So we are back. Back in the UK after six months on the road. Six months in a small blue Bedford van made in 1970. In those six months we covered 12,918 miles (20,668km). We ventured all the way to tallest mountain range in Europe, crossed countless rivers and passes. We transited many borders, some easier than others. We’ve been on lots of ferries, in numerous tunnels and over many spectacular bridges.
We had the odd break down on the side of the road. Some needing more mechanical remediation than others. We’ve been crashed into by a taxi in Slovakia.
We were stopped by the police numerous times and breathalysed twice. We did not receive any fines that we know of and all of our encounters with the police were friendly and amicable. We think it’s mostly they are curious, never seeing a British van with historic black and silver number plates travelling through their neck of the woods.
We were on the road for 175 days. We slept in 115 different places since we left home on March 30th. Mostly in our van, in our Ikea bed that’s strapped to some home made drawers. On occasion we slept inside, mostly in AirBnbs but on a couple of occasions with friends.
We packed the van 117 times.
We slept in some incredible places – on the Russian border high up in the mountains of Georgia; on a Roman bridge in Turkey; on a wild meadow, high up in the mountains not far from Sarajevo; beside lakes, rivers and seas. So many memorable places it’s easy for one to blend into the other.
We’ve encountered so much beautiful wildlife from those early days in Serbia where we saw our first storks, numerous prey birds and street cats.
- In Turkey wild hamsters surprised us as we eat dinner perched on the side of a ravine in Cappadocia, our first tortoises in the wild, eagles and buzzards often flying high above and the many smaller birds skimming the land rich with insects.
- In Georgia, so many prey birds nearly every where we travelled. Farm animals grazing the verges of the roads, sometimes being herded by beautiful large shepherd dogs.
- In Bulgaria, snails so big, nearly fist size.
- Snakes in Macedonia laying on the road in the hot summer sunshine, shying away as we came close.
- In northern Croatia and Hungry we saw storks perched on lamp posts along the road. We even saw a young stork fledge.
A common theme were the vast numbers of wild plants and flowers, supporting an incredible range of insects. Some large some not so. In a couple of places we encountered blood sucking flies that left our ankles red with tears of blood.
While we’ve encountered hurdles, none have stopped us in our journey. Whenever things have been tough we’ve found a way through.
Sadly land borders to Azerbaijan remained closed to foreign travellers which meant we never actually made it to Baku and the Caspian Sea. We did get as far east as we could and turned around right on the border in Lagodekhi, Georgia. We were just over 200 miles from Baku. We were never wedded to Baku. It provided us with a direction of travel.
Nothing that we did was planned and little research was done ahead of leaving. Instead we took each day as it came, finding out from fellow travellers and locals what was best where ever we were. We adapted along the way and as such every day came with fresh surprises. We never needed to worry about whether things would go to plan, as there was no plan, just an idea that being on the road would lead to new experiences, new people, new ideas, new everything and as a result we were never disappointed.
As we look back down the road that is behind us, we know that it won’t be long before we are once more focused on the road ahead and what lies just around the corner.
We will take time over the coming autumn and winter to work through all of the photos, stories and videos with a view to making a more coherent narrative of our journey. A narrative that tries to describe the richness of experience we have been so fortunate to have.
As we look forward we will remind ourselves of the conversation that we had on the side of the road fairly early on with someone so kind that stopped to help us while we were broken down. In that conversation we talked about dreams. The further we’ve travelled in our journey, the more it has become apparent that while people all over the world dream, those of us that live in the wealthy countries of the world, those of us that have access to education, wealth, and health, must never forget that we are so lucky to be able to make our dreams come true.
For us, happiness lies, not in the material world, but in the connections and understanding that we make with our fellow humans. Travel provides us with the means.
We sign off with love and peace in our hearts and say thank you to everyone that helped us along the way. It has been an epic and wonderful journey.
