Friday 22nd March - Error 1
Plovdiv is 156 km from Sofia. There is a stiff NW tailwind so I reckon I might be a hero and do it in a day. There are flurries of snow as I leave Sofia at around 0800.
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| Compare and contrast: Same rack packs/both difficult to pick up if they fall over: I think the similarity ends there. |
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| Preparing to leave Sofia. Miguel heads west back to Portugal - I head east. He sits and slowly freezes (despite heated handlebars) - I pedal and sweat. Miguel has been all over Africa and up through the Middle East. |
About an hour later my GPS track looked like it was taking me around a town on the bypass. I depart from the track so that I can see the town centre and maybe save a bit of distance.I assume that there will be a road out of town that will eventually join up with my pre-planned track.
Maybe I should explain that my bike GPS just has the useless base map supplied by Garmin. My track is pre-prepared and downloaded from the laptop, just appearing as a line to follow on the GPS screen.
The road I was on out of town didn't rejoin my track. In fact it diverged off up another valley and into the back of beyond. I came to a T junction. One way was a road running parallel to my original course but it looked like it might turn into a dirt track. I take the other option which was back into the NW gale and taking me back in the direction of Sofia. After 6km I gave up fighting the wind and decided to turn back and take the other option. It never became a dirt road but was hilly, and in a really bad state of repair with potholes everywhere. At 1600 I'm only about 60km from Sofia and the weather has deteriorated. I'm at 900m and the snow is drifiting and ice is forming on the road. I'm just hoping the road will lead down into a valley soon so I can pitch the tent out of this wind. It does.
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| Late afternoon at 900m, the wind is strong and gusty and the road is starting to freeze. I want to get down and find some where sheltered. |
On the way down, in a remote forest valley, a car pulls up just in front of me. Two men get out wearing suits and ties. Very odd. I stop and my heartbeat increases a little. The passenger shouts something unintelligible. "English" I say. Driver and passenger swap seats and they drive off. Whew!
Error number 2
I found a nice sheltered spot in a layby with a water spring. The snow was still falling but melting below 300m. I lay in my sleeping bag listening to the roar of the gusts in the treetops.
Usually if I wake and I see the pre-sunrise dawn light through the tent, I normally start packing away to get an early start. Internals first........get dressed, pack the sleeping bag and the air mattress, pack and seal the panniers.This takes a while. Just before getting out of the tent to start breakfast I realise that the dawn light hasn't got any brighter. I stick my head out to find that it's the moon that has appeared as the weather clears. I switch on my phone to check the time. It's 0115. Mmmm. I decide, stupidly in hindsight, that I don't want to unpack everything again, so will get going much earlier than anticipated and make up for my lost time the day before. I get going at 3am
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| Oops! |
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| Running water - proper washing up! |
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| The wind has brought down lots of trees during the night |
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| The road was treacherous, especially downhill. The crunching ice sounded like Chinese firecrackers. The winter tyres were really good and I managed to stay upright |
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| A gritter truck - Bulgarian style. A man in the back shovels like mad. |
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| Watching the sunrise |
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| Sunrise |
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| Catching some early morning sun and looking forward to catching up on some sleep |
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Tailwind to Plovdiv
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| The Roman ampitheatre in Plovdiv |
A 3am start is seriously impressive! :-)
ReplyDeleteMaybe impressive but not recommended!
ReplyDelete