1^st May.

Travelled down the road towards Dubrovnik when we came across a beautiful bay so for the night we decided to pull up here for the night, it was really hot at 33 degrees so a swim for Evie and a paddle for Sandra and me, it was so nice we just sat on the beach and watched the sun go down over the mountains, I would stay here again if we are in this neck of the woods.

2^nd May.

Set off for Montenegro and duly arrived at the border, the border control would not let us in the country until we purchased further insurance from them at a cost of 18 Euros, hmm!. OK bought it we are on our way again.

We travelled just about all the way round an enormous bay about 60/70 kilometres, threading the van through little streets lined with cars until we hit a sign that said road closed.. WHAT!, there was no other road to take so it meant reversing a good 500 yds with inches to spare at either side until I came to a point where I could turn round, Sandra marching ahead shooing the traffic away, she was great and assertive. We had to drive all the way back to where we started so we could get a ferry over to not far from where the road was closed, Hmm again.

On the way there was a German van parked up so I thought I would do the guy a favour, I asked if he was going round the bay to which he said yes, so I told him about the road being closed, all I got was a lecture on wild camping about it wasn't allowed anywhere.. Hmm what a prick!.

Back to Montenegro.

It is a really poor country very run down, with the usual crap roads, but as it later turns out they are highways compared to what was to come when we hit Albania, we arrived at the border out of Montenegro as it only took a few hours with one overnight stop on some rough ground to drive across the little country, Sandra made a friend with a little gypsy boy she gave him a bottle of water and a big bag of crisps which he sat down and ate before he went home or he would have had to share them, we checked through no problem and drove a couple of hundred yards to another border control into Bosnia, checked through easily only to be met by another border control a couple of hundred yards away as we were now in Albania, three countries in less than half a mile.

Now comes the fun part, the Albanian border control said we need their insurance, I was aware of this so I asked how much to which he shouted to a guy mooching about at the back of his border crossing cabin, he said he is the insurance man you buy off him.

I showed him the Montenegro insurance slip to which he kept pointing at the price of 18 Euro, so I expected to pay the same, he proudly announced he wanted 85 Euros. I said “WHAT YOU ARE JOKING” I am not paying that we will be through Albania and in Greece in 3 days top, so we went to his office and started to haggle and I beat him down to 55 Euros and that seemed to be his sticking point, so I went to the bank of Sandra to get the money, I picked up 50 Euros and I thought I will act daft and give him that, He just looked at me shrugged his shoulders and stamped up a copy of insurance, I showed it to the crossing guard who just gave it a cursory glance and he waved us on, we were now in Albania.

3^rd May.

Now in Albania, what can I say I suppose you would have to experience it to give you a sense of the place.

It started off OK travelling down a big wide modern road with little old ladies leading a cow on a bit off rope along as I drove towards the main city a few miles down the road. The Tom Tom proudly announcing that it has very little data for this country and it doesn't know where it is as it only knows goat tracks.

By and by we came to the city and I wasn't prepared for what I was getting us into, I was prepared for not knowing where we were going and fiddling our way through Albania with a bit of Tom Tom and a bit of map work, I wasn't really prepared for folk driving down either side of the street, going anyway round roundabouts totally ignoring traffic lights, stop or give way signs or pedestrians or cyclists.

I wasn't prepared to find a flock of sheep hobbled in the road in the middle of the road waiting to be slaughtered in the open in the middle of the city, all this as the tarmac had stopped to be replaced by road stone with deep holes and ruts to fall down.

We got through it in one piece, I don't know how but we did.

This led us on our way as we went up into the mountains along a very narrow road with just enough room for a couple of cars to pass each other, and to add to the excitement the roads had collapsed through land slides that went down hundreds of feet to the valley below to stop you falling over the side the nice workmen just piled a mound of road stone to warn you, then came the hair pin bends so tight I could just get round in one and they were so steep it took the van all it's time to get up in 1^st gear, then down the other side which was just as steep, I had to go down in 1^st gear to save the brakes from over heating, this went on for mile after mile, nearly all the way across the mountains in first and second gear, that is until we abruptly came out of the mountain roads onto a super brand new high way 3 lanes on each side.

Wow I can't believe what we have come through when we could have come along this brand new road, which lasted for 10 miles then disappeared into mass of potholed road stone, with traffic kicking up clouds of choking road stone, traffic was weaving on all sides of the road stone to get round the really deep ruts, so here I am back in first and second gear this time for a good 40 miles, and this is what it was like nearly all the way across Albania until we got to the Greek side of the country where the roads improved.

Sandra said she had looked on the dongle we have of camp sites and there was one on our way and it was wild camping, so we put it into Tom Tom as lat and long, but it just laughed at us and said it didn't have any data for these co ordinates, never mind swing a right at a sign for the village, and this gave us our next adventure.

Up and up we went up this mountain round impossible bends at impossible rates of ascent, this went on for miles with Sandra looking sheepish as we trundled along with no end in sight, finally we came across a clearing with a large meadow filled with cows sheep and goats, “that's it I resign I am not driving a minute longer we are stopping here”, so I pulled onto the grass.

We hadn't been stopped long when this old guy mooched across to us and started peering in the van windows then he started looking at himself in the wing mirrors , all this way to find a nutter!.

I went out to talk to him, he seemed very friendly and offered me a roll up, to which I declined, he then started jibber jabbering in Albanian try to tell me something, he kept putting two fingers to his mouth gesturing that something savage was going to bite the tyres on the van, he then kept counting to five on his fingers to which I thought he wanted five of Albanian money to protect the van, so I kept saying “No Albanian money”. I found out what he meant a bit later when I took Evie out for a walk when five dogs started after us, they were guarding the sheep and goats from the wolves that are still round this area, we both got back to the safety of the van, which was the sign to move on again but this time driving through the dark on the twisty mountain roads till we found a place to stop for the night, I didn't sleep as there were packs of wild dogs howling and barking all through the night.

The one saving grace was, as we made our way back along the road we had come along the previous night we came across a car with two guys filling water canisters from a mountain spring, so we filled up as well with the watering can, it is the best water I have ever had in my life, the guy filling up spoke to me in English asking how I liked Albania, to which I replied that the folk were great the country at this side of Albania is great but the roads are rubbish, he just laughed and said that's 40years of Communism for you.

From the spring it was about a 3 hour drive to the Greek border, to which we were waived through no bother with the Greek border guard saying welcome to Greece and I hope you have a nice holiday.

4^th May.

In Greece and our first stop over was in the high mountains, we pulled up at the side of the road which overlooked the further mountains in the distance, the deep lush valley with the herds of goats and sheep, the flocks had a few of the animals with a bell round their neck clanging away in the distance even though you couldn't see them.

Next morning we set off to head for the Greek shoreline a good 6 hour drive, we passed another spring feeding a big watering trough, a herd of sheep with the accompanying guard dogs appeared and started to drink out of the trough which was fed by a constantly running pipe at high level, I asked the shepherd if the water was good he put his thumb up and had a drink to show it was safe, so once again we filled the tank up on the van with good water, we also had a shower each while we had good access to a source of water which we topped everything up and was on our way.

5^th May.

We ended up in pleasant village called Arkista where we spent a pleasant night for a change surrounded by people bars and café's and the icing on the cake there is now a free wifi hot spot. Next day we boarded the ferry over the Island of Evia, we turned left at the end of the road which took us into the mountains which was very nice but it also meant we had to negotiate the mountain villages with roads between the houses that just had enough room for the van to squeeze through, with one notable village that had a 90 degree turn to get round and the added obstetrical of a great hole in the road which stopped us dead and took a great deal of burning tyre rubber to claw our way out of.

We finally hit proper roads again unscathed so we set off south down the island on the coast road, as we were travelling along we noticed a caravan parked up at the bottom of a field next to the sea, wow that looks a good spot I will turn round and see if we can get down as well.

I finally found a clearing in the trees so I could turn round and started to back into the space, Crunch! What the F! I have hit something as I am now broadside across the road trying to turn round, the van has a turning circle of an ocean liner, so we made our way back to the spot where the caravan was and what a find, a beach a good 3 mile long with loads of parking spots, we ended up staying 10 days as there was a village near by for shopping and 10 kilometres away in the next village was good water provided from a tap at the side of the road, we got the scooter out and had some great trips out a lot just to keep cool as it was unbearable y hot some days, which had Sandra out swimming, there were also couple of dolphins went past twice while we were there, what a magical place.

While we were there the fridge decided to play up on gas but it was OK in 240 volt if I put the genny on, in our last van we had a problem with the gas on the fridge and spent all day trialling round France looking for a dealer who could mend it which we found, so I watched what the guy did cleaning the burner jets so I did the same cleaned out the jet and low and behold it is working fine again..... Result.