Mayan Prophecy Countdown

Breakfast was at eight and not long after that we were off, it was foggy as heck, but as it turned out we were right at the top of the mountain so as we descended the air cleared and we could see what we were doing. There was no internet last night so I never got to update my status nor upload any photos, maybe tonight where ever we stay. The roads were still slick but when you can see them and it is not raining, it makes it easier to ride. There was a cache just up the road about 10km, so we stopped there for two reasons, my chain needed adjusting, it is on its way out. It has done 22,000km but with my automatic chain oiler having failed it has been running a bit dry and when we do stop and spray them, the rain washes it away quite quickly. The oiler is about 5 years old and has been moved to three different bikes and been running flawlessly for 220,000km plus and only on this leg of the trip has it been playing up, intermittent then nothing. Normally I can get over 30,000km with it working correctly, but anyway, I had some chain lube and tools, so I adjusted my chain while Ant continued to learn to use my GPS, and found the cache again, well done. This one was waterlogged and in a dangerous location, crazy place for a cache!!! Where Ant is standing, you have to lean down below the road level though that gap in the wall!!!

So, while it was drying a bit, I added a new logbook and plastic bag while Ant cut a small tree down and made some anti vampire stakes 🙂

The plan is to let them dry out and if I can get it into Quarantine, maybe I can bring a bit of Transylvania home with me 😉 We shall see, being a fresh young tree it should not be a big issue, but we shall let AQIS sort that out on entry. After saying bye to the nasty doggy we continued on and eventually arrived for our first view of the castle 🙂 It has taken us 7 days to get here, I really did not think it would take so long, but the slow roads, traffic and the wet, plus stopping for caching all added up time wise, but we made it safely 🙂

Sorry for the blurry one, I had used the zoom. We found a car park for the bikes and also a bank to get some money out then paid entry and went for a look around the castle. It was quite impressive with the tour following a certain path which started at the bottom, of course, but soon via a secret stairway, took you to the top floor then back down to the second floor and out again. It seems Vlad the Impaler was a bit of a Robin Hood hero to the local villagers and not the blood thirsty vampire as portrayed by the Germans who were trying to discredit him.

After getting outside, I started to look for the Count Dracula cache, it was uphill from here 200m and meant jumping a locked gate(a short one), Ant did not want to come(lazy so and so) so I did it by myself, it was an effort, nearly straight up the hill through the forest, but at the top I found a grave site with a large cross in it with the words “Killed by Hanging” in English across the crossbar. I did not get too close because it was muddy and slippery and did not want to end up in the pit, it may be a trap!!!!! But, I found the cache, whew I was knackered after that, but downhill was a bit easier, if I did not slip.

Then it was tat time, tat being tourist crap, which there was a lot of, but some of it was nice. I did indulge and bought a Tshirt and one of them wooden head things, maybe it will get through customs when I send it home, maybe not, it looked clean with no borers anyway. I even found stickers!!! Graham Whittington and myself went mad in South America trying every shop for stickers to put on the bike, we did find them there, but over here I have only found these, but they were nice ones.

We grabbed a quick feed in a small shop after taking a photo of the tall werewolf talking on a mobile phone 🙂 In the shop was Innola, she was our server and was very nice and fun 🙂 Hi there girls 🙂

Now we wanted to make tracks, Anthony had a basic plan, head to Wien(Vienna) as a start. I would follow him and I seriously needed to sort out my chain. He had army contacts who could help with supply and workshop space but that was in the north of Germany, in Hohne, but it was a plan, and could be modified over the course of a few days. I also now needed to be thinking of my visas for Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan and China, the first goal for me was Bern in Switzerland, if the bike could make it. I need to do some shopping for the upcoming adventure next month when I enter Russia, I need the following:

New chain oiler
New Heated Grips (both these units are over 5 years old and have both failed at the same time)
New brake pads(sintered) plus spares
Oil filters, extras
Brake and clutch lever
Chains and sprockets – one fitted now and one spare set
Tyres soon
WET WEATHER GEAR – extremely important

So, I would be spending some big dollars soon, but that should see me through to the far east, I hope.

Anyway, back to the ride, we managed to ride for an hour before donning the wet gear again and we rode for about two more hours in the rain and as usual I was getting wet. We found a town that on entry had some sign for hotels and we discussed it and agreed we would check it out and found the Pensione Jorga, where the bikes were brought inside the courtyard and we snagged a couple of rooms, for the first time in a week, Anthony could sleep without my snoring rattling the walls 🙂

Of course, as soon as we stopped and doffed the gear, it stopped raining and looked like being a lovely evening! We were low on cash again because we had bought TAT, so Ant went and grabbed some more local currency while I would get Eruos in Hungary tomorrow, and we had a beer(nothing different) and a feed just around the corner which was quite nice. The internet in the rooms was a bit slack, so I spent a few hours down at the reception area until midnight uploading a few days photos, but I could not do a post as it was a bit slow and balky! We had planned on a long day tomorrow, get to Wien on the Austrian side of the Hungarian border, but we still had a fair bit of Romania to get through, although it was a pleasure today to finally get some speed up on the straighter roads. WE have enjoyed the slow challenging journey to get here, but now we had different goals and our time together was coming to an end. The thing is though to get an early start, it was 700km to Vienna and if he would get out of bed earlier, we would be arriving earlier 🙂 Seriously, we decided on feet up at 7am, no brekky, just get a few hundred kms under our belts until the first fuel stop then we could add food 🙂

Cheers from Romania
TravellingStrom