Ukraine

Today we managed to prise ourselves from our beds in time for a 09:45 breakfast, this meant we didn't get as many strange looks from the staff, which was good!

As we had made up some time on the road by doing Odessa to Kiev in one day this ws our 2nd day off in this lovely city. The temperature outside was cold, but not snowing or sleeting! Ksenia met us in the hotel lobby and we made our way to the BMW garage to pick up Roger who was dropped in yesterday for a service. A few pounds lighter we headed to a tyre garage Ksenia knew where we had pre-ordered some new shoes for our steeds the day before.

As we waitied for the new tyres to go on we had some typical Ukrainian food at a nearby canteen type place and enjoyed chatting with our very efficient city guide! (Ksenia)

After this we all made our way to the Chernobyl museum in the middle of town so that we could experience the nuclear diaster in a radioactive free zone. (Well nearly - we were told that some of the items in the museum were still actually radioactive.....negliable though!)

We dropped Ksenia back at her place and then made our way back to the hotel for a short rest before heading out on the town for a bite to eat and drink.

45miles covered today running around Kiev.

We made it to breakfast with one minute to spare and the staff were very understanding! Shortly after that we met up with Ksenia again and took her for a ride on the bikes to a Yamaha garage. We had some traditional Ukranian lunch whilst Frazzer was serviced (both front and rear break pads were worn to the bone for a start) and a friend of Ksenia's called Oleg joined us.

After the guys at the garage photocopied a map of our route so far and took a photo of us we then braved more snow to get to the BMW garage to check Roger in before returning to the centre to buy the Ksenia and Oleg dinner and drinks as a thank you for being so helpful.

New tyres tomorrow and they'll be all set to go again!

Bleak would be a good word to sum up today. Cold, wet, exhausting and ultimately rewarding would also work. But starting at the beginning we had a good breakfast (our hotel is right out of The Shining) and went out to buy some stuff for lunch.

On the streets leaving Odessa a guy on a moped took interest in us and we chatted at traffic lighs before he guided us to a petrol station on the road out towards Kiev!

It was cold and already raining a little, but from there the road was pretty much a straight dual carriageway all the way North. We were pulled over by police a few times, each one of them saying we should be doing a different speed and one set taking a little pay-off before we could continue. And they insisted we rev the bikes as we left, so we sped off loudly for them hoping they wouldn't just pull us over staight away!

It was pouring with rain by now and we stopped for lunch at a bus shelter on the road, making sandwiches and boiling a cuppa in the cold (around 2 deg). We headed off slightly warmer and the rain continued. The landscape was very wide, mostly flat and quite minimal.

The weather cleared for sunset just as the surroundings became very picturesque too with autumnal woodland on the sides of the road blushed by the sun, but lots of police over every brow still!

Shortly after that it started snowing again, but we only had half an hour or so of that storm to pass.

We entered Kiev in the drizzle passing an enormous illuminated futurist beast of a statue of a woman with a sword looking over the city. It was very impressive and sent a chill down my spine, but then it was only just above zero and starting to snow again. A number of people in cars took interest and we had some chats in the traffic.

We navigated towards a hotel in the city centre from my guidebook and the city looked beautiful at night, like Gotham city with powerful uplit gothic stone slabs of buildings. We stopped to check where we were and a couple of girls came rushing up to us seeing the yellow numberplates and thought we were crazy! It turns out we were 50m from the hotel (it's enormous and I don't know how we missed it).

We checked in with a receptionist who was hard work, cleaned up and met up with the girls Ksenia and Tania for some food and drinks on the town. We're going to stay here for a few nights to service the bikes and get new tyres and it's great to have some friends already.

330 miles today making 9550.

We were up and ready to go by 10.30 as we had umpteem miles to cover and a couple of borders (it turned out to be 3 in the end, twice through Moldova!)

Our hosts at the apartment in Galati were so kind and as well as the fantastic apartment they provided, they also led us to the Romanian/Moldovan border which saved us time. The border took us some time and we had to leave one motorbike at the customs check in as insurance and then ride half a km to a little hut to buy a green card to drive through the country. They're certainly doing their best to boost their economy!

We then embarked on the journey through Moldova. The road at first relatively good, the odd pot hole here and there, then it then got quite a bit worse and the middle of the road was broken up tarmac and the sides were compacted gravel. We found we had to chop and change between the two depending on which was smoother! Most of the other cars on the road were old school Ladas, with suspension perfect for the job. Industrial!

We reached the Ukraine border after around 40miles and were greeted by a Customs guard on the Moldovian exit with a slight smirk on his face! Not sure whether he was amused about what we were doing or what was maybe in store for us!

Up the road we hit the Ukraine Customs. Not too difficult in the end and we passed through without handing over a penny! By this stage it was 2pm and although we'd done two borders, we'd only done the 40miles through Moldova! We asked a friendly Moldovan heading back into Moldova how far it was to Odessa. He advised around 180miles, yikes!

We set off with the idea of stopping quite soon for food. This idea basically went on all the way to Odessa, as we found nowhere to stop for either a cash or food!

We arrived in Odessa famished. We had a hotel booked, but unfortunately did not understand any of the road signs to get us to the centre of the city. In the end we had to ask a cab driver to guide us to the right street.

After unloading the essentials from our bikes we wandered out and stopped in the first restaurant we came to and basically ate lunch and dinner in one!

225 hard miles covered today.