13/01/2023
This time 6 years ago we had just arrived in Bulgaria to start our new lives after a long and very snowy drive across Europe!
We had a Land Rover absolutely packed to bursting point with musical instruments, recording equipment and a rucksack each of clothes. Everything else could wait. Back then our only goal was to hunker down for a few months and record an amazing album we could release and tour the following year.
Originally we'd planned for the journey to take us around 3 days. Little did we know the kind of weather we were about to face!
As we hit central Germany around 14 hours in, we were delighted to see the first dusting of snow that winter. We pulled over at the next service station, got some hot drinks, threw a few snowballs and took pictures. However, by the same time the next day, we were starting to question our decision to navigate Europe in January. We were barely hitting speeds half of what we had expected and twice the amount of concentration was being exuded. We also got through 25 liters of winter windscreen wash on this trip and there were times where we would run out and have to spray de-icer out the window while moving! 2017 turned out to be one of the harshest winters for many years and we've not experienced anything like those conditions since!
5 days later as the sun was setting in Romania, we were slowly approaching the Danube River crossing into Bulgaria at Vidin. Another day of slow driving in icey conditions had passed and we were starting to feel beaten that still we hadn't managed to reach our final destination.
The was a small sense or relief and reasurrance that we were now surely in the final leg and so we decided to look for somewhere we could rest our heads for the night and freshen up before another long haul the following day.
After looking on Google maps, we spotted a hotel that looked to be only a short distance off the main road we were traveling. We made a phonecall and told them we'd be with them shortly. While this guest house appeared to be only a few miles away as the crow flies, we were foolish or maybe just too sleep deprived to realise it was in fact at the top of a mountain. The stunning location photographed we later came to learn about called Belogradchik.
Through pitch black forest we drove winding up the steep hills, on ice, with freshly ploughed 4ft high snow banks on either side. Snow banks that saved our lives moments later as we touched the breaks and suddenly found ourselves wedged deep, head first, facing down hill and unable to reverse. After many failed attempts our guest house host found us, lost, cold, covered in snow and truly stuck! Fortunately they knew not to head out minus shovels and ropes and were able to free our vehicle before guiding us the rest of the way.
We were feeling a bit shaken. We drunk a bottle of mead we had chauffeured all the way from England. This picture was taken from our Balcony the following morning. We debated if we should ever leave or just accept this quaint mountain town as our new home. Driving down hill was surely going to be even more scary than driving up!? And yes! It was!! But we made it home by the next night, just in time to celebrate Jess' birthday the following day and we lived to tell this tale!
Would we do it again...?? F**k yeah!!! It was a great experience and it bought us closer together. After that, we felt like we could do anything!
The last 6 years have been full of adventure and we're about to begin a new one with another long overdue road trip. More on that soon 😘
