Day 4

Day 4

Awoke to a hangover, the wonderful sound of dogs barking, a cockerel that was exceptionally happy to be awake and 40 tonne artic trucks roaring past around 20 feet away from my head. Ah joy. So we got up and packed up the gear before going into the black sea for a swim. It was a great temperature and none of us wanted to come out. Off then for a shower and they were kind of what we expected. The bit that I can not quite understand is how they manage to get the water in the showers colder than the sea? They must chill it somewhere onsite. Baz and Colin driving today and we are headed for Zonguldak which is around a seven hour drive but unfortunately it is the inland road. This area must get less rain as it is dry and barren. Quite a contrast to the coast which is only around 30 km away and Baz reckons it is an ideal place to shoot a spaghetti western, assuming you are not in Italy. As we progressed it goy more mountainous and we were soon back to some stunning mountain ranges. Road was pretty poor quality but eventually we reached a toll road which was top notch. So if you are in Baku and want to drive on a decent road you only need to travel 1850km towards Turkey to do so. We pulled up at the toll gates and we took a ticket which you pay for at the other end of the road. Martin went through the gate next to us which turned out to be the wrong one. Once he noticed that he went into reverse to move back and come over to the same gate as us and proceeded to place his monster truck on the bonnet of a Ford Focus. A neat bit of driving although he says he checked his mirrors and saw nothing which is not surprising considering the Focus is half the height. Obviously we were very mature and did not laugh at all. A settlement took place and we were on our way again with much laughter on the CB and a red face on Martin. Photo attached. We were really chewing up the kilometers now and we made the decision not to head for Zonguldak but to go for Istanbul which seemed like a long way away but with these roads it was pretty easy. The Tom Toms are struggling a bit with the hotels but using a blend of Tom Tom and Google Maps we found the Marriott Hotel. There were a few concerned faces on the valet parking guys as we pulled up at the door which was amusing. They had to park the cars out front of the hotel with the Porsches and Ferraris as they were too tall to go into the underground garage. Plan for tomorrow is to get to a campsite on the Black Sea coast on the west side of Bulgaria. So far we are a bit ahead of time so all going well we will be in Hungary in plenty of time for the Grand Prix.