Three months around Europe

You could see the road to Odessa from Kiev was part of a centrally planned economy – the potholes were so uniform and frequent. Actually that is a little cynical, the road was not bad, I was able to maintain 80kph and there was hardly any traffic.

There were heavy rain showers and I try not to ride in them, but it was such a soulless landscape, flat, dour and nowhere pleasant to stop I pushed on. At times, I was the only vehicle moving as the Ladas and Kazam trucks all seemed to stop as soon as any rain hit them

Indeed the reason for so few cars on the highway was that most of them seemed to be on the shoulder with their bonnets up and a bloke working away as his Mrs/ daughter /mistress/ Internet love interest caught up on the latest catalogue from big girl's blouses.

Getting the right grade of petrol is a bit of a raffle. There seem to be four grades of leaded from 72 to 95, two grades of diesel and then euro 95 unleaded. And there is no consistency I could make out in the colour coding of the delivery pumps. The largest service station chain is called WOG so I assumed they got their crude from Saudi. The WOG unleaded 95 is branded Mustang, which was easy for me to remember as they were my favourite bands from the 60s. Every time I filled up I hummed the guitar riff from Coutts Street Blues. Who can forget their ballad of teenage angst, Parkin at Dorrie Lesley.

I was only stopped once on this road . Document check, some talk of need for special paper for this area, then once you mention Captain and you were quite prepared to go to the station to pay it was dropped and told: You drive.

On the ride into Odessa, a blue BMW with a rider and lady pillion came up alongside me , and motioned me over. A plain clothes cop with his Mrs as decoy- this could be interesting – she probably wants some money to pay for purchases from Big Girls Blouses.

But no it was Vlad, President and Founder and as far as I could ascertain, only member of the Odessa
Bike touring club. “ You are with the Irish Group ?” he asked . No I am with the New Zealand Group, I am the advance scout.”

How many in your party? asked Vlad

“Just one.”

Vlad beamed : You can join the Irish group they have a spare room in their apartment. Follow me.

And so that was how I joined a group of six Irish bikers who were making a trip from Dublin to Ukraine and up through Belarus. It was particularly poignant for one, as he was taking his son back to visit the orphanage he adopted him from eight years ago. We had great fun together or as they put it good crack. And they would not take any money from me for accommodation. They all rode GS1200s and for all their Irish bluster were terrified about being pulled over by the cops.
Despite being Irish and having kissed the blarney stone many times, they maintained they could never front up like I did. I don't know whether that is a compliment or not!

“That's why you play good rugby – nothing worries you, “ said Dave the leader. I told them of my John Wayne talk slow, talk low, say little approach. And they all laughed and said “ to be sure stopping talking or even talking slowly is a physical impossibility for an Irishman.”

Odessa is a lovely city, a lot more mellow than Kiev and Lviv. It has miles of catacombs under the city and parts of it are slowly sinking. Apparently at an alarming frequency , people get lost in these catacombs never to be found again. Unless of course you pay the fine.

My Irish boys had to head north and I wanted to head west to Romania and Transylvania home of Vlad the Impaler- one of the handiest monarchs ever with a piece of 4 X 2. But I had about 200km of road to the border, then across Moldova , which I was told was even worse for police shake downs than the Ukraine . Moldova is renowned for having the most consistent lowest rating on the Index of population happiness – or some such international survey.

Maybe I will start humming the Bob Marley classic. “ don't worry, be happy “

Till next time

Safe riding.