Days 65 to 67 November 2020

Posted by The Madbiker on Sat, Nov 7, 2020

Day 65

One of the main reasons for leaving Turkey was because all of the land routes to the East from Turkey were closed and because of this I had to decide where to go for the winter. Staying in Turkey was an option but having a 90 day limit to my stay would have meant having to leave Turkey at the end of January to go back a European country. Another factor for consideration was the potential for the alleged virus to affect border crossings at the end of January in to February. As the borders were still open at that time I decided that it would be better to make that journey in early November rather than at the beginning of February. I left Kırklareli early the next day and headed for the Bulgarian border. On approaching the border the road rose sharply and in the shaded parts, the road was covered in frost. A few minutes at the border and I was once again in Bulgaria. I rode along the coast past Burgas and Varna, I only stopped for fuel and coffee as it was not warming up and it had become overcast. I was at the Romanian border by late afternoon and once through I headed for the unremarkable city of Constanta where I spent the night.

Day 66

The next day I headed from Constanta for the border with Moldova as it was my intention to visit that country and then ride on to Ukraine. I had tried to get in to Ukraine earlier in the year but the borders were closed due to the madness, however, Ukraine’s borders were now open and I was looking forward to eventually getting in to the country. Staying off the motorways I took the main road to Galati where the main Romanian/Moldovan border crossing is situated but on reaching the town of Smardan I found that the only way to cross the Danube river on this particular route was by a small car ferry.

Once across the river I rode to the border crossing but once I arrived at the Moldovan side I was told my two border guards wearing AK 47’s that the border was closed to anyone except Moldovans and Ukranians who were going back to Ukraine. I rode back to Romania and found a small hotel in the town of Braila to spend the night and formulate another plan. After settling in to the hotel I went out to do a bit of exploring and although a nice enough place I found all of the shops closed and all of the bars and restaurants closed for anything other than take away, the madness again.

Day 67

By the next morning I had decided to spend the winter in Poland so I headed North for the Hungarian border. Romania is a large country and I decided to head up along the Moldovan border and head inland as I approached the border with Ukraine rather than go to Transalvania where I had previously been. The scenery on this route changed considerably from unremarkable flat farmland to rolling hills. Unfortunately light rain came and and went for most of the day and as I reached the town of Suceava, darkness fell and so did the fog and the heavy rain.

Day 68

The next morning it was cold, foggy, and still raining as I set off inland, after a few miles the fog cleared but it continued to rain however by the time I reached Carlibaba it had stopped raining and the sun was shining again, raising my spirits as it heated up. The road from here, hugging the Ukrainian border towards Satu Mare was one of the most enjoyable roads that I have ridden on this year.

Full of tight hairpins, swooping bends over rivers and rocky gullies, small villages with beautiful churches, farm animals on the main roads and spectacular scenery, it was just amazing to ride along.

By the end of the day I had reached my destination of a hotel about 3 kilometres from the Romanian/Hungarian border and I checked in, there were not many guests and the restaurant was closed, so I just made some coffee in my room using my camping stove and worked on my route for the following day.