4 September 2025 (sunny and hot 30C) 80km

Here we are again in Albania, under duress. Well actually, just south of the town of Durres, but you know, tomato, tomarto.

One amazing thing we saw in Shkoder yesterday, was a stray dog using the pedestrian crossing to get across a busy roundabout. He got to the edge of the footpath, looked left at the approaching traffic to make sure they had seen him and were slowing down, and then walked across the first half of the pedestrian crossing. When he got to the middle of the road, he looked right at the oncoming traffic before finishing crossing the road. This was an extremely busy roundabout. Talk about street smarts.

The traffic is crazy. If you need to drop Grandma at the supermarket, don't bother trying to find a park. Just stop in the middle of the street/road/highway. Let Grandma out and pull back out into the traffic. Don't worry about indicating. That's for amateurs. And if you suddenly realise you need to go back the other way, just stop, execute your seven point turn in the middle of this tight street and expect everyone to wait for you. And they will. They might honk the horn at you and take off at a fast rate of knots, just so you get the message that you've slowed them down a bit. Anyway, onto today and over to Pete.

Awake at 5.30am. I didn't sleep as well as in the tent, pillow was far too hard, so ditched it part way in. Ju had a much better sleep without her mattress going down all the time.

Panniers were mostly packed anyway, so I just transferred them downstairs. The neighbour's dog began barking, nothing too bad, just little gruff woofs.

By the time Julia was finished with paying bills etc while we had Internet and packing her gear, the apartment owners still weren't awake, so we opened the sliding gate and slid off up the potholed, gravel track at 6.30am.

Hadn't gone more than 100 metres, when a little dog came whimpering toward us. We are well practiced now, not to look or say anything to them, otherwise they'll follow you. Looked away as we rode past, just in time to see a very tiny puppy that she had at the side of the track. Couldn't have been more than four weeks old. I said to Ju...."Keep going." 

Turned onto the road we came in on and had to follow that for 10kms until we reached a turn south for Lac.

Cycled with relative calm until we reached the shithole that was Shperdhet, actually there were two of them 1 and 2. I kid you not, Shperdhet 1 and 2. A town by any other name, in this case, is still a shithole.

As we approached the bridge to enter this paradise, it was closed off to traffic. Now....if I was a vehicle, I would take that as a hint that I may not want to go there.

But we crossed the bridge along with a few pedestrians and marvelled at the intermittent breaks in the surface, which were obviously widening over time. Some were big enough to put your forearm down and your fingers would have been dangling in the fresh air underneath.

Out of town on a nondescript road, not too busy though, for which we were thankful. We were riding through a rural landscape. Not pleasant, just rural. 

One thing we have noticed is the Albanians interact more and smile more freely.

Riding by, when three kids shouted out "Hello" and waved.

So...I ran them over. That'll teach them to speak when not spoken to.

No, it's really nice having people smile and wave. As they weren't the only ones. We've had people wave and toot from cars and give us the thumbs up and most of the old guys on bikes smile and wave. Big difference to the other Balkan countries.

We were ticking along nicely. 

Roads weren't too busy and on the outskirts of Lac, we rode past a huge collection of derelict buildings.

"But half of the buildings you see, are derelict" I hear you say. And you are correct. But this was on a massive scale. 

Took a couple of shots, but didn't do it until the end and by then you just couldn't see the scale.

Anyway, something about it reminded us of IWD, but on a scale twenty times bigger.  So we googled it and sure enough, it was an old Super phosphate plant. We thought how lucky we are in New Plymouth that IWD got levelled. This was such a an eyesore and now a tipping ground and home to stray dogs. It will never be cleared. Too big a job. What a depressing thing to have in your town.

Apparently it was built in the communist era in the 1960s and unused since 1990. Three tall towers and most of the dozen warehouses are still mostly intact. 

Lac seemed a very organised town, for anything Albanian and we sat and ate breakfast in a nice garden as we entered town.

We think, by the buildings surrounding it, that it was part of a retirement complex. Everyone using it was of retirement age at least, some I think they dug up and sat them on the benches just to make the place look used. 

Cycling out the other side, we suddenly noticed a foul smell, really foul, like rotten eggs.

As we passed a stream I screamed to a halt and took this shot, most probably the culprit of the smell.

I have no idea what was causing it, but I'd bet my life's savings on it being chemical.

It was disgraceful. 

Our day was about to become tension filled. We went on a piece of main road which paralleled the motorway, so hoped most of the traffic would be on the motorway. Boy were we wrong. It started off well but about a third of the way into it we had unbelievable amounts of traffic. At least it had a bit of hard shoulder. Although the tarmac had obviously melted and been squashed and pushed to the side by all the trucks, so you had to continually watch the surface.

Pulled over to have a break and get a shot of this surprising place.

Lost track of the times we pulled over (when it was possible) to let trucks get past, to make it safer for everybody.

We needed a break from the stress so bought two cappuccinos in a cafe and sat and talked to Brody and Aimee and had a good laugh, which settled our nerves for the next part of the ride. 

We were on main road now for the afternoon going from one industrial area to another. It was endless for 50kms, no dividing of towns, just endless industry. 

We have never seen so many Mercedes cars in any other country. At least 20% of all cars in Albania would have to be Mercedes.

Old Mercedes, new Mercedes, vans, trucks, taxis. It's like Germany was giving discount to the country who bought the most. They also have a lot of Audis and VW’s.

Another thing they have here are loads of car washes. Lavazh they are called and are a simple screened off area with a water blaster. They are everywhere. They usually have a bar or cafe attached so hit all the right notes for the male population. Makes us wonder how often people wash their cars here as the sheer number of these things is ridiculous!

It seems strange to us that they can use them to keep their cars (which are obviously their prize possession) clean. They can do that and then....as we saw today..., they can drive up to a dumpster on the side of the road and without getting out of their car, throw their rubbish, in a plastic bag toward the dumpster, missing it and it ending up on the ground, having split open lying everywhere and drive off in their nice clean Mercedes.

What kind of mentality is this? 

About 2pm, to get a break from the pressure on the road, we pulled off into a supermarket, with a cafe and sat and had an ice cream. Julia also had a nectarine.

We were feeling a bit jaded as we hadn't eaten since 9.30am. Simply because we couldn't find a bakery or a shady spot to sit and eat.

We were nearly at the coast by now.

We could see Durres, a big holiday resort and on the outskirts I pulled up to show that they will chuck their rubbish, any and everywhere.

See photos. 

On the outskirts of Durres.

Down onto the main front road, passing all the hotels and holiday apartments, with restaurants and bars.

Looking for a camp we had picked out and had stopped for a second to check details, when a guy comes from across the road and tells us we can camp for Euro 15 on a crap piece of ground, or have an apartment for the night for 25.

Got him down to twenty, but he threw in dinner and breakfast for Euro 47 including two drinks as well. 

Apartment is pretty shitty, but thunderstorm expected tonight and the camp was rubbish.

From here down, it may have to be apartments as if we head into the mountains, there are no sites and even food is remote. 

Wandered down to the beach. All the masses packed on loungers under sun umbrellas. And by masses, I mean masses. Can't imagine what the place would have been like before the kids went back to school.

The prom is like a poor man's Blackpool in the good ol days of the sixties. Shops full of rubbish and all the cafes with staff touting for business. 

Let us say that the best part of the swim was the cold shower, (which we preferred to have at the beach as our one was too grubby), as the sea water was warm. No clarity to the water like Croatia, but I think if we found a less crowded beach, it would be fine.

Back to the unit which looked even worse, now we had time to think.

Dinner will be interesting.

Possibly dog food on the menu.

We wouldn't know if it wasn't? 

Well, dinner was okay and we enjoyed the food...maybe just not enough. Ju had sea bream, but it was mostly bones and I had grilled chicken and potatoes. We shared an ordinary salad.

Back at the unit, we lay on the bed, trying fruitlessly to get the air conditioning working. We'd have bought some cold water to put in the fridge, but that didn't work either. Shall we watch a bit of Albanian TV, maybe there's some football on.

And yes, it's a hat trick of broken appliances. And then the toilet stopped flushing as well. Man, he saw us coming.

As a street party went on outside, we settled down to sleep. Luckily we'd done 80kms and were completely knackered.