Chernobyl day Ten
03 September 2007
Turnple (Ukraine) to Przemsyl (Poland)
What a day this has been, you may have read the misguided story from Lottie, more of that latter, for now the truth!
After a nice easy breakfast with cereal and toast and stuff we left the hotel on time, yes Tim was ill so he got up early and was the first to his bike, that shut Dave and Mark 'T' up, until they noticed that I had my box's open. Do they EVER shut up? I took some early morning photo's of the lake and gardens beneath the hotel and realized the “thing” I had seen in the water was one of three people swimming in the lake, it was 07:30, tough nutters these. The journey is becoming more bazaar, we seem to have been a spectacle to every town we've visited, we even had the local “chips” coppers, wave to us as we left Turnple town. (Little white police bike's just like those of the telly in the 70's but smaller!) The ride began at the usual pace with me trying to stay with Andy in his Land cruiser, the rest including “Yogi Tuckleberry Bear” following behind cos them's bigger and faster than me, well at this point they are. The point is Mick 'C' and Mike “Tuckleberry” 'S' are at the back, the very back that is. On our journey we pass the odd 9 or 10 police traps, at this point we should have learned, but we do not get stopped. Andy has now got way ahead of the back end boys Mike / Mick. We slow to let them catch up so when we pass the police we are going much slower than them when they pass the same point........oop's. Come here sonny your nicked!....we are around the corner by now out of the way, waiting although they did not know this. It transpires that they “apparently” crossed the white line in an over take, as if?, cost them 900 whatever's (don't know the Ukraine currency) about £90 between them. Later on we were to stop and talk to a sergeant at a petrol station who tells us twenty was plenty, bit peeving that, still if Mark and Dave had stopped when they had been told to it would have cost more! Needless to say the journey took much longer from then on.
Shortly afterwards we stopped for a cup of tea at a roadside cafe, Apparently the young lady who served us was not a bad looker, all I recall was the nice blouse she wore!Tea was hot though.
We have had more of the same ref the roads, loose gravel on bends, cobble's, dogs and cow's here and there but the one noticeable event was a little dog leading a large cow across a main road, it is so bizarre.
As I said the journey became slower from here, then we got to L'viv, if you like Russian roulette and have no fear or concept of death it is great, we didn't fit either, they are crazy. It helps not when the “guide truck” has no idea where it is going either. Allan got a truck try to park on him, several of us got side shunts (no contact, its ok!) or pushed from the rear, “scary” somehow just is not adequate.
On we go to the border. We arrive at the back of the que, no worries. Now bear in mind that we are an event, and in every town or roadside village someone has pointed a camera at us. A civilian fellow runs to Andy's truck and offers us safe easy access to the front for a price, Andy shows him the letter head to explain, “ok, go in for free” he says, bingo we jump the que. That is 3 hour's saved. While we wait at the check point some woman in a Subaru decides she should be in front of us, wrong, her car now has a Transalp size scratch on the wing! The cheek of it. Next we get to the passport / customs, Nattalia gives it the big eye and bingo again, we are through. In the line for two hours now, not bad, but wait...........that woman does her magic on the Polish guards now and we jump that line, ironically it is Nattalia who has an issue here and we can do nothing to help her.
It gets sorted and away we go, 3 ½ hours in total. Andy took six hours last time and 20 hours before that! What a result.
“Yogi Tuckleberry” takes over the lead in to Przemsyl, about TWELVE minutes ride, we get lost, he says he knew and was looking for a large turning area........yeh, Andy does it in a side street! Still we find the hotel and grand it is to boot they even give us a private garage for the bike's, sorted. We have been very lucky with the weather and Allan has so far come up trumps with the hotel's, just to round of the day we go out for a slap up meal as well, superb. Andy quote “my body is a shed, get me a beer”
Some of the guy's seem to think I leave my indicators running to long, is 15 miles really to far for one indicator?.............. Enough, bed time it is now, ta ra xx
Get well Mrs T, we are thinking of you x