Im just a sweet Transvestite

horse n around

Mt Moldoveanue 2544m

I thought to myself. "you know what, I should get off this bike every now and then and do something other than ride hard" or ride into the sun set as a certain JM told me so. It was at the end of a long day in the sun and I had just ticked over 100km when I decided to supply up and head into the mountains on foot. Well thats not entirely true. The 'walking track' was far more of a 4wd track for the first 4-5km that I took Doris for a bit of a jaunt through the forest. Dirt roads are like cigarettes for Doris, you cant immediately see the damage but you know each one is taking a couple of weeks off her life. I dirgress. Stashing my girl in the forest I ran to the hut where there was no one about so I washed in a glacial stream and frollocked al natural in the grassy meadow. The next morning it was an early start and up to the highest peak in the Carpathian mountain range. Mt Moldoveanu at 2544m was a place and a half for a lunch break and as the morning cloud cleared I looked out over hundreds of kms of forested land and hills. What a place to explore.

I headed north to the famous painted monestories and did my best to see each one for the subtle differences from the previous one. Managed to get caught in a couple more thunderstormes and at one stage had a concerned local come and move me and my tent from the rising waters of the river I was camped next to.

Doris is running ok, there have been a couple of minor things go a mis, a spoke or two a puncture and a broken chain all happened over a couple of days. It seems that each 1000kms she does a bit of a funcky dance and breaks something but I suppose thats not too bad in the whole scheme of things.

Dorris getting Fixed

In the next couple of days I will move from the painted churches and seemlessly cultivated lands of romania to the unknown quantity, at least for me of Serbia. Of the minimal reading I have done it would seem that each change of address needs to be regestered with the police so I am not sure how wild camping will go, I may just have to bike the bullet and pay for somewhere to stay.

Rain and wind flowers

Painted Church

It will be nice to get to Macedonia where I am meeting a good friend of mine for a month or duel riding. Sounds more heroic than riding together, even as I said that I hunched my sholders forward. It will be great to have another perspective and to have someone to chat with. Especially someone that will somewhat understand what I am trying to say. With that I will ride off and get this sore butt out of the cumfy chair. You wouldnt believe how sore I was after I wandered up that hill. You would think I had not been doing any exercise.