SUNDAY 28th JUNE 2009 (IZMAIIL to ODESSA)

SUNDAY 28th JUNE 2009

We were on the road by 7.00am as had a l-o-n-g way to travel today (250 kilometers). Leaving Izmaiil we were amazed at the number of dogs roaming the streets, every street. We watched dog gangs running amuck last night but never expected to see lots more dogs at every corner.

'The HORS' has nearly done 1,300 kilometers now.

An hour up the road we just knew it was going to bucket rain - the clouds have a way of turning mid-morning into mid-night...!!! There was much lightning and thunder and the rain pelted down. An email from Bron (who's looking after our Wesley) reminded us of how much 'fun' we were having. I just kept repeating those words. We are having fun, we are having fun, we are having fun...!!!

We got drenched, even me who was hiding behind the torneau cover. Paul even considered pulling over as the lightning seemed to be coming down just in front off us. We soldiered on and eventually came out the other end and after some time even dried off.

Saw another stork nest, this time with three storks standing tall. Absolutely fascinated by them.

Paul stopped at a cafe-bar come auto-stop. We topped ourselves up and were finally able to check the tyre pressures. Tyre pressure hoses seem few and far between.






The interesting thing about our return journey is we had to ride through 7.5 kilometers of Moldova to get to Odessa. Funny (not) how they let us through this border crossing and not the far one. We learned that this section of Moldovian border is controlled by the Ukrainians and the Reni border is controlled by the Moldovans.

Further up the road Paul pulled into his favourite fuel station - WOG. He's been wanting to stop at one but we were always on the wrong side of the highway or not needing fuel when we saw one. Today was the day.

We arrived on the outskirts of Odessa at 1.00pm and at 1.05pm we were once again pulled over by the police - this time, with our new found knowledge, we were happy to stop (beats getting shot!) We just knew we'd be up for lots of money for one reason or another as there is still much confusion over the registration documents. And sure enough, the coppa reckons the bike is registered but not Paul. We do not understand the system here at all. It's been explained to us in many ways and each way makes things more confusing.

As luck would have it we got let off, with the second coppa sighing to the first (because we didn't understand what they wanted) and indicated to let us go. Who are we to argue? We had the bike fired up and we were out of there.

The bike ran okay today because most miles were done either in the wet or in cooler air. We know now that we can't ride the bike through Jordan and Egypt as it will melt the engine...!!!
We parked up in town and I was left to mind the gear while Paul went off in search of a place to stay. We needed to stay in the city centre as tomorrow we have urgent business trying to arrange tickets to Istanbul by ferry, sort registration and customs declaration to export the bike.

I soon became the subject of a photographer as I sat like an over-heated rag-doll in the side-car. My hair was everywhere, my face was red (travel weary) and I guess looked gorgeous as always. The specs were sitting down my nose as I continued reading my book. When the photographer got real close I gave him a big grin and he was wrapt. Probably the best photo of me ever taken and I'll never get to see it...!!!

We got a lovely apartment to stay in (thought we deserved it for one night), unpacked, Paul slept and I blogged. Late in the evening we wandered up the street to get something to eat and were amazed at the thousands of people wandering about. Odessa really is a fabulous city, stunning buildings, atmosphere plus, plus, plus and so much action. It's a full-on fashion parade 24/7. We even saw five stretched limo's cruising about town, each full of young women parading their goods through the sun-rooves. Then you would see the horse and carriage clip-clopping up the cobble-stoned roads reflecting a bygone era against a backdrop of ancient buildings. And all this at a constant temperature of high twenties. It was great to be back in Odessa and experience the city at night.