We are just back from a month long trip to the Balkans. Spent time in Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Albania - seaside, mountains, good and bad roads, dirt tracks and culture. Round trip was around 4,400 miles or 7,200 km's.
Some of you will recall I broke a drive shaft over on Strata earlier in the summer. That was replaced with a Terrain Tamer shaft by West Coast. Happy to report that we had absolutely no issues throughout this trip. We didn't even get stuck so didn't need the ton of recovery gear we were carrying - how boring is that! Actually it was a great trip. The only tool I did use was a cross head screwdriver, and subsequently couldn't remember why I needed it - I remember now - to swap the bracket on the GoPro housing!
In terms of fuel consumption - we used 1,033 litres of diesel at a cost of around £1,550. The cheapest diesel was in the £1.30's in Croatia and Montenegro (although the price did go up by the time I left) and highest was £1.72 in Albania (no motorway services were used in the procurement of fuel). Consumption worked out to be around 19 mpg, which is what I was expecting.
The route followed is a customisation of those in Vibraction's Balkan series (sadly Vibraction's founder Philippe Rosa passed away this summer), Bernard Louvot's 'Albanie sur le Pistes' and others found on the internet.
One of the areas visited was Durmitor National Park and the near by Tara Gorge in Montenegro - there is some stunning scenery there. Here's a link to a map of the park. I downloaded a .gpx for the route from somewhere - I'll see if I can find the link to the file.
I haven't looked at the photos yet but will share once I've had time.
Some of you will recall I broke a drive shaft over on Strata earlier in the summer. That was replaced with a Terrain Tamer shaft by West Coast. Happy to report that we had absolutely no issues throughout this trip. We didn't even get stuck so didn't need the ton of recovery gear we were carrying - how boring is that! Actually it was a great trip. The only tool I did use was a cross head screwdriver, and subsequently couldn't remember why I needed it - I remember now - to swap the bracket on the GoPro housing!
In terms of fuel consumption - we used 1,033 litres of diesel at a cost of around £1,550. The cheapest diesel was in the £1.30's in Croatia and Montenegro (although the price did go up by the time I left) and highest was £1.72 in Albania (no motorway services were used in the procurement of fuel). Consumption worked out to be around 19 mpg, which is what I was expecting.
The route followed is a customisation of those in Vibraction's Balkan series (sadly Vibraction's founder Philippe Rosa passed away this summer), Bernard Louvot's 'Albanie sur le Pistes' and others found on the internet.
One of the areas visited was Durmitor National Park and the near by Tara Gorge in Montenegro - there is some stunning scenery there. Here's a link to a map of the park. I downloaded a .gpx for the route from somewhere - I'll see if I can find the link to the file.
I haven't looked at the photos yet but will share once I've had time.