Friday, May 27, 2011

Albania

Wed 25th May

I am at present sitting at the Greek / Albanian border and have been for
the last two hours, having left Florino early this morning, .The mountain
climb was all but impossible but the little car and all the bike made it
in first gear.

Already 10 of our riders have gone across the border and reported it was a
hassle free event. Lang and Hub have left me here to twiddle my thumbs and
they have taken the Lizzy back to tow in Marcel. We believe he has had a
major problem .

Over the last few days we have had a lot of small problems, mostly
electrical, and all have been rectified along the way. Ivan had an
electrical problem and Lee bought him a car battery and with jumper leads
hooked it up carring it in his sidecar.

Everyone is really sorting out their own bike's idiosyncrasies and doing
more and more of their own preventative and repair work

Yesterday morning at Thessaloniki Lee Harman decided to leave the group to
catch a ferry across to Southern Italy and will ride from there up to the
north. For the rest of the group we have booked an overnight ferry from
Zadar Croatia to Ancona Italy on the 30th..

I have had a message from Sasha and Nadia and they are about 300 kms
behind us, and should catch us up in another day. We are certainly looking
forward to another mechanic and the spares he is bringing.

Evening of 25th at Progradeci, Albania

Marcel's problem was not as major as first thought and he was able to ride
under his own power from the border, albiet with the car battery in the
sidecar fix.His starter shorted out, flattening the battery and this was
fixed immediately.

The scenery here with a huge lake and mountains down to the water is
spectacular. Prices are cheap and the small town very pretty. Most bikes
required only daily maintenance and everyone was relaxed well before
dinner.

Sasha and Nadia arrived at the hotel at 10.00pm absolutely exhausted
after a 500+ kms ride non stop.

Bev