Stuck in no-mans land

Breakast in the hotel was a nice treat ....

... then we packed our bikes in probably the nicest surroundings ever, ...the sweet Jasmine smell, and the background piped music ... made a nice change from the bowels of some underground carpark we normally find ourselves in at the start of the day.

Leaving Elbasan, we wound our way out through a river valley heading for a section of unpaved road that Mr. Harris thought would be a good addition to an already long day.   Initially it was a wide gravel road with great views ....

.., . but, no such luck.  We soon did a U-turn and headed down a goat track.  Some broken tar gave us hope that it would not be too challenging, but that was short lived, and as we passed farmers with donkeys, hand built haystacks, and ladies cutting hay with scythes.  The road soon complimented the step back in time, and turned into mud & gravel.

Poor old Thorpy did his best to cope, but a few sections were just too much, and after a bit of a tumble, we swapped bikes just to get out of the forest.  Now I have never a ridden a Triumph 800, and I throught it was a bit revvy for this sort of work.  In fact it was a bugger to ride in the loose stuff.  Neil mentioned "modes" ... Now I know all about these as my Honda has two... ignition off , and ignition on. Just the two !  Simple, eh ?

Thorpy confimed his Triumph did indeed have this new technology, but was dammed if he understood it.  With our three heads scratching, and a bit of random button pushing, we realised the bike was set to "sports" mode ... once we changed the icon of a motorway to that of a mountain ... hell, what a difference !

Once clear of the dirt, we headed for the Macedonian boder.  Stopped for a brief lunch by a lake....

 .... then rolled up at the first checkpoint, which was to exit Albania ... that went without a hitch.    Took a photo as we left, thinking we would never pass this way again...

500 mts on through no-mans land, we arrived at the Macedonian border, (no photos allowed), only to have our insurance docs scrutinised.  Nope, apparently we were not insured in their country, and there was nowhere we could buy it locally.

We had to turn back, but with the Albanian border guards seeing us again, they too started looking closely and didnt appear to want to let us back in.  So that was it ... our destiny was to settle in the no-mans land between the 2 countries never to be seen again !

Our perseverence and frankly the practicality of the situation became apparent to the guards, and eventually we were let back into Albania, and had to chose another route to Greece, that didnt involve Macedonia.  We made great haste as this detour would put us into the hotel quite late.

Entering Greece was fairly easy ....

Arriving at Thessaloniki, the traffic was still quite heavy, but we made it in around 7.30pm.  The bikes had to be put in an underground car-park, which Thorpy managed a low speed spill in one of the tight turns - the poor chap was absolutly exhausted.

Still, a quick turnaround and into a bar for refreshements, set against a backdrop of one of those computer controlled fountains....

With the time change, it was well past mid-night when we hit the sack, but it was clear we needed a different plan for the next, potentially difficult & long day.  Splitting the group was mentioned as we said goodnight, exiting the elevator.