Bosnia

The meal at our Bosnian hosts was amazing the lady of this home (which was down right palatial in comparison to others we had seen) gathered some food from the store cupboard. The meal proved to be the most amazing flavoured pork and salami I have ever eaten. We sat and where served a meal fit for Bosnian kings! It was great a lot of fun and laughs I managed to paint two paintings in the youngsters rooms to show our appreciation for their hospitality and before we went to bed launched one of Jonnys sky wish lanterns just to top the evening off one I think both we and them will remember for a long time….

The next day started with a decision on to Sofia or down to Sarajevo, Bosnia or Bulgaria I think after a few coin tosses and some wavering choices we plumped for previously war torn Sarajevo… this is one of the most intriguing landscapes I have ever travelled through.

The houses here where much the same as Croatian and Slovakian homes. Apart from the odd bullet-hole and shell shrapnel blast decorating the unpainted plaster. Nestled in autumn valleys and looking pretty lonely in the landscape you could imagine groups of soldiers moving from home to home as they travelled further along their routes to destructive destinations. Really brought home and eerie reality to this recent event… so It is possible that this imagining layered a veil over Sarajevo for me it was the unhappiest city we have travelled through, the buildings and people still show a uncomfortable something like I said maybe it was me?…

Another thing I will never forget as we drove into the city where two beggar children running along side the cars. As I lent out to hand them a marble of with a map of the world in some vague hope that it may make them smile I felt this little boys hands and they felt like the hands of many fifty year old builders I have worked with in the past rough and worn… as we moved along further we pulled up to his partner in money searching and I looked face to face with a tiny girl who had slept many night rough and dirty… our cars moved on and I saw in our wing mirror the two of them comparing their unusual gifts for the day…

We drove through the centre after stopping briefly at a hotel for wireless updates of the web site and saw building which had been shaken to the core with mortars then the landscape transformed in to ravine and similar housing but nestled in untouchable cliffs and obviously this had been a place that the warring may have found hard to reach… we drove on through this into the night and toward the boarder….

We came here across our first bit of paper work complications and had to detour to buy our green card a third party insurance for Serbia and then back to the border with the good roads…… after an extra 2hr we made it through and drove up and over a snowy windy road… it always seems that as we have gone through these boarders there has always been a change in landscape and weather… strange but true…

Love it…..

A snowy morning in Croatian pine forests.

We had snuck the previous night behind base in this mountain top village and found a open space in the pine forest to camp and set up for our first adventurous night in the roof tents….. Wild style. The views that morning made me think of Scandinavian pine forests such tall, full trees all well spaced and with deciduous trees scattered throughout. The snow had fallen thickly even on the extreme ends of the twigs. My self and Jonny rose first and took the opportunity to walk along the road seeing the odd tracks of earlier visitors.

We pushed on to Zagreb at this point we had concerns about our web site important to make sure we had enough footage, photos and script to entertain our donator’s and friends watching this charity ride to India. So Sparks and Jonny decided they wanted to catch up with that side of our mission whilst Michelle and I decided we wanted to visit the Plitvice lakes otherwise known as the falling lakes. A world heritage site and a place I had heard many good things about so that night Jonny and Sparkie hit a hotel and myself and Michelle drove 100km’s plus to Plitvice.

The next morning we found the entrance to the national park and we only had a brief time there as we where due to catch up with the others at Zagreb at about 11am. A steep slope zigzagging path led down to crystal clear water. Many lakes pouring into one another with some spectacular waterfalls of all shapes and sizes. The place truly lives up to it’s reputation as the most beautiful national park in Europe and I was well pleased we made the effort to go and see it. We got some great shots and lived life on the edge trying to negotiate the wooden pathways which where extremely icy and not British health and safety standard at all.

At Zagreb we gathered again all updates done and some fresh footage from the falling lakes to add then headed to the eastern motorway roughly aiming at Sofia.

We ran out of light and decided to find a town for food inadvertedly pulling over at a boarder town to Bosnia and dealing with Bosnia a lot sooner than expected. Once though the boarder with our freshly purchased green card insurance we brought some food.

So now it was time to find somewhere to sleep I was with Jonny in the front car and we decided it would be a good idea to take one of the many side roads to the small homes and when we saw someone outside ask if it would be ok to find somewhere to put up our roof tents on their land and sleep the night. The first person we pull up next to was an old Bosnian lady who did not speak a word of English. Our next victim was a young lad cleaning a car and listening to techno…. (bonus) His name was …… and he asked his father if it was ok if we parked on his land then whilst we were attempting to put up the roof tents they insisted we eat and sleep in their home.

Love it!!!!!

Eastern Europe

Right well it’s been a while since I have typed…. So here goes catch up time..

We had manly been following motorways due to sat-nav’s built in favouritism. This was starting to get a bit boring. So with a few adjustments to our route we traversed down a coastal stretch of road on our last section of Italy. Stunning cliff faces ether side of us, making a most refreshing change from the concrete central reservation’s of most euro toll roads. Along this seaside road we could see the Italian Slovakian and Croatian landscapes all at once across the Mediterranean stunning view.

At Trieste our last coastal town of Italy we gathered some scrap wood for some future roadside murals. We then tested the power of our cars up a steep hill climb toward the Slovakian boarder.

Out of Italy and into Slovakia countryside. Rolling hills coated with natural pine forests not a trace of the organisation that is found in the British forests. The homes could best be described as slightly ramshackle Swiss mountain cottages with out the paint or tidiness. It also struck me straightaway that they are based around the pure practicality purposes of living, plenty of dry store firewood. All without fail all have veggie gardens, animals, basically everything needed to live from and with the land. Traits many of us have lost back home to due to the onslaught of supermarket power in the land of convenience.

Then throughout the short drive over the Slovakian landscape we were passed by many nice to average cars something of a surprise considering the state of the homes. But a characteristic that has remained a constant even up until now as I sit typing in a small town in Serbia many many km’s from there.

Slovakia was short lived and we pulled through our first boarder crossing soon learning that there is not as much interest paid by guards when leaving a country as there is when entering the next we stopped unaware that we where in-between boarders and I did my first roadside painting on a scrap picked up in Italy we drove on for a bit and placed the painting on a small cliff on the side of the road for some unsuspecting traveller to find a new gift who knows where it will end up?

Croatia soon became another motorway stretch as we headed to Zagreb the country’s capital. We drove up into the snowline and into full winter weather as the darkness moved in we check into each other on the radios to find a spot to sleep. I forget the name of the village but it was small and quiet town drove through picked up water and headed up a forest track until we found a flat clearing just off the side of the road and set up camp in a tall pine forest with autumn leaf covered floor and the odd mossy bolder sticking out from the ground.

The next morning we awoke to an entirely different vision of snow frost and beauty!

Love it!!!

French Connection and Beyond

Grenoble….. we stayed with my good friend Nolee, who can be described best as a slightly feral wild man from the mountains of France with his finger on the tenci pulse. After we came off the motorway at Voiron we waited for a bit for Nolee to come and meet us. Great to see him again and I knew what a treat the guys had install for them up on Nolee and friends land.

Nolee works for a corporate advisory group and he has just taken on the role of environmental sustainability adviser for the big banks of Europe. And his friends Alex and Maria live on a beautiful patch of land high up in the center of the Grenoble valley in a spot that conveniently hides the industrial side of the town….

We followed Nolee to Champione the small village where their land is and said our hellos…. I visited this land about 2 months ago to come for a meeting about an amazing convoy from France to Australia for the 2012 solar eclipse party in the north of Oz and for a massive gathering in the centre near Alice springs… See below for photos of that meeting. Nolee and myself have been helping promote this and it’s called gaiaganda. For more info on that check out www.gaiaganda.org

So during my last visit I painted Alex’s French army truck as seen below. This time they invested in a Bus to run their vegan catering bizz from which is going from strength to strength…. It was parked up in town outside a indoor skate park which was graffed up to the hilt with some good pieces….. inside and out

So the bus was my first serious target on the journey so far, sadly it was raining as it had been for most of the journey so far so I was restricted to the inside with two clear targets. First being the panel alongside the drivers seat by his feet and second the fridge.

Both done with two or three colours each and videoed whilst running out of daylight so up against the clock…. Success but looking forward to doing a much larger piece in Italy or Croatia….

This morning we left at 12ish in our usual day-missing way. I am sure this will change as we get a little further down the line. But what a drive was awesome!!! A mountain range with snow clearly marking the higher ground like a tidal line, crevasses, waterfalls, rivers, crags, cliffs, forests, rugged houses all framed with golden sunshine which you would not have bet on in the morning rain.

As we came to the boarder of France and Italy we came across about 3km’s of snow my self and sparkie (today’s chauffeur) leaped out the truck at the toll gate and unleashed our cold fury on Jonny and Michelle’s 4x4….. funny enough they didn’t get out? we put it down to shear terror at our awesomeness….

Now we are driving across the flat dark plains of northern Italy and headed to a night’s rest just before the Slovakian and Croatian borders…

Love it!!!!!!

Holland to France

Blogs Entry NO. 2

Holland was a great way to start this adventure. We stayed with Chris for our first night celebrating the Santa festival and catching up with his family also meeting some friends at a dinner party in his beautiful home. Fantastic extreme from some of our future meals I imagine. Our next day was a slow starter recovering from Dutch hospitality.

I slept on the couch down stairs and was awoken by Donna and Felix, Chris’s children who where probably up at 5.30am with prezzie FEVER… So I was up early woken by giggle’s and excitement. Sat with Chris and his wife Patricia for a quick breakfast then walked back to our cars to do a bit of shopping in the Haag for supplies and for a couple of bit of equipment I wanted. The most important of those being a tape adaptor which plays mp3’s and my laptop through the stereo. Essential!

So kitted up I went back to find the guys at Chris’s place. For the next stage of our adventure a visit no less than to the New Zealand Embassy. We tapped in the post code to the sat-nav and hit the road. It was on the other side of town in minted street and stunning Embassy building and Sparkie’s friend Phillipa Joy working for the ambassador welcomed us at the electric gates. We had a little tour of the elegant building and the guys sipped their tea and chuckling to ourselves about how we where now on New Zealand territory and how we had gone from France to Belgium to Holland then to New Zealand…. All by car.

Due to a very sad event the ambassadors son had died and they where returning to the embassy to fly home to New Zealand. So we quietly moved across to Phillipa’s home which was great in it’s self and we then tucked into our laptops and updated our web site www.goodkarmadrive.org which our video’s blogs photos and anything else we could think of.

Apparently that nigh I snored to legendary levels so our plan of rising at 5.30 and getting a big drive done was missed by about 5hrs. We instead left the Embassy at about Noon Dutch time…. The weather has been shocking and we have been on the road ever since in strong rain. We breezed through Luxembourg adding another country to our preplaned list. Spent a brief night in Dijon at a hotel as to not soak the tents! Right now I am sat with my Laptop in the passenger seat as Michelle chauffeurs me to my good friends Nolee and Alex in the French Alps for the next stage of our quest!

Love it!!!!

The Leaving Of It All

So we Had a great interview at the George Lamb show, said our piece promoted ourselves thoroughly and drove off to the sunset…. Cruising around the M25 toyed with the idea of setting up the tents before dark just out side the M25?….. After some swift discussions decided that was shockingly lame, and we pushed on to the ferry and to Dunkirk…..

A rainbow showed it’s self over our road down to Dover, which for me is a great sign. I just like that stuff…. Then when we went to find our ferry price’s I stepped out of the ferry centre to see a stunning sun set and hit the video diary….

The ferry was fairly epic in its self and had a colossal car deck which the Discovery’s or disco’s as we like to call them, sat at the front…… we wandered up to the deck… eventually I found the open deck where I stood looking at the white cliff’s in true poetic form… getting a bit of an understanding of how immense this dream and journey is! Thinking about what it’s going to take to get to India by two cars…

So we pull off the ferry at Dunkirk and set up the sat-nav aiming us to Holland the Haag and to our good friend Chris….. the plan at this stage was to find somewhere to eat and somewhere to sleep before we get to Chris…. Belgium in winter flat and grey looking and noticeable how few people where around…. We pulled up in a amazing church town market square wandered in to a café which was showing signs of life and they directed us onward as it was the end of their day……

In the next town we pulled up alongside a neon pizzeria sign and took our chances…. Great place, friendly bar staff and good food… at the end we asked advice about finding somewhere to set up our roof tents…. And the guy said no problem put them up behind the restaurant….. tents went up and we slept very well…… day one done1

I awoke early and went for a walk to get a feel for the place…… in a lot of ways I felt the same as I had the night before winter did not suit this town not many people and fairly grey feel to it….

On the road again and drove about 300m to Chris’s…. giving us time to set up sort out the gear and get a feel for uploading downloading and reloading the Disco’s and laptop’s

It just so happened that it is also the time for our Dutch friend’s to celebrate the arrival of Saint Nicolas in Dutch style on the 5^th of December he visit Holland and fills the kids shoes with gift’s and prezzie’s…. So it was great to be with Chris’s friend’s and family celebrate this day…… and we had our first good karma drive party in style till the early hour’s.

Next day

Would you believe invited to the New Zealand Embassy….. who knows what’s next? Love it!!!!!!!