“TET BULGARIA”
This is the second part of the ride report about day three of the “Breakdown Ride”. It’s about entering Bulgaria and following the first parts of the Trans Euro Trail of Northern Bulgaria.
Hint: If you haven’t already seen the first part, which shows our ride along some impressive parts of TET Romania, I highly recommend reading it first. You will find it here: ➡ PART 1
This is the overview map about the ridden route back then. The second part of the report starts about after 2/3 of the ridden route when Bulgaria was entered:
Part two of this ride report starts where part one of it ends: under the …
bridge, which is connecting Romania and Bulgaria. After a short afternoon nap, Чернотa and I left the shady place under the bridge. Whilst riding back to the main road we run into …
a group of four-footers living under this bridge. The donkey was kind of suspicious to me: Whilst the other three horses/ponies were nervously trotting around in the background, the donkey came with a slow and steady speed towards Чернотa, and stopped about a car length away for watching at us. The picture above fits well the described scene, which lasted about fifteen seconds.
As soon the donkey turned back and left us behind, his other three friends left with him. *crazy*
At the entrance of the bridge on the Romanian riverside lays the combined border / toll station. Like all over the world, as a motorcyclist I had the permit of an unwritten law, to pass the queue and get my place in the second row.
Due to some kind of bad conscience, I always park the ride aside the waiting cars, then I take the helmet off and after getting the needed documents prepared, I walk over to the border guards for doing the paper work.
When the border guard saw my Austrian passport, he just waved me further to the toll counter. So I pushed my black lady a few meters further, took my wallet and went again via feet to the small window gap at the counter.
I wasn’t aware of the brunet bombshell sitting in the little office behind the window. She, (about same model year like me, emerald green eyes, slim built – with a well proportioned figure, body con dressed and a very, very nice smile) looked at me and pointed to the motorcycle, standing behind me on the opposite edge of the lane.
I was flabbergasted by this appearance and just looked baffled at her.
It took me some time, till I understood that she was asking me for the third time if this is my motorcycle and if I’m traveling alone. I reacted late, still impressed by the goddess behind the window, and answered her questions with a small and shy: “Yes, it is. No.”
Her first just friendly smile, changed now in a well amused smile due to my obvious reaction on her person. Still smiling, she told me in eastern-bloc English: “Well, then you are allowed to use the bridge for free. There’s no toll for motorcyclists without a passenger. Please go ahead, other people are waiting.”
Wooha! A bit surprised and also a bit kind of sad, due to the abrupt end of this nice meeting, I put my wallet back into the inner pocket of my jacket and went to the bike. After a last glance to the beautiful lady, which was already impressing her next customer, I put my helmet on, fired the engine and rode onwards the bridge.
The “New Europe Bridge” is a stunner. Especially …
its width of more than 1950 m/6500 ft and the view over the unbelievable broad stream “Danube” are remarkable.
Standing on this bridge I remembered my last “Danube-Crossing” between Romania and Bulgaria: A few years ago, also journeying with my black beauty along the “Project Carpathian Balkan” Чернотa and I took after the famous “Strategica-Mountain-Road” in the Carpathian Mountains, a big ferry ship over to Bulgaria for, a visit of the stunning communism meeting hall: “The Budzludja Monument“.
Man! That was a nice ride too! More about this ride you will find here: ➡ “The Project Carpathian Balkan“. Now let’s continue:
After the first miles in Bulgaria, it was time for a short fuel stop and some cold ice cream near the city “Vidin”. The latter was highly appreciated due to high summer temperatures potentiated with the hot office-lady. Whilst cooling down myself down a bit, I inspected the bike which was resting too. Everything seemed fine, so …
we rode further to the city …
“Kula” which was in former times an impressive Roman-Fortress-Complex. Nowadays …
its a working class town, well known for its big rubber- and plastic industry. The small city was traversed quick and again we followed some …
well-, and …
not so well maintained back country roads southwards …
through huge, already harvested plains.
Before going off road I took this chance for filling up again my water bottles at this well. I drank as much water as I could, whilst having a look at this old, completely run down, …
in former Czechoslovakia made truck. A few left over green branches on its loading bed indicated that this wreck is still working/in use.
After every bottle was filled up to the max, the ride went on. Just a few miles …
after entering the TET Trail, Чернотa and I …
arrived at the long shore line of the dam Rabisha. We followed it …
and enjoyed the view over the whole dam. Next to mild climb section on the opposite site of the lake …
is a back entrance to the Magura-Cave located. This cave is well known for the huge stalactites and old man made paintings. I’ve already visited such caves in other parts of the world. So my interest was low, and I went on …
with my journey. A barking watch dog and one out of …
thousand abandonned houses in the middle of nowhere later, the TET Trail started to …
get tricky. The trail was following now some very steep and …
slanting trails, which often had been …
very bumpy and sandy, too. Good clutch and throttle control was a must in this terrain. Otherwise, it will get burned/destroyed easily. Also the dense vegetation along the …
slopes is something which could get very hard to deal with during wet conditions. After about thirty minutes of hard work in the saddle …
it was time for a short rest. I took my …
jacket of and throw it over the bike for airing. In the meanwhile I inspected the nearby radio antenna whilst sipping on the water bottle. It was already late afternoon, so it was time to …
ride on along this awesome and …
remote hill range.
Because I was following the only visible traces through the high grass, I lost the TET Trail along a few hundred meters. Lastly, I had to track back about 2 km for connecting to the TET again.
This part of TET was overgrown with thorn bushes, what forced me to walk ahead about 50 meters for bending away some bigger spiked branches. Otherwise, they would have hooked my clothes or the soft luggage bags, mounted on the back of the bike.
Close to the city “Krachimir”, after following some …
brand new tarmac road, we startet into …
the last hill climb for this day.
Overall this climb was long, but an easy one and ended in …
a very remote hill-top-meadow with a superb view over the surrounding hills. It took me some time for finding a roughly flat spot within the meadow. But when I did, the shelter …
was built up quickly. This day was the first of many very hot ones and I sweated a lot. So I had …
to wash myself as good as possible. Especially the neuralgic areas like the boot-boiled-feet, the crotch area and the knee and arm bends. A quick wash with a moist microfiber towel did the job well. Freshly showered …
and very impressed from the astounding view this hill provides, I watched the daylight fading while having a beer and a few nuts for dinner. Life is good!
Before I went to sleep, I remembered the ripped open camper trailer from these days morning. Therefor I took the empty beer can, a few left over plastic foils of some sweet snacks and the other foodstuff out of the luggage and stowed it in a new undamaged plastic bag. I went for a three minutes walk and tied the bag into a tree. This way I hoped to avoid a bear snuffing around in my camp.
Uncertain about the sleep quality of the incoming night, I finally crawled into the tent. Before going to sleep I had to get rid of a few flies and grasshoppers which were caught between the two shells of the tent-skin. Finally, a got them out/or got them squeezed. It was way too hot for getting into the sleeping bag, so I just laid atop of it and closed my eyes. *Yawn*
End of riding day number three. Total covered distance this day: 440km or 270 mi.
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