Georgia

Tuesday the 19th of July we crossed from Turkey into Georgia, without any problems. Georgia has been an interesting place as I guess its not that popular in terms of tourism. So we have had times where a few of us are walking down the street and the people that pass stare at us like aliens. Most of the Georgian people have been very friendly and happy to show us their country. There are many village type areas where cows wander the roads and chickens are running around. As well as towns with typical communist looking buildings and bland architecture.

We had our first bush camp in Batumi which actually was next to a rugby club in a sports ground which had natural lawn mowers wandering around has well as a gym that appears no longer to be used. It rained that night so Glen and I pitched our tent in the gym. The weather in this part of Georgia is almost tropical. A very humid heat and so when we were able to use the pool in the hotel across the road it was lovely.

We then visited the town of Kutasi which is a fairly sleepy town with not a hell of a lot to do. We bush camped for 6 nights in total which means no showers or toilets and so you shower from a bottle of water, a river or whatever you can find. Usually after a bush camp we try to find nice toilets in the towns or sites we visit. When someone finds a clean, European (non-squat toilets) toilet everyone knows about it. So i can tell you that Kutasi definitely had a  few nice toilets!

Another thing in Georgia is the Kushitari’s which are puff pastry parcels filled with cheese, or egg, or both. There is also a meat version. So these are cheap and popular at lunch.   

 

 

 

We also visited a place called Gori which is Stalin's birth place and visited the Stalin museum which should be called the Stalin shrine. Everything is in Russian so we got an English guide who told us about the pictures of Stalin, his life growing up and as poet etc. There was no mention what so ever of the murders or crimes he committed. If you knew nothing about the real history of the guy you would have walked out of that place thinking he was a pretty good bloke. Very bazaar.

We then visited a small town called Mtskheta where we bush camped near a river again. Unfortunately it was here that our first major injury occurred with Sarah a lovely English girl. She caught her toe on a tent peg and did a fairly good job of slicing the in between of her toe open. I have dressed it as best I can and hope for the best.

We are now in the town of Kazbegi which is a small town in the bottom of a valley. Many people come here to climb the picturesque mountains and up to the Gorgeti Glacier. There is also a church up on one of the mountains called Tsminda Samera Church. A picture of it makes up the cover of the lonely planet for Gerogia. Yesterday Glen, Will (our driver), John ( an English guy) and I decided to go up to the glacier, camp the night and return the next morning. It took us just over 4 hours to walk up there. Which was pretty hard going and very steep in places. When we did get up near ( not next to) the Glacier it was cold as you would expect and windy. We wore our thermals, beanies and all winter gear. We were about 2800m above sea level. We camped here the night. For me it wasn’t to bad cocooned in my sleeping bag but Glen didn't sleep too well due to the wind and fearing that our tent would be ripped to shreds or blown away with us in it. This morning we left the campsite at about 6:30am and arrived back at the accommodation just after 8:30am. On our way down we got to see great views of the valley and church with the sun rays streaming down into the valley as well as the snowy mountain peaks, once the clouds had cleared.

We have just awarded ourselves with a big lunch because we were absolutely starving after our huge walk and now even the steepness of the driveway in front of the place we are staying feels challenging. A nana nap is definitely on the cards for this afternoon.

xo Kieran

Into Asia

We came from Bulgaria into Turkey or tried to. We got to the border at about 11:30am and had some lunch, bought our visas and waited for the truck to be cleared. We then waited and waited and waited…… The Turkish border control would not let our truck through because it was registered in Great Britain so they needed someone from the English consulate to call the Turkish transport authority to say the vehicle was okay to go through. Despite the fact that the Turks had it on computer record that the truck had been through this exact border 3 times already and as recent as April this year. They still denied our big orange truck access.

So it was decided at about 5:30pm (6.5hours since we arrived) that the issue would not be settled that day so we could either sleep over night on the truck or go into Istanbul via taxi/bus with Lucinda who would also go speak to the British consulate the next morning. Majority decided to go with Lu, so Will our driver stayed with the truck. It was a fairly epic journey which consisted of a hair raising taxi ride (160klm in a 70klm zone), a 3 hour bus journey to Istanbul, a shuttle bus and then another cab ride to the hostel. I think we got to our hostel at about 11pm at night!

 

 

 

In Istanbul we picked up another passenger Tony who is a nice German guy. We stayed in a 30 bed dorm here which was pretty good. We spent 3 days in Istanbul. Where we went to the Grand bazaar, enjoyed kebabs, the hustle and bustle of the city, and the heat. Friday afternoon the truck arrived in Istanbul and we went out the Friday evening for Karl’s birthday (South African guy) and cured our hangover the next day with an amazing Turkish bath.

 

 

We then travelled from Istanbul to Gallipolli and did a short tour of the battle field. We stayed at a bar that evening called the boomerang bar and was hosted by the crazy Turkish man who owns it. We literally slept in on the floor of the restaurant in the bar and the next morning at 6:30 am our host was drinking Raki for breakfast….definitely a crazy man.

We then headed to Ephesus where we camped in a camp ground near a beach. We swam in the beach and tried avoid the mossies in the evening. We visited the the ruins of Ephesus and endured the heat. We swam in the beach when we returned.

We then continued our travels. We bush camped at this great place that was part of the Taura mountains. Beautiful scenery and mountains. One of our prettiest campsites yet. We then went to Cappadocia. Where stayed at a campsite with a pool. Here we went hot air ballooning which was amazing and very peaceful. We drove around the area that day exploring the strange landscapes of weird rock formations, cave houses and fairy chimneys.

Our last travels in Turkey continued on into the North where the landscape changed dramatically from arid rocky landscapes to very green mountainous ranges, almost like Austria. Running streams and green pine trees enveloped our next bush camp in this part of Turkey. We visited a monastery built high up in the cliff face, with ancient frescoes. We headed then to what the Lonely planet (or Lying planet in this instance) described as a picturesque blue lake with a mosque by it side nestled between green great mountains. Actually it turned out to be a lake surrounded by tacky tourist shops, restaurants and bars. Nothing like what we had expected. This day finished with another bush camp in a rocky gorge by a fast running river. I and Vanessa and Karl took the opportunity to bathe and wash our hair in the river which was very refreshing and made us feel so much better. We went to bed that night to a choir of frogs, all I can say is thank god for ear plugs.

 

On another note I am writing this in retrospect and although it was such a short time ago, the days begin to blur together and days of the week have become irrelevant to our lives.  It is very strange and we regularly have to ask each other what we did yesterday!

 

Kieran

One week in!

DAY 8-9

Right now it is day 9 and we are sitting in a camp sight in Bucharest in Romania. Yesterday morning (day 8) we woke from our bush camp and drove 6km to a little town. We had time to walk around this town and see the sights. The problem was that the castle did not open until 12 so we had time to kill. We walked all over this little town up and down its hills seeing its churches and then finally the cafes opened and we went for a nice morning coffee. you see we arrived at the town (name unknown to me) at 8am in the morning we had until 10am to occupy ourselves. In a little town on a Sunday this is a long time as most places are not open or closed. We enjoyed our welcome coffee shop opening.         

When it was time we returned to the truck, next we were heading to Castle Bran, right in the middle of Hungary.  This castle is the supposed home of Count Dracula from the Bram Stoker book. For the past 2 days I (Glen) have been reading Bram Stokers Dracula to see what this would be like and well thee description given in the book is nothing how the castle actually is. It was all fiction and so i was not expecting much in the way of accuracy. When we arrived at the castle it was really busy around it but not so much in it. This could be due to it being a Sunday and families were happy being out in the open air. The walk around the castle was really interesting and not because i had just read the book but because as castles go this was a very different one to all the others we had been into in the UK. There was no grand entrance or big dinning and entertaining halls. It felt very private and homely. It had some really cool little walk ways and hidden stairs. Although the doors were small at times an i had to duck under a lot of them. I would totally recommend going there and it was well worth the 20 LEI (4 Euros) to get in and walk around.

After the castle walk we got some lunch, You will notice we will often go to get lunch as the tour provides us with 2 meals a day being breakfast and dinner. So lunch is our time to eat what we like where we can get it. You will all be happy to know that for lunch Kieran had a Sandwich and an ice cream and Glen had a Kebab! or as they call them a shaorma. They are very similar to the Greek kebab of a gyros with the chips in the middle. for those of you interested mine was made in a wrap with mayo and ketchup on the bottom a layer of lettuce and then a few hot chips added in, next went the chicken from the kebab roll. Then onto the chicken went some gherkins and it was all rolled up. It was alright but a bit of a disappointment  the flavour just was not there for me. Not sure what it was but this on lacked something. I doubt i will give it another try but this has not been my favourite kebab.

We arrived at the camp ground and with much effort to get the truck in we had arrived. We were staying in this camp ground for 2 nights. There was an option to upgrade for only 16 LEI a night. We jumped on this as it was to be a room with a bed, sure it had no shower or toilet but for only 4 euro extra a night why wouldn’t we jump on it! We had a wonderful night sleep so much so that Kieran missed breakfast.

As i write it is now day 9. Today we did not do much except catch up on our admin of blogs, diaries and budgets. It is gr8 to have time to do this as we cannot do it on the bus and its hard at times to get some quiet time to just sit and write. we could have caught a bus into Bucharest but we chose not to and spent our time walking to the local supermarket to get some lunch after we did our admin work. Ahhh lovely.

We are still amazed that is has only been one week since we set off. We have flown through Europe which suits us as we have seen it and happy to get onto the next part. We have one week down and 23 more to go. Oh how i fear they will fly by just as quick as the last one.

 

Chat soon readers.

 

Glen and Kieran

The World is full of TESCO’s

Day 5-6

Today we drove from Salzburg in Austria to Budapest in Hungry. The camp ground in an old tram station which is kind of cool. Though noisy we pitched our tent on a flat surface but it had pebbles as a base. Not the best option but all that was around for us to camp other than mud. That night we stayed in the campground due to the rain. The next day we headed into Budapest itself for a hop on hop off tour of the city. We took our time to get out of there in the morning booked the tickets through the camp ground and the bus ticket in. It was all very easy and we had no problem getting into Budapest. we did the bus tour with a bunch from the group and it was good to have the company. After lunch and we had done one whole tourist route on the bus we went and hoped on the ferry. This took us up the river and back. It was good to get out on the water and see the difference in the city from the boat rather than foot or bus. I (Glen) had been here back in 2009 with some mates and we had a wicked time in the baths and just chilling out in the city. It was good to come back as a tourist and i can definitely recommend that it is a city which should be visited. We decided against the baths as it is something which would be done better as a group and we on a budget as well. That night we spent back at the camp ground talking with the group as usual.

I am sure you are wondering about the title of this post. Well while we were driving through Austria and Hungry and even into Romania we came across Tesco's this is a UK supermarket. This just seemed as a surprise as we didn’t think it stretched that far out to eastern Europe. It was like we had never left the UK sure they had an accent and the prices were in different currency but the shop was still the same. We bought a few items for snacks and for lunch on the long drives. One thing they didn’t have though were any tent pegs or tarpaulins. We don’t have enough pegs for our tent ropes and we would like a tarpaulin in case the future heavy rain is too much for our little tent. We shall continue this search but i wonder if it will be at another Tesco’s.

Driving Continues

Day 2 - 4
Driving from Belgium all the way to Dachau in Germany passing through Luxembourg. Luxembourg was not on our list of countries to pass through. As we did not stop and my feet did not touch the soil I am choosing not to claim that i have been there although i have looked at it for a few hours. We camped in the farming area just out side of Dachu the night(day2). We got to stop in at a services before hand an I bought a giant 1 litre can of beer. We pitched out tent at the top of a hill away from most of the others, the view was really good and the hill walk not to bad.

Day 3, Our first stop was to the concentration camp in Dachu. Having been here in 2007 I decided it would still be good to go in and have a look around again as there were parts I didn’t get to see last time (plus it was free and what else was I going to do in a car park?).  After the visit of the camp we went out for some lunch and settled on maccas. Not being big maccas fans and not having had it for a while. After lunch we drove all the way to Salzburg and camped in a camp ground. We finally had a real shower! only 2 days of bush camping and we were waiting for the next proper shower. That night we stayed in the campground and chilled out. , that night Had a few beers in the pub/restaurant that night we had a pork stirfry.

Day 4 - The next day we headed into Salzburg to have a walk around and be tourists for the day. We took our time in the morning as we wanted to enjoy the shower and have a chill out day. We walked around and saw the birth place of Mozart and his home while he lived in Salzburg. After this we had some lunch(Kieran a snitzel and me a Austrian snag) and continued walking around, on this walk we saw the fountains used in the sound of music and many other sound of music location in the town. We headed back to the Mozart home and watched a free video of the time he spend living in Vienna. We were falling asleep, so decided it would be a smart time to head back to camp, of course picking up some beers on the way. We took the bus in and out of town.

I was on cook duty that night and we made burritos and i must say they were yummy. That night was the first night of rain for the trip, yep it lasted until day 4 to rain on us. I am happy to report our tent survived.

We have been doing a lot of driving so the blogs shall be little till we see something major to note or a cool story to tell

Glen

Adventure begins

Day 0 – 1

Here we are, after organising and dreaming for so long the day to leave is upon us. After a manic night packing and only getting 3 hrs sleep before rising again to get our taxi to the meet the truck and group. We were planning on getting a bus there but thought why not have one last bit of luxury, it was a Mercedes Benz which took us to the meet. We arrived and say our hellos loaded our the massive backpacks onto the truck soon it was time to board to truck and start this journey home.

We slept the whole way to Dover, felt a bit bad as we had the very front seat. The day we left was mean to be a cracker of a day with 29 degrees! it was for the people of London as we kept getting texts from friends telling us it was a good day to set off. Problem for us we were not in London any more. We were now almost at Dover and the weather was very very misty. There is a picture of me to the right waving good bye to the UK as we get out of the port you can see how amazing our weather was. After the ferry ride we touched down on to French soil. We hardly stopped in France except for a toilet break. Kieran and i slept pretty much the whole of France and woke when we reached Belgium. We did not feel so bad for sleeping any more, we needed the sleep and we were driving on highways which we have travelled before.

Interestingly our transport for the journey is a bit of a talking piece as people seen a truck which can carry people on the back like a bus. When we stop in places we always have some one taking pictures of it and talking to us to find out where we are going. When they find out their jaw drops as they try to understand that we are driving all the way from London - Sydney 

That night we camped in a lay-by next to the highway in Belgium. We pitched our tents for the first night of bush camping, this meant that we had no facilities. That night our first night on the road we had chilli con carne for dinner. I slept well except for the times i could feel the stick under the tent digging into my back, i am sure this is something we will learn to do properly when setting up a tent and choosing a suitable sleeping ground.

This is the start to our journey.

Glen