06/09/2019 – Putting the hammer down

Having had a walk around Tirana and seen their massive flag, we settled for an early night with a big day ahead of us.

We were heading to Ohrid in Macedonia 146km away and wanted to get there at a reasonable time to have a walk around.

The day started with a nice climb up a mountain with a wonderful stint across the ridge at the top. Most of the mountains so far went straight up and over but it was nice to have a change.

After a fantastic trip down the other side with sheep blocking the road, the afternoon was spent up a gradual incline towards another mountain where the border was.

The crossing was fine at this one too with them barely checking the passports again. Maybe we have trusting faces or they recognise me from the blog, I’ll never know which is the case.

A cycle round the lake to Ohrid in the evening was on surprisingly smooth roads, again, I wasn’t sure what to expect of Macedonia but was pleasantly surprised.

An evening spent relaxing at the hostel, winning my first game of chess in years and preparing for a day cycling by myself tomorrow, I was ready for bed.

A swim in the lake before breakfast was in order and in no time at all, I left Tommy and the hostel to be riding solo again.

I needed a big couple of days to reach istanbul in time so put the hammer down and started eating up the miles. I got to the Greek border in no time but the guard seemed to want to slow me down.

There were no other vehicles around and he seemed intent on learning my life story. Quizzing me about where I’d been, where I was going, details on my passport, this wasn’t helping but I humoured him.

After finally being released, I flew past town after town without seeing a single car on the road. Civilisation started to appear more regularly when I got closer to Edessa where I stopped for some food by a waterfall.

Shortly after, I found a farmers field away from the road, set up my tent and made my bed for the night.

The plan for today was to get to Thessaloniki, relax for the afternoon and see how far I got in the evening.

The mornings riding was really flat and I managed to average 30.5km/h for the 74km to the city centre. I stopped at the city’s shopping mall and had some food before heading to see tithe cities sights and watch a film in the park.

The afternoons riding was nice and easy to a seas side town where there was a decent campsite.

I awoke early looking to get a good start on the day and had another campsite in mind just south west of Komotini so in a pretty uneventful day, I made good progress and got there early evening. The highlight of the day was probably seeing this lion.

There’s probably a reason I don’t remember too much of this day which will all be explained shortly…