15th October
A big and beautiful descent to the Albanian border. Huge queues of cars, and dozens of pedestrians waiting to get through- we figured out they are all Albanians, assumedly returning from their day’s work in Montenegro, where the pay might be a tiny bit better we think.

Some kind soul pointed us through the pedestrian access way so we skipped the vehicle queue and found a couple of gruff officers to stamp our passports- out of Montenegro…through a window and into Albania! All in the same building. Efficient really 🙂

16th October, 50k to the coast
After much deliberating over the weather forecast…which was looking a bit grim for the next few days, we decided to head to the coast and hole up in a little apartment to sit out the rain for a couple of nights.
A lovely ride on mostly quiet little roads!

Turns out, the coast was closed. We did find a few open cafes but the seaside town of Shengjin (and assumedly the same goes for all the coastal resorts) was not really open for business. Tourist season over. Not an umbrella or beach chair in sight. Just grey…

But we did find an awesome little fish restaurant for dinner- so far the meals in Albania have all been amazing!

In the midst of our day of rain watching we were notified that our scheduled flight out from Tiranana was cancelled. Just like that! After much back and forth with the booking company, we managed to reinstate our flights to the day earlier. No idea whether they will honor the extra fee that we’ve paid to transport the bikes…we’ll find out when we get to the airport in a few days time no doubt.

18th October, Our last major day of riding- 80km to the Albanian capital Tirana
A few days of exploring, eating, sorting bicycle boxes and, eating more, and generally catching up!

We don’t feel like we’ve done Albania justice at all- will have to come back for another look another time. The weather wasn’t kind for the first few days and the dismal greyness did nothing to enhance the mood of the country. With time constraints (and bicycle travel!) we couldn’t really visit the outlying areas that would have been wonderful to see- the Albanian Alps and the Southern coastal regions. Next time.

There were some standouts in Albania though- the people have been amazingly friendly and helpful, everywhere we went. Always a cheery greeting and helpful advice when we needed to find something.

And…the food. For a poor but upcoming country, the food in Albania was simply superb. We didn’t have a fail at any meal, just exquisitely prepared and presented meals. Too bad we’re not riding it off any more!!

23rd October, flight to Istanbul
What a day. An early start, and no such thing as a luggage trolley at Tirana Airport so it was quite an effort trying to get two hefty bicycle boxes and our weighty panniers the short distance to the checkin counter. Thankfully someone much stronger than me took pity and gave us a hand. Gotta love the human spirit!
Then a couple of painful hours convincing the staff that we’d already paid for our bikes to travel…but finally all good.
Until we arrived in Istanbul, and whoops, realised that neither of us had thought to check whether we need a Visa. Seems we do! For some reason Australians have to pay more than anyone else in the world to visit Turkey. And we didn’t find this out until we’d crawled our way through the customs queue, only to have to do it all again after being told to go get a visa then come back. Money Changer was onto a very good thing, with a strange airport insistence that the Visa payment be made in US dollars. $140AUD each later (ouch!) we did manage to get through, parted with a great deal more cash to store our bikes in the luggage locker and jumped into a taxi to be scammed once again. Proved to be rather an expensive day you might say!

A few final days of exploring the city of Istanbul- European and Asian sides, markets, mosques, ferries and more exquisite food! We’ll be rolling home…

And that’s a wrap…
Now it’s time to fly home to Oz, with a couple of stopovers on the way in Perth and Adelaide to hug the kids the and the grandkids. Yay!

8124km on the bikes…139 days and 576 hours of riding and whole heap of not… 66920m of elevation…

We’ve eaten our way through 13 countries, sampled plenty of delicious and some not so fine fare, tried the local wine and beer in every country (why wouldn’t we?), grizzled about hills, grizzled about flat, grizzled about traffic, and ended plenty of days exhausted but exhilarated.
And realised there is so much more to see that we may have to come back again…

Thanks to everyone who bothered to read our little blog (and to those of you who didn’t and were polite enough not to tell us if it bored you to tears!!)

We are very happy to be coming home, and looking forward to reconnecting with family and friends, it feels like it’s been a long time away…

Neil’s Notes!
I might be biased, but my favourite country was the UK, every town with different architecture and building materials and changing landscapes. There was very little cycling infrastructure but a network of tiny country roads and generally respectful drivers made us feel safe. France, Austria and Germany had such fantastic trafic free cycle paths that we rarely had the need to ride on the road. I did find some of the flatter sections of the Danube and Loire where the cycle path follows the levee bank were a bit tedious. Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro had few cycle paths and aggressive drivers. Especially Bosnia which had no possible quiet alternatives, the roads were so scary we took a 4 hour bus ride to avoid a section.