We Do Adventure

It wasn't so long ago that I wrote about a bus ride from Zagreb to Jajce. When I did I would have considered it quite a long trip. No longer. Last week was bookended by two 28 hour bus journeys. Sarajevo to Oldenburg, in northern Germany, and back again. In a little bus. 29 seats, 25 passengers and 3 drivers. As near to non-stop as was possible. Had the bus been able to reach the speed limit on the motorways the trip may have been many hours shorter but the seats did recline a little, the air-conditioning worked and it made no worrying noises! Needless to say this is my new benchmark for long-distance road travel. It was a trip of many firsts, many of them being borders crossed by young people who had never been outside of Bosnia and Herzegovina before. I'll leave comments on their interest in the comparative price of chocolate for another post and instead say something about the reason for such a bus ride. We were attending a international event for teenagers called Teen...

It was a strange day but not a bad one; another lesson in be ready for anything, or don't expect things to actually go to plan! We were to be taking Novi Most Mostar's uni hockey team to a tournament. The trip evolved into something slightly different. On the plus side we have the good time had by all and the sunny day with truly beautiful scenery. The downside would be some local navigational misinformation and the inability of a decent map to dig us out of the resulting hole. The unexpected bonus was to feel victimised for looking different! Our group was walking the main street of a central Bosnian town - well some where putting on roller blades but still essentially minding their own business - when the local police decided they needed to quiz us on exactly what we were up to. I might be jumping to conclusions but I'm sure the young people's dress sense had a large part to play (lay off the Ed Hardy , real or otherwise, if you want to keep a low profile!) as did ...

So I'm driving here now. Today was my first time going solo. It wasn't quite fully-fledged freedom of the roads as I was following Claire in one of the other Novi Most combis, but I was on my own in my vehicle. We drove about twenty minutes out of town to leave one combi at a garage for servicing. That was the VW I drove out. I drove the Toyota on the way back. It really has seen better days. However, I managed to navigate my way around the vagaries of its gearbox and drive in a way the accommodated its painful lack of power. It wasn’t quite as bad as I’d been lead to believe, but it was close! Half the roads around Mostar appear to be being resurfaced, or should I say they have been prepared for resurfacing. The scraped surface leaves drain covers protruding as unpleasant wheel-deforming devices. No, I didn't hit any! Potholes and other severe surface undulations, however, are almost unavoidable so it's often the case of literally having to take the rough with the smoo...

Dunkirk is more famous as a place for getting off the continent than onto to it. However it’s apparently a cheaper destination than Calais so at 4am our small ferry nosed its way out of Dover into one of the world’s busiest waterways for the short trip across the Channel. It’s been the better part of ten years since I’ve been on a ferry. I never thought I’d use the Tunnel, let alone recommend other to, but it is so quick and easy. But it has no magic. You miss leaving and there’s no great sense of arrival. You can’t walk out on deck at 5am to survey the view and talk to your video camera! I not sure why I opted for a particularly stodgy English breakfast as we gently swayed across the mercifully calm waters. As last meals go it was particularly poor, although perhaps comfortingly reminiscent of school dinners back in the day before Jamie Oliver got his hands on them! With this laying heavy in my stomach I stretched out on the bench seating in the cafeteria and attempted sleep. Sleep in...

I need to tell tales from our travels before I forget. I know we made the road trip movie but that doesn't go so far as to even scratch the surface of the real experience - sorry! The trip could have been a feature film, although probably more art-house movie than box-office blockbuster. So I'm going to attempt to tell a few select tales here over the next couple of weeks. I will attempt to be truthful and not to embellish the story, but then there was that favourite quote from 'A Knight's Tale': I'm a writer, I give the truth scope! Starting at the beginning has long been recognised as the very best place to start and I shall take as my beginning the moment I laid eyes on Boris's van. It was then that leaving was a truly imminent reality. All I knew up to that point was Boris has a long wheel base, hi-top van. No make or model. What appeared on my parents drive was an all-too-familiar white Transit - I've driven a similar one around Europe - with some v...

Just a glimpse into the adventure that was our road trip to Mostar, Bosnia Herzegovina. Thanks to Boris and Jamie for being part of an unforgettable journey!

WeDoAdventure is what we've called this blog, our YouTube channel and our Facebook group. We'll, we're doing adventure as we travel across Europe. Tonight we were supposed to be in Mostar, unpacking boxes in our new apartment. I'm actually sitting in an Austrian guest house trying to recover from the fact England have just thrashed Croatia in their World Cup qualifier in Zagreb! (We'll be in Zagreb tomorrow.) So the moral of the story is be careful what you call things. My question is: do I really want adventure? I think the answer is 'yes' - I don't have much option right now! But either way the last 48 hours have highlighted how is easy it is to live an unadenturous life (and I've been guilty of that) and how easy it is to make choices that invite adventure. There's a tale to tell from our travels, but that will be editted later. Until then enjoy this short vlog from somewhere near the PEZ factory!

Yes, this is it. After a false start - we had arranged to leave yesterday - we will be packing a van at 10pm tonight ahead of a midnight departure. I'm particularly excited our van driver has booked a ferry crossing. Since we discovered how quick and easy the tunnel is it's been years since we've set sail (metaphorically) for foreign shores. I'm just hoping the weather is nice to us as heavy swells and stuffy diesel-smelling environments don't mix well in my experience! So before we go a few thanks. Thanks to my parents for putting us up over the last couple of days - and putting up with all our clutter and the constant stream of friends we kept inviting over! Thanks to the friends for coming over, particularly those sitting downstairs waiting to say goodbye while I type this! And with that I'll leave you with a video I made earlier :)