Istanbul to Wild Camp Crossed over to Asia today caught the ferry from the Golden Horn across the water to the Eastern side of Istanbul. Fast and easy the guys who tried the bridge got caught out because you need to have pre bought the ticket. One of the lads binned it today he thinks it was a diesel spill of some kind either way it had him spinning down the road. He seems to have damaged his ankle and put a few dents in his panniers but is still riding. The res...

Took a wander round the city today, took a tourist bus a great way to see the place. What amazed me was the change in the place granted the last time I was here was 30 years ago it's like a different city, no open sewers, no smells, no starving peasants in fact a modern thriving cosmopolitan city. If the rest of Turkey is like this it'll be an amazing place.

Velico to Instanbul A long but fun day. Where to start as we left Velico we discovered the main road out of the country was closed and none of us had maps..brilliant. So after much umming and arring we found our way round to another route that took us through a small town called Simonograd which, I discovered, has the flashest speed camera equipment I've ever seen. It's mounted in the police car and automatically tracked me round a bend registering my speed the ...

Bran to velico turnovo Bulgaria Took the count to visit his old castle today.. Vlad the impaler .. said he didn't recognise much of it since its facelift and they're seemed to be far too many fat healthy faces about. I explained to home about tourists but he insisted on calling them food. He kept demanding that he should have a slice of the action but I wasn't clear if he was talking about the money or the visitors. Eventually took him for a spin over the Carpat...

Cluj to Bran Fantastic day, went over the Transfaragan highway - apparently Ceacescu had it built to get to one of his palaces, me and a couple of the lads split off from the prescribed route to do it. It made for a long day but a fun one. The road up the hill was great smooth and fast but the road the other side was as rough as they come with large potholes and sandy corners - fun but slow.