Heading Home

Heading Home

By roychinnorNo Comments
Bridget and I have left Colditz and driven 225 miles north-west to Arnhem. I have decided that 20 different countries are enough for this trip. The drive to Arnhem has been relaxed with excellent roads and, in the main, good drivers. Bridget has now added ten new countries bringing her tally to 62 different countries in all. Calling in to Arnhem is largely a personal inclination. I joined the British Army in 1962, straight from school, and my first drill sergeant in basic training was a paratrooper that had served in 1st Battalion Airborne dropping into Arnhem during the Second World War. He was injured and carried that injury for the rest of his life. He made a significant impression on the rest of my life and I just want to pay my respects. I would love to find some sort of record, even just a photograph, although that is the proverbial needle in the haystack. Like most tourists to Arnhem...
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Ukraine

Ukraine

By roychinnorNo Comments
The drive from Chisinau up to Siret was a nightmare, but as with any disaster film there was a hero. The journey started out well, leaving at around 8:30am in light traffic. The route out of the city, so often the worst part of any driving day, was easy to find and follow. I decided I would wait until we had cleared the city boundaries before topping up with fuel. The first couple of service stations I tried didn’t know whether their fuel’s content had 5% or 10% (E5 or E10) ethanol and to be perfectly honest I don’t think they even knew what Ethanol is. Eventually I found a garage around 15 miles out of town that had E5 fuel, so we filled up. Most of the East European countries still have pump attendants and there is usually a scramble for who is going to do the honours. I’ve even had the situation where one attendant would fill the fuel...
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Moldova

By roychinnorNo Comments
Before I start with my first impressions of Moldova here are some passing observations on the Western area of Romania which I drove through driving from Constanta on the Black Sea coast up to Oancea on the Moldovan Border. A vast part of west Romania has no mountains, like those I had become accustomed too, but is a plain. Much of the drive was spent gazing across landscape at the same level as myself, but unusually I could see all the way to the horizon. At times the view was blocked by the wheat and maize growing right up to the roadside, but at other times the full landscape was visible and you could even identify the meandering rivers by the corridors of reeds. During the morning (it was Sunday) many villagers were returning home from the church morning service. There were occasional individuals, but more often couples strolling and chatting. Most notable were the many pairs of female friends together, clearly...
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STOP PRESS – Please read this

By roychinnorNo Comments
Just wanted to say a BIG thank you to the family who having just seen me on the road today, were generous enough to donate to the Save the Children charity on my Just Giving page (there it is look, just to the right of this). If this support could just go viral, at five pounds a piece, it could make such a difference to the 2.5 million children displaced in Ukraine as well as all the others that the charity continuously works to help. Remember, we were due to travel through the Ukraine on this road trip, but can't because of the invasion. A minor inconvenience compared to what the children there are being forced to endure. Please support us before logging off. Roy Locock...
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World Tour Cancelled

World Tour Cancelled

By roychinnorNo Comments
To all those that like to travel vicariously with Bridget and myself I apologise for the above heading, but it is unavoidable. The might of the united Russian Armed Forces, spreading terror and oppression, have caused such restrictions on free travel as to precipitate the cancelling of our tour. A minor inconvenience compared to the problems and suffering Putins' war is raining down on the people of Ukraine. To fully understand my reasons for cancelling the tour you really need to understand my motivation for travelling in the first place. In a word, Freedom. It is the capacity to be able to decide for myself in which direction I am going to travel, when I decide to travel, and in whatever manner I decide to travel. Not to have any person, or organisation, coercing me to go somewhere I have no wish to go, or preventing me from going where I desire. It is these parameters that provoked me on my...
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