Trip to Bulgaria this Sunday 14th June

My mates Andy and Geof and i are leaving Belfast this Sunday 14th and heading to Bulgaria, Andy has a 1150GS Adventure , and Geof is pillion , im on a R1200GS.

We have been planing this trip for around two years after Andy and I both bought apartments over there , and over a beer we decided to ride our bikes there some day , and this Sunday is that day.

We plan to be in Bulgaria on Saturday 20th and to be back in Belfast on the 5th of July, its a first time for both of us to attempt such a long run like this so fingers crossed we get there and back safely.

I will be posting on here every day and sharing our adventure and what we get up to.

Bye for now Davy

Bulgaria

Wish you guys luck riding down here Bulgaria is a great place to ride, but been warned and pay attention ahead the traffic cops are everywhere. Took me 4 hours from Vlas to Russe the Romanian border cossing today.

Watch for the pot holes in Romania they are like bath tubs.

Ghostrider

Bulgaria

Thanks mate hope you enjoyed ur stay at andys place I have stayed there myself its a nice spot, well andy and i set of one Sunday wish us luck , and safe home.

We will keep you posted.

Davie

watch out for those romanian trucks, they overtake regardless if their is anything coming the other way. you will see the aftermath of this at the road side

Have a good trip, and remember to take some photo's.

Good luck for tomorrow, if you need anything drop me a line.
GR

Day 1

Hi everyone

Well we are on our way we left Shorts Club at 9.15 am and headed up to lisburn to pick up Geoff, Lana done a good job with the banner she slipped out of her house at 7am and put a banner up at shorts saying all the best to the wrong way down team , Andy Davy and Geoff.

Julie and Jack came down to see us off , as did our chairman Mr Horner (thanks mate) anyhow as I have said we left shorts Club at 9.15 am and by 9.45 Andy had fell off lol, well he stopped at Geoffs house and he lost his balance and down the bike went.

Thankfully Geoff had the strength to lift the bike and Andy up , no damage was down to the bike and Andy wasn't hurt (only his pride) and my side as I pissed myself laughing.

170 miles later we stopped for a wee break and Andy got the tea and sandwiches out (Thanks Lana for the Ham and Mexican Cheese sandwiches). We continued on and arrived at Rosslare at around 1.30 pm (250 miles clocked up)

We had a couple of beers and went to restaurant a couple more wines and a few beers later and its now 8.30 pm and we are going to bed . ( Believe it or not).

Tomorrow we dock at 11am French time in Cherbourg and we have approx 400 miles to do tomorrow , which is why we are retireing early , so I will sign off for now and will talk to you all tommorow.


Bye for now

Davy Hughes

Day 2

Hi Everyone

Forgot to mention last night that our destination yesterday was a place called Dijon in the middle of France, I think its where the mustard is made lol.

Sgt Bilko is a nickname Geoff and I have given Andy as he is so regimentave, but I have to say he has planned this trip perfectly, times, mileage,hotels, have all fallen into place. (Well done mate)

Its 6am here and I am up showered and shaved and ready for Breakfast at 7am , the bikes have gone fantastic and haven't missed a beat (well they wouldn't would they being BMWs LoL)

Anyhow I will sign of now and will send a blog tonight when we have done the Alps and back in our Hotel in Italy ( its a terrible life lol)

Bye for now

Davy Hughes

Day 2 infor

Hi Everyone

Docked at 11 am and hit the road straight away , 250 miles later we hit Paris at 4pm the traffic at that time was horrible , we past by the Eiffell Tower and went down the tunnel where princess Diana was killed it was weird.

One hour later we hit horrible weather the rain came down in sheets for the next 2 hours but we had good kit on and it was no bother but the big artic lorries where frightening .

Stopped of at a Garage and had some Tea from our flask and had biscuits and yorkie bars which where 11yrs old (British army ration packs, thanks Steven)

Andys sat nav worked a treat with the speed cameras and got us to the hotel within 50 yards it was fantastic, arrived at the hotel at 8pm local but would have been there earlier had it not been for the heavy rain.

The woman at the hotel let us put all our kit in the boiler room to dry off for tomorrow , the total mileage to date is 689 which is 439 miles today.

Tomorrow morning Sgt Bilko has instructed us to be at breakfast at 8 am and leaving for 9am , as we are heading for the Swiss Alps staying in Livingo in Italy , mileage tomorrow approx 290.


bye for now

Davy Hughes

Day 3

Hi All

Had Breakfast this morning at 8.00 am eat as much of the ham ,cheese, and bread as we could lol (no ulster fries) got kited up , and we where on our way at 9.00 we hammered on and hit the Swiss border about 1.30 pm . Continued on until we came to Zurich.

This was an absolute nightmare the traffic was really heavy it took us almost an hour to get through , we continued on until we came to a town Called Davos , it was here that Andy told me on the radio that we had just completed 1000 miles we stopped for tea and biscuits. ( wish i could have necked a big pint)


It was here that Geoff told me he thought his arse was flat , and I must admit we all had our aches and pains. Just after this we started to climb up into the Alps and what scenery we seen it was fantastic , and the air was so thin we got up to around 9000 ft.

I asked Andy could he yodel but he declined so i think we both had a quiet yodel in our helmets to ourselves lol

We went right through the alps and hit the italian border around 6.30 pm by this time we where wrecked and headed on to our next stay which was just inside italy in a wee place called LIvigno , we went out and had a nice meal and a few beers, the town was deserted as skiing season is peak time for them so we headed to bed which is where i am writing this blog from now.

So I will sign off now and blog with u tomorrow night , there might be a change of plan regarding our travels I will let you know tomorrow night yodel eh e ho.

Nite nite

Davy Hughes

Day 4 am

Hi Everyone

Its Wednesday morning at 10.30 am and we have just had breakfast , last night we had a discussion, although our original plan was to stay in this hotel for two nights and chill out for while and then head of , we decided that if we wanted to get to my apartment in Bulgaria by 4pm this Saturday Before 4pm ( kick off time for these to mad rugby men) It would be better if we rested up for a while and head of about lunch time.

Right now Andy and Geoff are away for a swim and a Sauna and I am writing this I must say we are all feeling our aches and pains , and probably more so me as there is a bit of an age difference , and they are rugby men and still train lol.

I am enjoying every minute of this , and i know we will probably never do this again , as Andy says we are living our dream that has been planed for almost 2 years now.

Anyhow we are going to head of at around lunch time and put in around 150 miles to take as that little bit closer to our next country Slovenia Andy has found a wee town in Italy at around 150 miles from here dont know the name yet but will let you know tonight.

Total Mileage to date 1058

Bye for now

Davy Hughes

Its hard work being on the road but keep the posts going.
Geoff

Keep it coming, guess I have followed a similar route to you so far in 2005. Davos, over the Fluella Pass and through the tunnel, past the lake to Livignio. From there we went to Bormio and over the Stelvio. Is that your route?

Just been reading Michael Palin's book on Eastern Europe and I now want to do a trip to Romania/Bulgaria/Ukraine but it will have to wait until 2011

Looking forward to the next post


TP

Bulgaria run Day 5

Hi everyone

We had a rough day today , Sgt Bilko had us up today at 6.30 breakfast at 7.30 and on the road for 8.30 the reason for the early start was to beat the unrelenting sun , how wrong we where , by 12 pm it was 38 c and it was really hard to stick.

again i will say we had our aches and pains but for me personally I have found , and used muscles in my arse and my back I didn't know existed , I think by the time we get home we will be like three silver back gorilas lol.

The only way we could cope was to blast the motorway at 90 to 100 mph for hours we went straight across Italy heading east towards Slovenia and we crossed the border at 2.30 pm (250 miles) we stopped at around 3pm inside Slovenia and got Andys gas cooker out and sat in the shade and had our army rations (thanks again Steven)

We had Lamb Stew with dumplings in a boil in the bag , and for desert we had custard and apple crumble in a bag, ( and I still havent stopped shitting lol)

It was after our lunch we decided that we wouldn't stay in Slovenia but continue on a further 150 miles and get into Zagreb capitol of Croatia and find a hotel and stay the night.

We landed into Zagreb at about 7.30 pm and searched for one solid hour for a hotel where the bikes would be safe , we couldn't find one so at 8.45 we threw caution to the wind and booked into a 5 star international hotel.

Which is where I am now writing this blog on the laptop and i can hear one of the others snoring I thought i was bad lol.

Tomorrow we head for Serbia to the capitol which for now I cant remember the capitol but i know this is about another 400 miles .

Apart from all the aches and pains we are having a fantastic time , so i will sign off for now and hopefully email you all from Serbia.

Bye for now

Davy Hughes

Bulgaria Run Day 6

Hi Everyone

Sorry I haven't been able to right the blog for a while , we couldn't get access to the Internet for a while but I will write up the blog to date now.

Day 6 Friday 19th we where up very early in the morning and headed out of town in the direction of Serbia the town we planed to stay was called Nis which is about 50km from the Bulgarian border ,the the roads in Croatia where fantastic really new and modern , we where very surprised after all the trouble the country had come through with Serbia , in the restaurant the night before the barman told us he hated Serbians and they hated the Croatians.

Any how getting back to the run we sat on one motorway for 250 miles at approx 90 mph but stopped halfway for tea and biccys , the sun was strong and even at 7.30 in the morning it was 28 degrees. Driving on the motorway Andy called me on the radio and asked if I had turned my head lights of , I hadn't so we found out that both headlights had blown.

We have travelled through a lot of tunnels on our journey some as long as 3 km and its bad enough, but without lights it would have been madness , but the spare bulbs Andy had brought along didn't fit my bike so we had to continue our journey until we got to a garage, and as it happens we had to go through a tunnel I just had to stay up close behind Andy to get through safely.

We got to Nis at around 5pm and stopped at the first hotel we came across and booked in for the night and I can honestly say I haven't stayed in a hotel so creepy in all my life.

The hotel was massive and was from the old soviet era the , dinning room would have held about 800 people and there was all these Russian pictures and slogans all over the place , we where waiting on Gorbitov walking in lol.

The bedroom was all in black and the phone was the old black phones with the big dial on the front we had during the war, I went into the room threw my kit onto the bed ,and as you do, opened the bathroom door to check it out and a big lizard (4 or 5 inches long) run out , and so did I lol.


I gathered my self together and went back in to the room and tried to find the thing but couldn't, so as you can imagine I didn't sleep to well lol.

We where up at 6am and went down for breakfast which was part of the room rate , this guy came out with a trolley and give us a plate each which had on it , one boiled egg, a bap, and a knob of butter and he said enjoy, we laughed or heads of and eat the egg and the bap


Bye for Now

Davy Hughes

Bulgaria Run Day 7

Hi Everyone

This is our big day we plan to reach our destination ( my apartment in Varna ) in Bulgaria , we left the hotel in Nis at around 7am and headed fro the Bulgarian border which was about 70km away it took us a while to get through the border , it was a weird system at the first post , they give you a computer memory stick, which you took to the next post about 100 yds ahead, they took it of you did something on the pc and give it back to u and you go another 100yds and hand it in again it was weird.

Anyhow we got through into Bulgaria and we stopped and shook hands with each other , it was a fantastic feeling achieving it , but we new we had still a long way to go yet and we had to get there today .

We continued on towards Sofia and I can honestly say we where all suffering badly with our sore arses the pain was really bad but we just had to try and switch of and continue on , we got to Sofia and we got lost for the first time we actually drove almost two hours out of Sofia in the wrong direction , so we had to go back the two hours, In to Sofia again and take the right direction so we lost four hours in total.

By now the sun was really hot and our arses where getting worse , our moral was really down, and to make matters worse we passed a sign on the motorway saying Varna 415 km .

After about another two hours riding we could continue as the pain became unbearable , we stopped somewhere and in the shade , and took our jackets off, and I can tell you we hardly spoke to each other we where just exhausted, then I remembered I had a sheet of the disolving Paracodels you get back home , we took two each with water got on the bikes and continued.

Well there was no more pain but we where as high as a kite lol , so we continued on we got to the apartment at 10.00 pm that night ,

And we had some wine and beer waiting for us in the fridge some ham and cheese , after celebrating with a few beers we where almost full lol.

Total mileage today 518 miles

Total mileage to date 2498 miles ( hard to believe )

Anyhow I will sign of now and write my blog tomorrow.

Davy Hughes

Bulgaria Run Day 8

Hi Everyone

Sunday the 21st June , we lay in bed till about 10pm and got up and went for breakfast I had to do a snagging list on my apartment but there wasn't really any problems to complain about, we lazed about all day and drank beer and wine and stuffed our faces with grub, it was great just lying by the pool all day doing nothing.

Sunday night we went into Albena Beach where we went to a restaurant and I ordered the special ( T-bone steak and chips for Euro 15.00 , the t-bone was very tasty , but it was about 5mm thick lol , it was like a bit of frying steak back home.

Anyhow nothing more to report on this day accept we where well rested

Bye for now

Davy Hughes

Bulgaria Run Day 9

Hi Everyone

We got up this morning (Monday the 22nd ) and headed into Golden Sands where I had a bit of business to do at the Bulgarian Bank Unicredit we had a cracking breakfast at a small bar close to Harmony Hills called the Elbar the Restaurant at HH isn't opened yet although I believe it will open next week.

We packed up all our kit and left my apartment at around 2pm , the apartment was in a mess (three guys what do you expect) Ilia sorry about the mess but im sure your professional services will sort it out. We headed south to Sunny Beach it was about 100 mile away ( a doddle) Andy has three apartments down here so we had one each, we are meeting up with Andys dad later for a bit to eat, he is over here on Holiday.

Tomorrow morning is when we start our return journey Back to Belfast but the adventure is far from over yet , tomorrow (Tuesday ) we head for Greece , im not sure if we have to stay for two nights in Greece I suppose it depends how far we travel each day, anyhow Sgt Bilko will know.

I forgot to mention that my good friend Noel Harper bought me a replica Titanic Bell over a year ago for my apartment when it was finished, and I put it in my tank bag on the bike and brought all the with me to Bulgaria, I presented it to Ilia of homecare at HH and he has assured me it will be bolted to the Bar with a Plaque under it saying all the way from Belfast the wrong way down June 2009 ( Thanks Ilia ) and thanks Noel.

Anyhow I will sign off to get ready for a night on the town.

Bye for now

Davy Hughes

Bulgaria run Day 10

Hi Everyone

Sgt Bilko allowed us an extra hour or two sleep in this morning , probably because we had a night out with his dad on the town lol so we relaxed a little and had a few drinks .

Up at 9am on the road for 10am headed for the Greek border which was just over 120 mile away the roads where really rough (narrow and very windey) got to the border around 12.30 by this time the sun was up really strong and at 38 degrees , it really has been grinding us down , the relentless heat and the brightness of the sun , we stopped more than usual to take water on board.

We had no problems at the border and carried on deep into Greece until about 4.30 pm when we reached the coast at a place called Alexandroupolus , we serched the place for over an hour to find a hotel that had safe parking for the bikes, but we couldn't find anything, so we had to head up the coast for about 10 mile to find something.

By now it was about 7pm and we were shattered , got showered and changed and went down to the small harbour and had a greek style meal with some beers and wine , we where so tired that after only a couple of glasses of wine , we were all talking like a washing machine lol.

Our next port of call is the island of Corfu ( its terrible all this lol) we have to get to the opposite end of Greece so that we can get the ferry over to the island , from where we are now its about 500 miles its mostly motorway , but I doubt if we can do it in one day , altough we have done 528 before. So tomorrow morning we will set of and see what we can do but I think we will do about 350 and find a place for the night which would only leave us about 150 to do the next morning to catch the ferry

Anyhow I will sign off now , I have attached a video of Andy on the pass in Switzerland


total mileage today 328 miles

Total to date 2734 miles (lol)

Davy Hughes

BULGARIA RUN PICS AT LAST

Stelvio Pass 17/6/09