Ride Planet Earth

Its bloody cold. I managed to get myself up out of one of the rare beds I get to sleep in, especially one so warm and cosy. Got to write this and then head into the centre of the city to meet local cyclists, environmentalists and the media.

Sorry to everyone who is following this story as I haven’t written since Sofia. You might suspect that’s because I’ve been sitting around on my sweet ass all day enjoying the European airs but actually the last couple of weeks have been the busiest yet.

We hustled and bustled our way through Bucharest, Belgrade and Novi Sad on our way here, and I’ve passed through 2 entire countries without getting the chance to sit down and write.

Where to begin?… Drago, the fella I wrote about in the last blog, carrying rifle and sword, had decided the rifle was too large to strap to his bike so only carried his sword. We travelled with him for about 6 days, from Sofia to the Romanian border, through the old Bulgarian capital of Veliko Tarnovo.

Drago quickly proved his madness, he is a truly unique entity, but he was also very keen to assist in any way  he could and his presence was appreciated by the rest of us. Rich and I would laugh at his continuous jokes and sudden outbursts while Andreas had a cycling companion while Rich and I speed off before them. Drago also acted as an interpreter, when his serious head gratefully settled, and we were able to speak to a number of local farmers about climate changes in their regions. There was agreement the summers were getting hotter, the rain was becoming less frequent, although it was difficult for them to identify any specific impacts of these changes.

Rich fell again just before Veliko, this time more serious than his previous spills. He had informed me that he did not have a habit of falling, after reading my assessment in the last blog,  but it seems he was wrong. He tried to catch his hat as the wind blew it off on a downhill and the bike slipped out from under him on the gravel road. We all rushed over to make sure he was ok and the grazes looked pretty harsh. He had scraped the skin off his right knee, elbow, hip and shoulder and there appeared to be mayonnaise oozing from his knee. I got out my first aid kit and we patched him up as best as possible.

Our stint across Bulgaria was full of lucky encounters as we passed through the glorious gorges and rolling hills. People invited us into their homes, for somewhere to stay and somewhere to eat, displays of hospitality so rare in Australia or the UK. Thanks Elena, your husband who I never learnt his name, and Ivan among others.

Finally on a rain soaked day, much the same as those that had fare welled us from Turkey, we left Drago and Bulgaria and crossed the border into Romania.

I have had an infatuation with Romania since I was a small kid. We had a little Olympics event in my primary school for some reason and each child was allotted a nation to “represent”. Mine was obviously Romania. Since then I had tried to follow the fortunes of the country as best I could but in reality apart from the fortunes of the nation football team I knew nothing except that I would love the place.

The first day tried to dispel this feeling as we took the longest route into Bucharest possible. There is a direct highway but again, under Andreas’ influence, we took the small roads until we got stuck. Stuck in kilometres of thick, sticky, glue-like mud. I was used to it after Laos and Mongolia but Rich was starting to panic. The reality was that our road into Bucharest would take a week as we couldn’t even walk the bike so much mud was attaching itself to the wheels. We turned back and had to take several more detours before finding a road that was heading city-wards. To make matters worse both Andreas and Rich started getting multiple punctures and it started to rain. We finally arrived in the city in the middle of the night, tired, muddy, wet, wretched. We stayed at a hostel paid for by a supporting organisation. But the hostel owner was distraught and disgusted at the sight of us and spent  most of the night and morning trying to get Andreas to clean up.

Luckily we moved to a couch-surfing place of a girl named Raluca. Everything was brilliant from then on. Raluca, first a contact via the internet is now a firm friend and travelling with us from the Carpathians into Belgrade despite the worst weather I have experienced in 14 and a half months.

In Bucharest I had the tremendous good fortune to meet and work with Ioana, from WWF Romania, who linked me in with cycling orgs and media and arranged a sweet event in front of the enormous Romanian government building. It was hard to get information about how exactly Romania is and will fare under the impacts of climate change but our discussions showed there is a lot of action needed in the country to ensure the problems are not worsened by deforestation and other environmental abuses that still occur within the country.

There we met a lot of other local guys, all fantastic and willing to do whatever they could to support us. Vlad Dulea and his lovely wife Dana I was sure were the most hospitable people in the world, helping us in a variety of ways, until we met their parents, whom we stayed with in Pitesti, who were so above and beyond hospitable they ended up chasing Richard around their apartment trying to give him some money.

Cycling through Romania was bliss. We didn’t have to cross the mighty Carpathians , well, not much of them, and instead headed directly West to where the mountains meet the Danube, 150 km before Belgrade. There, in a town nestled inside a breath-taking gorge Raluca caught up with us and we rode towards Belgrade together.

The people of Romania were so welcoming, the land so inviting, it felt like I was back on the islands of Indonesia or East Timor, where a stranger becomes a friend at the exchange of a smile.

The weather in Serbia was not so accommodating. As we crossed the flat plains to try to reach Belgrade a terrible storm set in. Rich and I pushed forward, cycling at sharp angles to stay upright in the wind and rain. Behind us I worried about Raluca, such a tiny thing, but Andreas stayed with her to make sure she didn’t blow away. She almost did, fainting at our next stop, the cold trying to shut her down. It was scary, a near thing, and so Andreas and her decided to find alternate transport the rest of the way. I persuaded Rich that we could make it. I was wrong. The storm was pushing us backwards, rain had soaked everything I had and the winds were doing their best to freeze me. After another 25 km I told Rich we would kill ourselves to stay out there and we raced after the next bus that would take us the final 30 km into the city.

Belgrade was freezing, the people so warm. Duska Dimovic, from WWF in Serbia, was sent by the angels and she arranged 10 star accommodation for us in our brief stay. Raluca had to go back to Bucharest for work and Andreas, after about 5 weeks since Istanbul, was also on his way. It was really sad to say goodbye to the both of them.

Before they left we all met the Eco-Musketeers of Drinka Pavlovic School, environmentally aware and active school students, who had written a letter to the government delegates meeting in Copenhagen, for us to take with us. They were amazing, all these kids, more enthusiastic and informed than a thousand adults and all doing everything they could to look after the environment around them. They taught me a lot. I’m hoping I can link them in with some schools in Australia so they can share their program. Rich and I bought more winter clothing, scarred by our experience before Belgrade and headed off the next day. It was funny as with my new neoprene gear I looked like I was an astronaut from the future and Rich’s hotch-potch, thrown together gear makes him look like an astronaut from the past.

In Novi-Sad, a beautiful town about 100 km north of Belgrade, we met with the local city administrator for the environment in maybe the first direct to government communications I have had on this trip. The opportunity was set up by the local environmental volunteers who looked after us and inspired us. They are a group of wonderful people and we left with wonderful memories of Serbia. Thank you all so much.

Since the Hungarian border, where our bags were searched, I think because they were looking for illegal space gear, we have speed north along the Danube to reach Budapest. It has been a relief to cycle some roads actually made for cyclists, where the cars make way for you and act a little apologetic for even being there. The cold has been hard in the mornings but after cycling a few minutes I’ve managed to warm myself up. The night we arrived we blasted along the highway for the final 50 km, as I was desperate to arrive in time for the event here I had been setting up with some of the local organisations. But when we finally arrived and I spoke to our host he told me it was the day before. For the first time  in my life, I was a day early!!!

Things are hotting up, not just the climate but actions before Copenhagen, everyone we meet in excited about the chance to influence our leaders to make the right decisions and get our planet moving on the right path. Here in Budapest on 24th Oct we will be participating in the 350 event, a global day of climate action. And then the Ride Planet Earth event, on 6th Dec, is really close and we are still doing everything we can to make sure the event has an impact. Remember to get involved, ride your bike, save the planet!!