Dave's Turkey Trip '07 (1)

[Dave Hobbs]

Firstly the purpose. From 1997-9 I was in and out of Turkey's capital city, Ankara, for up to three months at a time. We were installing ticketing and access control systems on two light rail systems that were being built at the time. I made some good friends there during that time and had several invitations to return. Alternatively, maybe the above was just the excuse I needed to justify going for a long, interesting ride on the bike.

Next, the geography. The first part of the route was fairly simple. Get the ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao. I used it last year and enjoyed the cruise and the price. To get me and the bike to Spain for 38 quid's worth of Tesco vouchers is pretty good value. From Bilbao across into Southern France to call in on Maz and Nigel, then on into Northern Italy.

The next stage looked to be tricky at the planning stage. I had a problem finding an insurance company that would cover me for travel in what were seen as "iffy" countries, i.e. Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania and Macedonia. The alternative was to ride down to the South of Italy and get a ferry across into Turkey. Not what I really intended. Bandit country is always more fun. Eventually I found an insurance company that was prepared to cover me and so the rest of the route fell into place.

From Italy into Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Greece and finally Turkey. Then back up through the Balkans to Trieste, over the Alps into Austria and home via Germany and France.

The itinerary:-
Portsmouth, UK
Bilbao, Spain
Pau, France
St Filieu d'Amont, France (Maz & Nigel's patch)
Aix en Provence, France
Genoa, Italy
Padua, Italy
Trieste, Italy
Split, Croatia
Dubrovnik, Croatia
Tirana, Albania
Thessaloniki, Greece
Tekirdag, Turkey
Ankara, Turkey

Tekirdag was not planned. I had intended to stop in Istanbul, but Turkish border control staff were having a Bolshey Day and everyone spent at least two hours pratting about. Then it began to get very cold so I pulled over early.

Then back home via:-
Istanbul, Turkey
Thessaloniki, Greece
Tirana, Albania
Dubrovnik, Croatia
Split, Croatia
Trieste, Italy
Innsbruck, Austria
Strasbourg, France
Calais, France (Channel Tunnel)

The figures. I set Trip A on leaving home. On my return it read 6,150 miles. I was away for 27 days. On 4 of those days I did no riding. The highest mileage in a day was from Strasbourg to home, 610 miles in 10 hours including the time taken for the Tunnel. The hardest day's riding was from Tirana to Dubrovnik, not because of the mileage, but because it was on dodgey roads across some mighty mountains. Twice, in Turkey and Austria I was up above the snow line. The bike got an oil and filter change in Ankara and a new back tyre in Dubrovnik. One front wheel bearing began to collapse on the last day, making braking "interesting".

[Dave Hobbs]

The bad bits. Happily not too many of those, far outnumbered by the good bits. The weather was excellent for virtually the entire trip (Thanks Skidz). Only on the first day off the boat was there any serious rain. Eventually I abandoned the preferred back roads and hit the autoroutes to get to Pau, and a warm dry hotel, quicker.

I had an unpleasant hour or so on the approach to Genoa when heavy traffic caused holdups on a route which contains a lot of tunnels. I would have filtered, but the lanes were narrow and I had pannier bags. Tunnels and smokey diesels are not a good combination.

The plastic waterproof covers for the luggage shredded themselves within about 500 miles so I blagged some laundry bags from one of the hotels and repacked all my stuff into those, inside the luggage.

Somewhere near Padua I stopped to take some photos, taking off my classes so that I could remove my helmet. Then the backwash from a passing truck snatched my glasses from my lap and a car promptly ran over them. Bugger! Happily I was carrying a spare pair, although, being an earlier prescription they were not as good.

Genoa and Padua (and, I suspect, most other Italian towns) are suffering from an infestation of scooters. Never mind your IAM shoulder checks, you need armpit and elbow checks because the bloody things are everywhere. And none of them show the reverence or even respect due to a proper motorcycle.. ..mumble.. ..mumble.. ..dammit!!

The some of the roads in Albania were absolutely atrocious. I took a few photos in Tirana but they do not do justice to the scene. On major roads between major towns and the national capital there were long stretches of dirt. Not road works, but just plain dirt roads. With continuous heavy traffic they deteriorated still further into miles and miles of huge potholes. After one stretch of about 8 miles my clutch hand was going into spasm from having to trickle along in bottom gear slipping the clutch. Dirt roads, good weather and lots of traffic mean lots of dust. The locals are in their shops, garages and stuff by the side of the road, trying to make a living, and the dust is a problem for them. So they do the obvious thing and get out the hosepipe to lay the dust. The wandering motorcyclist then finds himself with two more problems. The potholes fill with water so you don't know how deep they are, or if they contain rocks, until you're in them. And Water + Dirt + Traffic = Mud = No fun at all.

Even on the sealed tarmac roads potholes were a major and constant hazard. At first I wondered why there were no speed limit signs until I realised that your speed is determined solely by how quickly you can recognise and handle the potholes. Even after I got back onto normal roads, it was a while before I shook off the feeling that there was a pothole out there somewhere with my name on it.

Road direction signs are few and far between. This lead to me frequently pulling into petrol stations (plenty of those), pointing down the road and asking "Shkoder" or whatever. My queries were invariably answered helpfully and courteously and sometimes in very good English

I realise that some of these countries have just come out from under some pretty brutal variations on the theme of Communism, but some are making a far better job of recovery than others. Croatia is becoming a justifiably popular tourist resort. The trip down the Adriatic coast is mind blowing. One gorgeous scenic view after another. Slovenia is a bit like rural Somerset in many ways. But in some other parts of ex-Yugoslavia, they have no garbage collections, so they take it all to the outskirts of the village and chuck it in the nearest hedge or ditch. Your nose tells when you are getting close to a village.

And the biggest downer of all was arriving at the Greek border after a long hard run from Ankara, only to find that my passport was no longer in the clear window portion of my tank bag. It must have gone overboard when I was juggling toll slips, coming through the Istanbul area. So there was no alternative but to go all the way back to Istanbul and go to the Consulate to arrange a new passport. This process can take up to 10 days, but I think that the fact that the consulate passport clerk was a biker (Aprilia RSV) helped to get me back on the road again after two days.

[Dave Hobbs]

Some of the good bits. Up in the mountains and around the lakes there is some of the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen. Crossing the Bosphorus Bridge from Europe into Asia was a major event for me as was going through the Brenner Pass into Austria.

Sitting on the veranda of the hotel bar with a cold beer, looking out onto a flat calm Adriatic and the sun setting behind Dubrovnik. Picking, peeling and eating an orange. I think it was the sort that you use to make marmalade because it was not at all sweet. But it was a first for me.

Sitting at Maz and Nigel's table having had an excellent dinner and just rabbiting on about all manner of stuff for hours. Good friends to have! Thanks guys!

Sitting in a pizzeria in Genoa, enjoying a superb pizza and watching Manchester United beat seven shades of brickdust out of Roma. I think the locals enjoyed it too because one of them bought me a beer. Setting the GPS to "Avoid Motorways" and finding myself on some lovely country roads. Losing GPS coverage South of Trieste was not nearly as traumatic as I expected. The maps I had were adequate even if they did not give much local fine detail.

Seeing donkeys lined up outside a small village store in the mountains. Later I realised that for the local housewives they are the equivalent of the shopping trolley. They do get a bit skittish when confronted by the sight and sound of an SV on a narrow winding mountain road. The donkeys that is, not the housewives.

Being told by many hotel receptionists, if there was no garage or secure parking, "Park it in the front where we can keep an eye on it". This held true even in Istanbul where the Richmond Hotel fronts onto an area of Beyoglu (bay-oo-loo) which is for trams and pedestrians only. And SV's apparently.

Running along the coast road through the South of France, going through Nice, Cannes and Monaco. I stopped, hoping to buy an ice cream because it was a lovely hot day, but I couldn't find one. What's the point of a millionaire's playground if you can't get an ice cream? Eventually forced off the coast road by heavy traffic.

While I was in Ankara the hotel began to fill up with student types, about 18 - 25. I asked one of the staff what it was all about and he said they were going to have a demo against the government. The next morning I was due to leave for Istanbul but when I looked out of my window, the police were forming up on the nearby roundabout, which was part of my route out of town. By the time I had had breakfast, packed and checked out, the whole area was pretty crowded. I was going to ask the police to let me through. Then they knocked over a lamp post in a shower of sparks while they were trying to manoeuvre their big 6-wheel water cannon. Having seen that and their subsequent sense of humour failure I decided to find another way out. Apparently the demo was big enough to make the UK TV news.

Taking a minor road through Montenegro from Podgorica to Kotor via Cetinje, and then coming over the top to see Kotor about 3000 feet below. Realising that the road went down over that drop in about 5 miles of S-bends - Wow!!

The hero of the trip was undoubtedly the SV. It is so very reassuring when you are thousands of miles away from home, you turn the key and hear the whine of the fuel pump, push the button and hear "whirr - whirr - rumble - rumble" and you know you are still in business. Okay, a wheel bearing went, but it still got me home, cruising at 160Kph - ish. I just had to be careful on the front brake, that's all. Why do Suzuki fill the wheel bearings with dogshit?

What next? Dunno! My sister keeps on at me to go over to her place near Brisbane, hire a bike and tour Australia. If the £/$ rate holds up it might be a good idea to try the USA. I can't get the North Cape out of my mind, but that might call for a V-strom.

[gadge]

Monster journey Dave.I haven't even heard of half those countries.
Will have to pick your brains sometime for my next trip.

[Dave Hobbs]

1. The drop down into Kotor
2 and 3 The main road into Tirana from Shkodor
4 A good field of fire from this ex-Wehrmacht gun position in Croatia

[andyw]

As I was saying earlier..............I'll make the next one!!!!!

Great write up as always .......hope you're not going to post all the photos, we'll be here for days!

[Dave Hobbs]

1. Some people prefer a slower pace
2. Called in to visit the Brothers in Dubrovnik
3. An Alp
4. Split in the early morning

[Dave Hobbs]

1. Serious horsepower at work
2. Life doesn't get much better than this
3. A new friend
4. Spot the SV

[peterrose]

Interesting tale Dave. A serious trip, i'm jealous.

I won't be able to match that this year.

What about all the women who fell at your feet as you rode though thier villages like a God on a chairot of noise and fire...... 'spose blue just don't have the same effect as Copper does, huh !!

Pete

[D.T.]

Sounds like a trip of a lifetime. I am currently reading another story of a guy here in the US that got sick of the corporate job thing and it touring around the US, staying with people on motorcycle forums and posting hundreds of pictures. He even has a paypal account to sent money to fund his "trip."

More pictures please! Don't get to see much of the real Europe here.. :supsmiley

[MazPillion]

What a wonderful trip, Dave As, always, a privilege to be part of it

[Andy.SP1]

Nice one Dave, good write up......

As you say your trip was just getting going when you got to Ialy, and that's my destination, although I will traverse the length of France, not "cheat" and do the ferry to Bilbao....

I'll have done no where near 6,000 miles, not wishing to know or really think about it but you must have and Iron ass, to survive that.....Good on ya!

[dove_cazzo]

Great trip Dave and well written up. That's a fair few miles you racked up each day

All you guys who pack your bags and go off on these journeys make me envious, I guess I should get my arse into gear and do it myself. The Oz trip sounds good, if you are OK with company I'd join you (have a brother in Brisbane too!)

DC

[Dave Hobbs]

Thank-you for your kind comments on the write-up.

For those thinking of heading off into the Balkans I think I should mention a few things that may give you problems, mostly of a navigational nature. Firstly, due to their confused history, many places have more than one name. A bit like Wales really! That is not too hard to deal with until they swap character sets on you. That really overloaded the old brain cell. Then I remembered that in my dim distant school days we used lots of formulae with things like Phi and Mu. So when I wanted to pick up Thessalonoki in a road sign I looked for a word that began with Theta (θ) and Epsilon (Σ). Far from foolproof but it did the trick. And what a nice place it was too.

Also, have faith in your navigation. Just because it looks for all the world as if you have inadvertently wandered onto a rarely used goat track, that is not a justification for reversing your course. Persevere and you will invariably find yourself at the required town or border crossing.

A lot of countries tend to completely ignore their neighbours on their road signs. So they show you the direction of a tiny, one donkey village on their side of the border, completely ignoring the major town a couple of kilometres further on, on the other side.

Euros are acceptable currency throughout the area now, but in non EU countries the exchange rate seems to be open to interpretation. And if you are due for some change, that always comes in the local currency. So spend it before you leave because Thomas Cook and the UK banks will not want to know. What the hell am I supposed to do with 1700 Leke, 26 Kuna and 50 Lipe? I think it is worth about £10 total.

It is not a bad idea to have some form of breakdown insurance in case things go completely pear shaped. But do not ignore the fact that you are already a member of an international brotherhood of bikers whose members are usually happy to assist a fellow member in trouble. Like the lad on a GSX1400 who led me to a little workshop where a very competent mechanic swapped my knackered BT014 for a Dunlop Qualifier. And the couple of Slovenian guys on BMW 800’s who warned me to avoid a certain stretch of Croatian road because the road works meant riding 4km over deep, loose gravel.

If you do venture in that direction I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

[Jaffa]

Top report Dave and thanks for a bit more inspiration, Like DC says I must get my arse in gear and do this.

DC do you think we should try and encorage each other, or is it the partners we need to work on