TravellingStrom

Mayan Prophecy Countdown

My first morning here in Bulgaria and I had decided to stay at this spot for another night, I had a road to ride and some geocaches to find in this general area, so I could do a loop ride for the day.  Once I reached the start point, I was right away in amongst the valleys and following a river and the banks of a dammed lake, and picking up my first geocache for the day, success 🙂

The views were spectacular, the only thing spoiling it was the quality of the roads, mostly made up of potholes, with sand and gravel on most corners. You can see what I mean by this short video, plenty of work here for Larry and his pothole crew 😉

I saw some other bikers around before I stopped again just up the road for another cache, this one looked difficult, 200m straight up a cliff, but I read some of the other logs from other people and they gave better co-ordinates that actually matched the description which was down by the lake, so success again on No2 🙂

Although the roads were bad, they were trying to repair in some sections, by removing the surface in patches and resealing after, I am not sure how long after though! I kept on going until I was met by a barrier, the road was closed, bummer, but I caught up with two other bikers who had also turned around at that point and they discussed it with a local chap, the only way I can continue is to take a diversion, so I did, and they also gave me a map, and took me back to the correct intersection and pointed me to Devin, thanks chaps 🙂

I was low on water, but that is not a big issue around these parts, every km or so it seems there is a sign, with natural runoff water being channeled through some pipes, very clean and fresh(I hope) 😉 I filled up my camel-back and had a bit of smoko here before continuing though the great scenery. I was on the lookout for fuel as once again I started off with half a tank, I will stop doing that soon. Anyway, in the town servo I found, they don’t take credit nor Euros, so I needed to find a bank and get some Bulgarian Leva, and decided to have some lunch at the same time which I did. When I headed off for the fuel, I found a couple of old fellas were quite intrigued by my bike 🙂

On the road again with a full tank and as I was passing through a small village, I noticed a statue of what looked like a piper playing bagpipes, a long way from Scotland I am thinking to myself, but he is not wearing a kilt but baggy knickerbocker thingies??? There was another statue later with an inscribed stone, maybe a Bulgarian can translate what it is all about?

I am getting towards the end of the days ride with one more possible cache to find that is not too far out of the way, it is called Hollywood. I went up this real crap track and eventually parked at a small church, then up on the hill was the reason for the cache name, the town name had been built and painted white with even lights on it, I reckon my home town Rockhampton could do with a big one of these up on the Berserker Ranges, that would bring some tourists in 🙂 Anyway, the cache wasn’t at the bottom of the hill, oh no that would be too easy, lets put it up top!!! I found it though and also managed to get back out of there prior to two separate rain events converging on me.

It was not long after this that I arrived back in Peshtera and the hotel where once again I cooled myself down with a few ales and tried a different food tonight and used an APP on my iPhone to ask for a SMALL salad, it was still huge but not so much wasted as yesterday 🙂

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Countries I have ridden in