Nearly there...

Back on the road, this half of dumball one is riding with fun house in yellow squad today.

Bucharest is fine fine party town and our hotel was probably dumball's best. Efficient, friendly reception, excellent (ish) restaurant, dressing gowns and slippers and if they said they would put an extra bed in your room and pick someone up from the airport at 5am, they did.

As we could have probably expected, the club which wasn't built when we booked it wasn't finished when we arrived, but there are plenty of others to choose from and we had a grand time at the 'vintage bar'.

Some squads had had a bit of a 'mare trying to find the monument and fixing cars and didn't arrive until 1 am, others didn't find climbing the tower such a great feat- they had to wait 3 hours at the bottom when those who did vanished inside it.

On that note- car update. Adventure headgear had a show blow out, but changed it in record time. Channel 4 news team blew a spark, resident grease monkeys el presidente couldn't fix it and last I heard they had stopped over somewhere on the muddler of nowhere determined to get it fixed and catch up. There may be others...

Now skirting the Moldovan border, along the flat low lands of the Prut, to our right, Moldova. 100km to the north, the border we are heading for. Let's hope it doesn't close at 8pm...

Zoobs Roundup #2

Christ, where to start.

I'm having trouble figuring out which day it is.  Dumball fever has well and truly set in.  So many countries, so many miles so far and it's hard to put them all in order.

First up, the factual stuff.  We've travelled around 2400 miles so far, with Mat and I alternating days so that we can each have a few drinks the nights when we're not driving the following day.  The car is holding up well, despite some small niggles, like it getting a little warm when staying still for any length of time.  Luckily, we're rarely sitting still!

Yesterday, we made the trip from Skopje to Sofia.  In terms of distance, this was an incredibly short day.  However, this didn't mean that it was short in terms of hours.  We were the first squadron to leave, opting to get out in advance to get a good run out of the city.  I was driving so Mat commandeered the radio and Rob, our honorary team member from Tally Ho spent most of the day doing what he does best - falling asleep in the back of the car!

When we entered Bulgaria, it very quickly became apparent that there are some amazing monuments to Bulgaria's heritage.  Enormous factories, lying still and derelict made up a substantial part of the scenery.  We stopped at the Paradise Hotel for "dinner", (lovely place, we had a swim in the pool) but the service was so bad, we literally didn't get all of our squadron fed within 2 hours.  (we were suspicious that they were bringing out food 2 plates at a time, because they only HAD two plates!)

As we were approaching Sofia itself, the heavens opened and we found ourselves in the middle of a torrential downpour.  Luckily, the hotel has underground parking, so we stuck the car in the dry for the night, and headed up to our room to freshen up and hit the town

First stop was the amazing BBQ restaurant.  We had a fabulous meal attended to by a brilliant waitress, followed by a short stroll up the street to the Happy Bar, where we sank a few more beers before returning to the hotel bar to drink them completely out of beer.  I hit the sack around 3.30am, and I certainly wasn't one of the last people to go to bed.

This morning, bright and early (and with nary a hangover, honest!) we sped off in the direction of the Buzludzha monument.  This is an incredible place to visit, standing on the top of a mountain at 3000' as a testament to the old Socialist ruling party.  It's now derelict, but that didn't stop us from having a wander around inside and Mat took some amazing photos.

On the way to Bucharest from the monument, we had a moment of panic when we discovered we had a flat tyre (and by discovered, I mean we were tanking along the fast lane of a dual carriageway overtaking lorries at the time!).  However, after calmly calling over the radio that we were stopping to change a tyre, Mat, Rob and I managed the task in a little under 5 minutes.  Pit lane crew, eat your heart out!

Finally arrived at the hotel in Bucharest, grabbed a well earned shower and ate at the Steak House inside the hotel.  A couple of beers later (and only a couple, as I'm Des tomorrow), and I'm in my hotel room, having by Dumball standards an "early night", by crashing out at 2am.  Up at 8 for more driving tomorrow - on to Moldova!

Peace

B.

It appears we have been out dumballed...

The yellow squad took things to another level at the BULGARIAN (it's on our Romainian destination day, but it was definately before the border) monument. Litterally.

In the main lobby, under one of sets of stairs, was a little door. Behind this door, was a dark, dank passage way, blocked at the end by a steel door. Crawl under this and you'll find another dark passage, and another steel door. At this point, you'll find that if you turn off the tiny little torch on your phone, it is completely black and their is no possible way back without it, the floor is more corrupted than an Albanian roundabout, there is sharp rusted iron everywhere and nobody outside has a clue where you are.

So at this point I turned back. I regret it now, but it was definately the right thing to do at the time, and I'm sure my next of kin will thank me. I turned back, we took some more photo's and we pressed on the Romainian border (surprisingly very little to it- now in the EU, the bulgarian/romainian  border is little more than a toll bridge and vignette purchasing affair.

Meanwhile, the brave yellows pressed on and found the ladder to the top of tower. 40 minutes of clinging to the ladder later, in flipflops no less, they emerged vicorious at the top, behind the glass star, and on top of the world.

Kudos guys.

Fowl play at Peoples' Palace: Dumballers witness Bulgarian Coo

So, the moment you (well, we anyway) have all been waiting for: Buzludzha. This huge monument to socialism was built in the seventies by the communists and opened in 1981 to commemorate the secret meeting of socialists in the area in 1891, where the started the formal socialist movement.

Just 8 years later, the iron curtain fell and the communists' tight grip on eastern Europe began to fall. Presumably at some point in the next 23 years, the Bulgarian government abandoned it and looters moved in to steal the copper roof and trash the mosaics which lined the interior.

And that's how it sit's now, devastated, dilapidated, the unrecognisable shell of it's former self. The concrete rots and rusts, plaster crumbles and the outlines of mosaics are visible where the coloured stones, glass and precious metal have been removed.

So we ignored the various road closed signs and scary notices which may have said 'radioactivity' or 'live firing range' for all we knew and ploughed on up the winding mountain pass to the top of the Central Stara Planina mountain range.

You could see it from 20 miles away, poking through the clouds, so we knew it was real and we were going the right direction from early on. It must have been raining shortly before we got there, because the whole place was ominously dripping wet, inside and out, but the sun was shining brightly.

It's a pretty unique place, and could be turned into an incredible Bulgaria superclub with a few million pounds of investment and a massive international marketing campaign. But I think that would ruin it's charm somewhat...

Forget your past: All empires will fall.

I'm sure people got some better pics than my phone but here's some of my best- I've got hundreds and plenty of video. Pay close attention to the ice cream monument for some pigeon action!

No fear: Sofia. Sofia, so good. So near, yet Sofia.

So- the Macedonian border. I'm just going to plough on though 48 hours behind. There are 4 steps to crossing an east European border on the dumball.

1. Exit the current country. Provided you have the appropriate documents (passports, car registration documents, valid insurance, valid vignette, proof of sanity [this one is rarely checked actually]), this is generally a formality.
2. Arrive at new country, present passports, explain why you are driving a car which looks like the flintstonesmobile.
3. Go to little hut round the corner to buy insurance valid in the country you are entering. This step it is not immediately obvious, and border guards do little to explain what is required of you.
4. Return to the frontier, present new documents, wish guard a fine dash and ask them what the current local time is.

Step 3 was at issue today- one of the 2 insurance sellers just outright lied "the other insurance is not valid"! They normally try a little banter to get you into their booth rather than their competitors, but when you're selling the same certificate, at the same price, nothing works better that a little bit of scare tactics. Apparently.

And so onto Skopje. The standard of hotels of going up now. We had a large meal booked for some traditional Macedonian food and music. It turns out Mondays in Macedonia are not a big, are we struggled to find a large enough club which was open beyond 2nd, so it was all back to the hotel bar.

Gareth did us proud, and cracked out the grand piano for a massive sing agog to all the classics: No monkey no cry, I'm loving monkeys instead, and hey monkey.

Finally a 'short' 4 hour drive ahead, so I set off with orange squad at a leisurely pace and stopped repeatedly to admire the stunning country side of MKD.

A some indeterminate point we crossed the border into Bulgaria and were welcomed back into the cradling arms of the European Union. We picked up an impromptu police escort at one point- but it seemed they just wanted us out of their town.

And it appears Bulgarian roads actually work quite well! The only problem is the large amount of local traffic which makes keeping a squadron in one piece a bit if a challenge, but also gives us plenty of people to entertain.

In Sofia, it rains. It was raining here 6 years ago, and was raining when we arrived last night, do we can only assume that it rains continuously here. Another fine night if traditional food (meat) and traditional music (bonkers), followed by a failed attempt to get 3 men in drag into a night club. Homophobia is still rife round here, and they really don't like anything which might threaten their masculinity. Shame. Their loss, they missed out on a good night!

And dangerously, the hotel had it's own casino. The faces of dumballers told a story this morning: some had won hundreds of Euros, other had spent all their holiday money.

And everyone was knackered.

But today we have something to perk everyone up, we're heading to the awesome abandoned Bulgarian monument to socialism at Buzludzha. With Bulgaria now fully converted to capitalism, the abandonment seems highly appropriate. It's 12km up a 4X4 recommended road, so we'll see how many make it up there...

We made the ferry!

But I'm sure you knew that already.

So here we, Albania! This is where the fun really begins. The mad dash for the ferry was a bit unnecessary after all- about 2 hours after we had arrived, they were still processing our passports, and we had to step in to assist with collating, sticking and stapling 130 tickets to 40 car passes.

Meanwhile, dumball did what it does best: a massive car park party. It's the only time we all get to hang out and explore thecars while bemusing the locals. This is where the hours installing PA systems, laser displays and water cannons comes into it's own.

So spirits were high when finally boarded the boat about midnight, drivers headed to bed, gamblers headed for the casino (read: 3 fruit machines in a darkened room) and everyone else headed to the bar.

And now we're 'cruising' through the Albanian mountain roads - the quality of which far exceeds their inner city efforts. As we have seen before, the Albanian love a) hanging around, just passing the time near a road b) when said pastime affords them a prime position to watch the dumball. Playing 'get a wave' is far to easy here.

And now it's tine for hours if paper shuffling: we're at the Macedonian border!

...and I'm obviously getting a bit behind here. But there's no data connection in Albania and Macedonia, and the wifi at the hotel is rubbish. Sorry!

The roundup so far...

Yeah yeah, it's been a few days.

So, this is the Dumball.  The first two days are always absolutely manic.  This year, we covered nearly 1100 miles from Friday night to Sunday night.  We generally arrived really late each evening, knackered, and with an early start.  This has been my first chance to catch up properly!

Friday:

We left Brighton, and headed on towards the Chunnel with no problems.  The squadrons were getting used to driving in convoy, so there was the inevitable delays with a few squadrons.  Our Purple squadron managed to get to the Chunnel early enough, and after a bit of a wait we managed to hop onto the 20.20 train across.  Once there, (and after putting our clocks forward an hour) we realized we would be getting into the hotel about 1am, and we were first!

We put the pedal to the metal and made the trip easily enough.  However, en-route we had learned that one squadron had been given a 00:50 time slot for their train, which would have effectively meant they would be getting to the hotel at 5am!  OUCH for their first day!

After checking in, we went to bed and woke up on...

Saturday:

Getting down to breakfast, it quickly became apparent we were missing one squadron.  They had decided that because they were getting in so late, instead of sleeping, they would blaze on directly to Milan.  That's true Dumball spirit!.

We had a small incident with our vehicle due to a small miscommunication between our esteemed Squadron leader Geary, and Mat.  This left the vehicle inoperable and pissing out fuel underneath.  After a small amount of investigation, it transpired that the fuel tank was fine, the fuel pump was fine, but the fuel filter has effectively been flattened.  A quick trip to a local BMW dealer secured a length of hose to replace it, and off we rolled.

It was a looooong day, where we headed down to the south of France, in order to hit the Mont Blanc tunnel.  This was made even more entertaining by Tally Ho's car never starting after being stopped, unless we left it to relax for 15 minutes.  A lot of miles were covered, and we made our destination at about 11.30pm.  We caught the end of the Eurovision, had a couple of beers, and collapsed into bed, ready for a 6.30am start.  However, Tally Ho's car was pronounced DOA at the hotel, after developing a series of serious faults :(

Sunday:

We got up, and secured a position with White squadron for the run to Bari.  Another long day (around 650 miles!)  coming down the east coast of Italy.  We stopped for a swim on a lovely beach, and made good time to catch the ferry at Bari.  After a small Dumball-style car-park party, some interesting communication between the locals, and an incident with our passports, we finally ended up on the ferry, drinking in the bar to the 'Amusement' of the locals.

Monday:

Albania and Macedonia.  Only ~230 miles, but after offloading from the ferry in the morning, and getting into Albania, it was a fun run down through ricketty and half-built roads.  On the plus side, the locals EVERYWHERE where much more impressed to see us (the Producers "pigeon" is drawing the most looks in the squadron), we were greeted everywhere we went with cheers, waves, and beeping of horns.  After stopping for a late lunch by a beautiful lake in Macedonia, we rolled into the hotel with our earliest arrival so far - about 20.30pm.  Tonight, the plan is a few beers, perhaps some partying, and a good night's sleep!

Cheers all, :D

B.

Well, this is a little embarrassing...

Dumball One writes to you from the back (and front) of another car - Junglism to be precise.

It's appears that on our tight schedule today, one thing was not tight: our fan belt. A comedy of errors led us to this situation.

Never particularly good at following our own advice, dumball one didn't get the dog properly serviced this year. Let this be a lesson to all - a simple service will fix the majority of first day break down blues. We had her booked in to one, with our friendly trusted Hackney mechanic. But on the day the service came around, the dog wouldn't start - a simple flat battery. But of course, that day was on a tight schedule (funeral to go to in fact) and the service was missed. Next day, the tax ran out, the dog was SORNed, and the priorities of organising the rest of the dumball, and living a normal life, took over.

So we knew we had a battery problem. But it charged ok- it just went flat over time. But it might have suffered a little abuse on the past, at the hands of loose fan belt, and a poorly driven alternator.

So dumball time swings around, and the dog is taxed and insured just in time for the dumball. And for the first couple of days, she runs sweet as nut.

But this afternoon, she did start rattling a little. Slightly tractoresque note to the engine.

Five minutes at lunch might have been enough to tighten her up. Or we may have found the belt already too far featured to repair. But ten minutes after setting off, we had a bit of a bang, a little of smoke and an urgent battery light. It was obvious under the bonnet what had happened and here's the kicker: on any other day, at any other time, it would have been a quick, easy and cheap fix.

But today, we just don't have time. And Italy on a Sunday just didn't care enough to offer up a solitary fan belt within 10 miles of where we were. We got her towed, to the services, but couldn't do that for 200 miles.

We tried tights! But they did nothing. So with time marching on, we had to make the decision to ditch and move on.

It's a sad, heart-wrenching manoeuvre, and not one which dumball one has personally has to do before. Which may explain the length and detail of this post. But there you go. Now we have.

It's not about being there, it's about getting there. In someone else's car.

RIP dumball one.

Albania beckons!

Today is all about driving.

But that doesn't mean we didn't find time for lunch by the sea.

We're getting to know the A14 very well. Apart from a few accidentally-on-purpose detours, it's this one road all day. But we're on a mission - we've got to get to Bari by 9 or we miss the ferry, and the next one is not for 3 days. There is a plan B: back up the whole of Italy, through Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and into Albania that way. That should take about 2 days, so definitely a bonus.

But that's not gonna happen. We're about 3 hours, and we're not planning any more unexpected events... Speaking of which, the 'hell' squadron have had another set back- a flat tyre on Mario Katy. Not a major issue, you might think, but when your on a tight schedule, no ones checked the spare and you can't find a jack these things can be a deal breaker!

We've now on the coast road, so things may get a bit more interesting from here- and ahead the ferry to Albania, and we all know what that means...

...actually we don't. If you do, please let us know asap. We really don't have a clue what we're doing.

It's a punishing route this year....

...and I'm driving it again this morning!

But briefly, we have lost at least: el presidente, tally ho, and hip hip/monkey island. I'm sure there are others...

The Italian hotel and food is amazing! But now a have to leave it again! LOUD NOISES!

Damage, Schmage!

2 minor injuries we're aware of so far today. Zubel has filled you in on Matt's little mishap - apparently they're back on the road, perhaps with slightly higher fuel consumption... Addy tried to step in and cast a voodoo spell with hood little axe, but I don't think he helped much.

And DB1 and most of ocean had a run in with a rather large fragment of lorry tyre which took out a bit of our bumper but caused no permanent or serious damage.

Now off to a lake in the foothills of the alps for a spot of lunch and a swim! Then I have to drive all the way to Milan, so I'll be offline footer a bit :(

Damage, Schmage!

2 minor injuries we're aware of so far today. Zubel has filled you in on Matt's little mishap - apparently they're back on the road, perhaps with slightly higher fuel consumption... Addy tried to step in and cast a voodoo spell with hood little axe, but I don't think he helped much.

And DB1 and most of ocean had a run in with a rather large fragment of lorry tyre which took out a bit of our bumper but caused no permanent or serious damage.

Now off to a lake in the foothills of the alps for a spot of lunch and a swim! Then I have to drive all the way to Milan, so I'll be offline footer a bit :(