A brief stop at Lydd for the microlight and then a beautiful crossing 1500 ft above the freezing Channel with Will flying his 1000th hour. All went well until Pinky the lead Land Rover, broke her accelerator cable and consequently Mutley the other Land Rover had to tow her which slowed our progress somewhat.We arrived at Liernu airfield, Belgium early on day 2. On day 3, having fitted the new accelerator cable, we were ready to move on until Mutley's roof rack began to creak and give way. However, on the tiny airfield, we managed to find a welder to fit the supports we'd brought with us, and finally we moved on. As we entered Luxembourg the Land Rovers received a call from the microlight which had been unable to catch up due to the bad weather. The trailer was assembled and Perky (the microlight) was confined to trailing behind Mutley.  Now well behind schedule, the decision was made to drive on through the night until the next afternoon; one hour driving, one hour navigating and two hours sleep was had by all in rotation. Exhausted, we ploughed on through Germany and into Austria where we camped and showered for the first time - day 5! Through to Hungary on day 6, a flat tyre on day 7 then on into Romania where the microlight was greeted with a "What the hell is that?" by the bemused border guards We camped at the top of a windy hill with wonderful views of the countryside below much to the suspicion of the man in charge of the radio mast. The drive through to Bucharest was very beautiful, driving though hills and valleys reminiscent of the Scottish Highlands even more so as it was pouring with rain for the entire journey! Bucharest was a rather dismal looking place. We were visiting to deliver clothing to the Romanian orphans and we were lucky enough to be fed pizza and offered a dry floor to sleep on by our hosts. A good night's sleep was had by all. Onto Bulgaria where we celebrated Becca's 21st Birthday with a Bulgarian feast and copious amounts of rather good Bulgarian red wine and camped on the seashore. The next day was rather a long one, our border crossing into Turkey proving to be an interesting one. The microlight caused much consternation as we tried to pass through the border. They questioned us and asked for documents we neither had, nor needed and still refused us entry which meant a day's round trip to drive back through Bulgaria and down to the main border crossing. It was obvious that they did not know what to do and were trying to pass the problem on to their colleagues at the other border point. However, we were parked in the middle of the road and the traffic was building up. Eventually after six hours we had become more of a problem than we were worth and they let us through - thank you Mark Jefferies. Within a mile of the border the clutch on Mutley went, so we camped just off the road.  The next day we nursed Mutley into Istanbul. Finding a Land Rover garage proved a bit of a challenge, not to mention negotiating Istanbul rush hour traffic with a trailer 2 feet wider than the Land Rovers. Luckily, Sam entered into the spirit of Turkish driving, gleefully beeping his horn at the slightest provocation. The clutch was fixed only for it to go again in the middle of the busiest junction of the city - funny when we look back now! We collapsed exhausted at a friend's apartment, stage one had been completed.
The next day Sam sorted out the clutch and the rest of us did the tourist bit. That night we took our hosts to a wonderful fish restaurant then we hit the Istanbul night life and ended up at the "Discoteca non-stop"! Next morning, after an unsurprisingly late start we crossed the bridge into Asia. |