More than a month and a half cycling alone, regularly having complete conversations with myself, well versed in singing a diverse repertoire of tunes, whistling more than a boiling kettle, it was high-time I found some cyclists pedalling in my direction.

Following the coast to Dubrovnik I managed to catch up with four people heading the same way — William and Lara, a French guy and German girl heading to Athens from Toulouse, and Alex and Veronika, both from Barcelona heading towards Dubrovnik where they’d catch a ferry to Italy for the final leg home. All this was relayed single file, Chinese Whispers style (or as they called it; Telephone) whilst we cycled until we stopped at a beach to cook the staple cycle tourers pasta meal before having a dip in the sea and a siesta.

The one-man-peloton…

…caught up with some more cyclists.

Cycle touring for one is a different game. I’ve got bike paranoia. It doesn’t leave my sight for more than five minutes. The Tangerine Dream is the star of this show, no questions asked. It’s my transport, my freedom, it also holds all of my worldly possessions; my tent, my clothes, my passport, money, everything, if it disappears, this trip is over, followed by lots of red tape at embassies, phone calls to insurance companies, and an extremely pissed-off flight home.

All this makes city trips hard work, you can’t pop into places of interest without the constant fear that some little shit is rifling through your stuff, so you’re limited to seeing the outside of stuff. For me, it’s not a massive issue, if I get to a city I really want to see (which is becoming less and less, they’re all very similar), I’ll check into a hostel or hotel, which means I get a rest day and I can wander around unencumbered, which feels downright weird. Cycling alone, for me, also means I cover more distance, take less stops, for less time, which is neither a pro or a con, I’m guilty of cycling until I have a huge energy crash at the side of the road, having to crack out the emergency biscuits to get me over the next hill. Alone, I tend not to use my stove either, as of writing this, I’ve used it three or four times, it’s too much of a hassle when I’m tired at the end of a day, but when you’ve got some compadres it’s the best thing you can carry, and a warm meal shared with a couple of beers whilst sharing stories will give you some of the best moments of your trip.

So, for the time being, the one-man-peloton had some amigos. We cycled the Croatian coast, which looked exactly like it was ripped out of a Thomas Cook brochure, if it was human, it’d be a hot blonde, caked in make-up, with that make-up being rampant tourism. We got to Dubrovnik, and I got my first taste of pushy Croats trying to aggressively hawk their spare room for a night, apparently ‘No’ from five different people in four different languages doesn’t quite do the trick.

We waved goodbye to Alex and Veronika as they caught a ferry to Italy, then William, Lara and I headed into the Dubrovnik Old Town, which is lovely and polished, but back in the day they didn’t care much for disabled access, and as such, cyclists, so navigating yourself around huge marble staircases with an extremely heavy bike is tricky (and probably annoying for the hundreds of wandering tourists, but never mind, eh?).

The Croatian coast

After a while we climbed out of Dubrovnik and started looking for a place to camp. Croatia has a strict ban on wild camping, solely in order to drive people towards hotels and campsites, this also explains the huge amount of people renting out their spare rooms for extra cash. I’d read blogs of people being busted in recent times with a fine of around €200 for wild camping, and I kind of wanted to avoid this. Fortunately, this is where I experienced William and Lara’s method of camping. I prefer to get out into the middle of nowhere, pitch up, rise early and leave no trace, covert stuff. William and Lara, on the hand, ride into someone’s garden, and ask them outright if they can camp there. This night it worked, at first the bloke yelled ‘Private property’, I sighed and shook my head, anticipating a bike ride in the dark towards into the sticks, and within two minutes Lara had deployed her gift of the gab, and we were setting up our tents in his garden, with all the running water we needed for ramshackle showers. Rabbit out of a hat.

After coffee with the next door neighbour (who pulled a face as I replied ‘English’ when she asked where I was from, the cheeky so-and-so) we kept following the coast to Montenegro, which felt pretty much like a low budget Croatia, with shitter drivers. We rode up to Kotor Bay, hitched a ferry across for one euro, chilled at a beach bar to avoid the midday sun (something I don’t practice well enough when cycling alone), before heading out onto a long, straight, industrial road which kind of beat the fun out of Montenegro until we arrived at Bar and then some more coastal riding until Budvar. Both of these places seemed like hyped up, beach party towns, with loads of hedonism of overcrowded beaches, I wasn’t too keen, the the rides in between made up for it.

Bikes on Boats, I’ll allow it.

William and Lara, lovely, lovely people.

One Euro. Decent deal.

That night, we found a Serbian Monastery to fill up on holy water and before we knew it, the three of us had been invited by a religious drone to camp next to the cliff side — perfect. We pitched our tents, William and Lara went for a shower and as I finish blowing up my Thermarest, some bearded priest wearing a cape comes along angrily shouting at me.

“Speak English Oder Deutsch?”

“Private property. Leave. This is God’s place!”

“Your friend let us stay here”

“Private property. Leave. This is God’s place!”

At this point he was right in my face, I’ve never been in a real fight, never had the need to punch anyone in anger, but this guy was pushing it. I agreed to pack up my stuff and went to find William and Lara.

“What? No. They asked us to stay!”

Off they went to find some god types in particular a softly spoken, completely indoctrinated Ukrainian woman, and before we knew it, we were reassured that we were good to camp on the grounds. Nice one.

Until he came back… Lara spoke with him, to which he shouted a lot, slammed a gate and argued with Willam for ten minutes, and all the while I’m thinking; am I going to have to punch a priest? If there is a heaven, I’m definitely not getting in if I punch a priest, even if he is a knob.

All this escalated until the angry priest wandered off to sit in a nearby room whilst we chatted to the indoctrinated Ukrainian girl, who insisted we stayed the night. Five minutes later, angry priest stuck his head around the corner, shouted something at the girl, who calmly said something in return and turned back to us.

“What did he say?” I asked.

“He said you can stay” she replied.

Here, ladies and gentlemen, we had a first class fibber, a liar, a charlatan, and a tittybiscuit. Afterwards she invited us to the Orthodox Serbian ceremony the next morning, where there would be dancing and singing. Out of interest I asked who would be singing, of course, the answer was the angry priest. Nuts to that, I bet he’s shit.

Things actually quietened down at this point, we had something to eat, along with a covert beer and even managed to make it through the night without being accosted by the mental priest. Success!

The Serbian Monastery Campsite

In the morning we had coffee with a guy called Vladimir, a paid intern at the church, who we chatted to about the old Yugoslavia days. This always brings up an interesting conversation, you either get a positive or a negative point of view, either saying people were happier, had more money and a better quality of life, or that people are just being nostalgic, and pining for the old days, which weren’t necessarily better. One point he did being up that made me think, was that Yugoslavia was the prototype for Europe. Now that’s a thinker.

Follow the coast

We kept on truckin’ towards the Albanian border, which was a nice ride, and was surprisingly nice inland too. We met an American couple, Jay and his wife who I didn’t catch the name of, who were cycling/inter railing towards Istanbul on a European tour, before finally reaching the border.

Goodbye to you too, Montenegro.

Albania was the first border where there was a dramatic change. Kids followed us with their arms outstretched asking for money, people scattered at the side of the road, entire families riding around on makeshift motorbike trailers, cows aimlessly wandering around. A stark change from every country I’d been in so far.

“Iz a whole new world!” Cried William from behind. He wasn’t wrong.

We rode a few kilometres past Shkodër before starting to look for a place to camp, which to me seemed impossible, there were people everywhere, even outside towns. This is where William and Lara pulled a rabbit out the hat for the second time. After asking at a cafe for water, and a bit of charades with the family, we were taken in by Maria, who looked exactly like Mama Fratelli from The Goonies.

William, Lara and Maria.

Maria Fratelli?

She took us in, gave us a guided tour of her farmland, showed us how to scythe down some unidentifiable plants, to which she told me I was shit, then got us to pick our own vegetables before taking us inside and making us rustle something up with them, to the background of Albanian music telly, which seems to consist of something like a wedding, where a fat guy in a waistcoat will warble and wobble next to a scantily clad woman. It was hard to sing along to whilst chopping some veg, but managed, and I don even think they thought I was taking the piss. I was.

Lara cooking up some shit Albanian sausage, which I pretended to like.

We were woken up early in the morning, given some Raki, for energy (I was the only one to drink it, never refuse booze), and off we went after some photos with Mazza, our Albanian Mama.

Our Albanian Mama

It was long, straight, busy roads until Tirana, and I was beginning to realise Albanian drivers are by far the worst on this trip. They give you no space, every car beeps you, in either a friendly or aggressive manner and they don’t half put their foot down.

It was also our first piece of motorway riding. We stopped and asked some traffic police just before, who looked at us and told us of course we could ride it. I was still unsure, until I looked across to see an old man riding a bike the opposite way, with a pile of miscellaneous crap on the back.

“I think ‘ere, iz the ‘ighway for all” William said, pointing.

Good enough for me. Onto Tirana.

William and Lara. I hope I get to go on more bike rides with them.