Can I Ride a Solar Powered Scooter 1000 Miles, ITALY to BULGARIA? Ep. 7

Hi, I'm Louis Cole. I'm attempting to ride a solar-powered moped 1,000 miles from Italy to Bulgaria to deliver it to my father-in-law, with the original plan of towing my solar panels on a homemade experimental truck. It does look like a pretty major storm. I'm very sorry. Thank you so much. It's a race against time, with my wife Raya due to give birth any day now. What the heck? What am I supposed to do? Bulgaria? Yes. Oh, I just didn't believe it. My trailer catastrophically failed, so my dad came to the rescue as a support driver, carrying the solar panels and camping with me along the way to charge the moped. In the last episode, after camping outside Zagreb, we got hit by an overnight storm that collapsed my dad's tent. Tired and soggy, we spent the day solar charging the moped and even went on a side quest to When the sun finally broke through, we hit over 1,200 watts input and managed to cover 74 miles on the bike, but we're only just over halfway and just three days left to make it to Bulgaria before my flight. Good morning. It is day six of my attempt to drive my electric moped, solar-powered, across Europe from Italy to Bulgaria, 1,000 miles. We have passed the halfway point. We've done 512 miles as of last night, because yesterday I managed to do 74 miles, even though we had a very rainy day, similar to what today's looking like, we managed to charge 74 miles on the bike. If you didn't know, my dad has ended up being my support car because my original plan of my solar trailer completely and catastrophically failed. However, we have only got three days now to complete the trip, so the remaining 470 miles, I just checked, we have to split across three days of travel, which means we have to do just over 150 miles a day for the next three days, otherwise we're not going to complete the trip. So we are hoping the clouds clear and this stormy weather finally leaves us today. I mean, I was hoping to wake up to sunshine, but we are going to get the panels out and start charging before we even have breakfast, because the more we can get, it's just gone 8 in the morning, the more sun we can capture, the better our chances. How did you sleep, dad? Really well. I slept really well, didn't I? I put a layer on. Maybe it was the temperature. I put another layer on and let the lino down a bit so it wasn't so hard, and that made it a bit softer on my back. Nice. So yeah, that's my dad's tent and there's mine, and yeah, we slept really good. Do you want to grab the cable? So this is the three in parallel. We've got nine panels totaling 1,800 watts, they're 200 watts each. Three of them are in parallel into one input connector, and then six of them are doubled up in pairs of series, so they're like doubled up, and then those three sets of series are put into parallel. If you know much about panels and electricity and stuff. So yeah, we're running it all into the DJI Power 2000 and the Expansion Battery 2000, and then we managed to charge, as I was driving last night, my dad stayed at the last location to get the last little bit of sunlight out, and managed to charge these batteries 10%. Just heating my morning coffee. Not much to update you guys on, it's a little bit later, it's 1 p.m. now. It's still very overcast, not what we'd hoped for at all, this weather. But we're just rolling with it, making another coffee, we're about to have lunch as well. Update is, we are actually, even with this overcast weather, pulling in, dad, 750 watts now, 760. We're expecting some more, we've got 1,000 plus. And that is basically matching our output of charging the bike, so we're hovering around 22% filled on the main battery, the DJI Power 2000. Just to help you understand, we're pulling the solar into that battery bank, and then plugging in the bike to charge from that. Oh, and it's about the same capacity, so 100% charge on the battery bank is the same as 100% charge on the bike. So the bike's now at 35% charge, and then we have this other 22% ready, so essentially that's 57% charged by 1 p.m., because everything was then empty before that. It looks like the clouds are clearing this afternoon, apparently, so it should get better. And what we really need, as I stated before, is to cover 150 miles today, so we need two full charges of the bike, and we are only at 57% so far at 1 p.m., so it's not looking great. So we've got, I reckon we've got another seven hours of usable light, the last few hours will be lower wattage coming in, but if the clouds clear and we're pulling in that 1,300, we could be winning. But I'll keep you updated. But it's just a lot of patience and waiting around, me and my dad have been having good deep chats about geology and life and stuff, and I'm also trying to get some editing done. Yeah, coffee's almost done. Oh yeah, nice, look, check that out. A bit of a nicer speed percolating than this morning, it just exploded and was spitting everywhere. I got a nice percolation speed going on, dad. It's just dribbling out. Cheers, Croatia. I have to say, I love this set up with just whipping the panels out the back. They were all left plugged in yesterday, so we don't have to figure out the order of which to plug the panels in and stuff, so we literally just whipped them out. It took 30 seconds just to put them out like this, and yeah, what an awesome set up. I think had I used the trailer, I probably would have figured something similar out where they were all plugged in, ready to be unloaded, but this is an incredibly fast, efficient way to get them out. I was actually thinking, with these panels, how long would it take to charge the Tesla? Even if we were able to charge two and a half charges of the power bank, which I think you could do on an incredibly sunny day, I think you could basically pull in, because it's Say you could pull in 10,000 watt hours in the course of a day, the car is 100,000 watt hours. Is that right? Yes. It would take 10 days of pure sunshine with this set up to charge the Tesla. That's never going to happen. That would take forever, and that would get you 200 miles maybe. We need a much bigger solar array for that. Just sheltering from the rain. It's still spitting a little bit outside, and my dad's kindly just keeping the car in order. I feel like on these trips, only because I lost my hard drive, and after half an hour of looking everywhere, Louis said, let me check your bum bag, and we found it, which is what it was. Great job. I feel like these trips, typically, if I'm in the car, it won't be to the end of the trip that I'll do a nice reorganizing and tidy, but it's nice to keep it tidy as we're We also don't lose things because when you live in chaos, it's very easy to lose everything. This is a very nice office space just to work and get some stuff done, shelter from the rain. Again, if I'd been self-sufficient and just come without the car, I could have been sitting in my tent like I was last year, which was also fine, but in the drizzle and rain, just waiting around for days to charge, it would have been pretty miserable, so I'm glad for the comfort and company. I'm not too sad about our progress. I think we're doing okay. 40% charged on the bike now, and we've still got 21% on the battery, so 61% charged. 647% still coming in, Dad. I think without that broken cable, I could have been pulling in like 1,500, 1,600 yesterday. I may as well mention now, we have a potential huge problem for later in the day or this evening. We want to try and cross. If we get two charges, we want to try and cross into Serbia tonight. I stupidly didn't bring any of my car ownership documents or bike ownership documents. They're all back in the UK, so there may be a situation where they require to see the original ownership documents in hand to get into the country, and if that is the case, everything is over because we cannot drive around Serbia in time. We'd need to go up into Hungary through Romania and down into Bulgaria because that's all in the EU, whereas Serbia is not in the EU. We have to go through border control. Let's just hope that we can have a kind border guard that understands our dilemma. I think if I show them I've got my flight booked out of Bulgaria and my wife's pregnant and everything, maybe they'll have pity. We could also explain what we're trying to achieve with a solar trip, but they also may not care at all. That's the fun that we've got to look forward to tonight is resolving that problem. As you know, this trip has been powered entirely by the DJI Power 2000 and the Expansion Battery 2000, and if you've been following along, you'll know how crucial that setup has been. We have been charging the electric moped and running all our gear with this mostly solar powered system, but DJI has just released a smaller version that's packed with new upgrades, and for some of you, this might be a bit better suited to what you need. So today's video is sponsored again by DJI. Massive thanks to them for not only making this whole mission possible, but also for continuing to innovate on gear like this, which allows the freedom for more adventures for everyone. Okay, so the DJI Power 1000 V2 is their latest compact power station. It's got 1,024 watt-hour capacity, which is still massive for this size. And if that's not enough, you can now expand it just like the Power 2000 with extra batteries up to 11,264 watt-hours if you max it out, which is wild. One of the biggest upgrades on the V2 is the power output. It delivers 2,600 watts continuously, which means it powers almost anything you'd realistically take on the road. Induction cookers, coffee machines, even a small AC unit or microwave. That's actually more than the original Power 1000 I've been using in the caravan, which is also great for running our lights, fans and keeping the fridge going. But this V2 definitely feels more like a mini version of the Power 2000. And the charging speed is unreal. You can go from zero to 80% in 37 minutes from the wall or fully charge in under an hour. You can also charge from solar or car power if you're fully off-grid. It even supports up to 1,800 watt solar input using the DJI Power 1.8 kilowatt solar car super fast charger. That's about what we've been getting with our big solar setup here. Another really cool thing, especially for creators and drone users like me, is that it comes with DJI's SDC and SDC Lite ports. These are designed for accessories like the expansion batteries, car chargers and fast charging DJI drones. It's so much more efficient than running them through a regular inverter or wall plug. And the V2 is packed with safety upgrades too, 19 temperature sensors, 25 built-in fuses and it's rated for up to 5,000 meters altitude, which is perfect if you're doing mountain trips or filming in crazy environments. And it's quiet too. It only hits 26 decibels when it's in its standard recharge mode, so you can actually sleep next to it in a tent or van and not be disturbed. And again, you can monitor everything through the DJI Home app without the need for a Bluetooth adapter like with the Power 1000 V1. I've actually been using the app constantly on this trip. I love being able to see how much power we're pulling from the panels, how fast the moped's charging and how much battery we've got left. You can do the same with the Power 1000 V2, which is super helpful if you're trying to plan energy usage over a few days. So yeah, while I've been relying on the Power 2000 for this trip, if you're doing shorter adventures or need something more portable or even just backup power at home, the Power 1000 V2 is a really solid option. It's smaller, lighter, still super capable and with all the upgrades, it's way ahead of most power stations I've seen at this size. Huge thanks again to DJI for sponsoring this video and supporting my crazy adventure ideas. Honestly, being able to do most of this journey on solar while carrying everything we need is exactly the kind of future I want to see more of. If you want to check out the new DJI Power 1000 V2, the Power 2000 or the Expansion Battery 2000, I'll leave the links in the description. Whether you're road tripping, going off-grid or just want to be ready for a power cut, it's definitely worth a look. All right, let's get back to the adventure. I've got my own personal chef. I said I've got my own personal chef making me food. So food today, we're going to try some fried bread, different kind of peppers, onion, toffee. Nice. I'm joking, obviously. I also want to say I've got a lot of dehydrated meals, which I'd have been happy to eat, but my dad insists on cooking fresh food and he enjoys it. So I'm not making my dad do this, just to let you know. I'm also busy doing editing, which is also pretty critical for everything we're doing. But I am very grateful and enjoy my dad's cooking. A lot of you comment on my other videos of my dad helping in the bus and doing stuff. I'm like a slave driver, working really hard doing stuff, but that's not entirely true. He's just very dedicated. It's raining. It's making the fat spit in here. I can hear it popping and crackling. This is what we've made. Oh, nice. It's going on fried bread for you and I'm going to have one with egg. Nice. I love that you're just hiding behind the car to hide from the wind. Is it helping? You're still getting rain on it? A little bit. The car's getting a little bit wet here, isn't it? All right. Oh, it smells lovely. I've got a, um, let me do it. Eat it with probably some of your Latin case, it's hot. Or... No, no, that's good. That's good. I've got plenty of clothes on. Check this out. This is delicious concoction. What do you call this, dad? Tofu ratatouille thing. Brought to you by Mr. Cole Cooks. It's his YouTube channel. Hasn't uploaded in, what, eight years? Back in the day, when I first started YouTube, my dad was banging out some cooking videos. And I think once he'd cooked everything, he knew how to cook. This is not quite fair. He stopped making videos. Now, I think the consistency of actually editing videos for some people's pretty tricky. And like, I relate to that. And it was always just a bit of fun. And I think as soon as things don't become fun in life, there's no obligation to continue. Yeah, I don't blame you for not making videos. Maybe one day you'll make some more videos. He films a lot. He's great at filming. You may have seen a lot of the clips he's been filming in this series. But you don't enjoy editing, do you, dad? I think even for his cooking channel, my mum was editing a lot of the videos, or at least helping. But I appreciate all your filming clips, dad, that you've been helping with on this show. Let's do a little taste test. Oh, delicious, dad. Delicious. Is this bread just- It's dipped in olive oil. Just olive oil fried? Yeah. Nice. Yeah, that is very nice. All right, we're sitting down to eat. What's happened, dad? Well, there's been a meeting I was cooking with. Something happened to it. It melted in the pan. Plastic spoons. Metal ones, they'd like to be better for cooking. Yeah. Yeah, plastic. Because that's hot as well, that little cooker. Hopefully the plastic didn't melt into the food and you're just eating microplastics now. Plastic containers. Okay, next time you can cook with this one. I like wooden ones. Yeah, wood's good. And you're not scratching the pans. Great news, guys. It is 3.30. It's been a very, very average day for charging. We've almost charged a full charge on the moped. However, the sun has just broken through and we're getting over 1,000 watts charging right now. 1,070. Wow, it's not even... It's still cloudy. It's still overcast, but it's... Lift. Yeah, so the moped is saying four hours from now, which would be 7.30, we'll have a full charge. The question is, at 7.30, are we pulling anywhere near 1,000 watts? If there's no clouds in the sky and we angle it, it could be close. It could be 800. I think we might be all right. This is the turning point that I've been hoping and praying for. And there's no blue sky. 1,100. 1,100 watts. It's just still white. It's still cloudy. Wow, we're almost 1,200 watts and it's still cloudy and we're almost at 1,200. This is encouraging. Oh, this is just what I've wanted so bad. Can you see this? Can you see this charging? This is dreamy wattage. Exciting news, guys. We are pretty much full on the moped and we spy blue skies. First blue skies. I don't know if you can see that. First blue skies we have seen in days. So we are pulling some good solar right now. The sun's just about to pop through this hazy cloud. Little update. Things aren't going as we hoped. It's basically 5 p.m. I'm thinking of leaving in an hour regardless. We were hoping it got up to 1,200 watts. The battery is pumping and now it's gone down to 250. The clouds have rolled in again and it definitely looks like we're not going to get a full charge, a second charge. So we're trying to come up with a contingency. The board is basically 30 miles after our switchover. Can we get like 40% charged in the next two hours or so, which would get us to the border? And I think maybe, yeah. But then the question is, if we can get to the border, can we find somewhere to park up and camp? So I'm just looking at Google Maps now. This is all probably someone's garden or something. Like where are we going to pull over? So wait, if I zoom out, you can see the border is here and I think we can get to the border tonight, even with the clouds because we're going to switch batteries over here and then the additional 30 miles will get us close to the border. So is there somewhere either in this town? Oh, what's this down here? This looks like a big area. It's very industrial factory-ish, isn't it? It's like, can we hide behind something? Go down a farm track and just... The little goodie is that arriving... Oh, what's this? What's this? What's this turn in here? Is that some kind of church or something? Shall we have a look at this? What is this? This doesn't look terrible, does it? We could do something here. We could like park... I mean, it's near the road. What about just nipping up here and hiding between the trees or something? It's not residential. Oh, what about this? This is up that road and then look, there's people. There's people. It's got a garden there, but one of these... Don't you think something along here? I'll show you where it is. So that is the town before... What is the town called? Before the border. There's the border somewhere at the top. There's the border, right? Tvarnik. And it's right... It's that first road. Don't you hate when you zoom in this taxi car as I'm being really reasonable? Yeah, why not just keep it the same size? Yeah, so it's that first road on the left as we come into Tvarnik. All right. You've got a plan. Pin that. It's ten to six. The sun has finally, finally broken through. There's been a few little patches throughout the day, but we're pulling about 600 watts now because it's kind of later in the day. Let's try and get that one out from behind the... That's kind of... That one's being shadowed a little bit. I'm going to grab some food before I hit the road and then my dad's going to stay again for a bit just to see if we can squeeze a bit more juice out. The dream is... I mean, we were trying to... We're aiming for two charges, but I think there's a possibility that we can get 50 percent, 40 to 50 percent and that will get us to the spot that we picked out just before the Serbian border. What's the lowest? 30? We'll get more than 30 because look, we're on 22 already. 22. And you've got two... I reckon you've got two more hours potentially you could do. We've got proper sun now, so let's try and angle the panels. 1,200, baby! That jumped. That doubled. That went from 600 and something, 670, wasn't it? Yeah. The 1,200 watts solar input at 6 p.m. That's incredible. That's fantastic news for us, Dad. The only thing I can see happening is this shadow for this tree is coming around and you might need to back up and shift them all a little bit or something. I think those back two, I could get even more vertical as well. What do you reckon? We've got them all pretty angled now. Yeah, I think that is maximizing. It actually looks like a proper solar setup now. Yeah, yeah. Flat on the ground in the storm. They look a bit... I like that a lot. All right, let me tuck into my food before I head off. I've waited a little bit longer than planned just to... Well, we were doing a little photo shoot for some thumbnails and doing some drone shots but we've lost sun again and we've only got to 33% on the battery. I wanted to get to 50%. I think 40 might suffice but 33, I don't know. Do you want to hang out another 40 minutes or something just to see if you can get anything? Anyway, I think with the sun, we can juice that up a bit more. I don't know how many percent. It's complete guesswork because we don't know what the clouds are doing. But anyway, I think the panels are optimally positioned. Maybe this one could go over a bit. We were trying to position them so the shadows don't overlap. I remember doing this last year and it's already getting close to... The shadows are overlapping that one, Dad. So you're going to be losing a bit there. So see how that bottom bit is shaded. Let's move that. Let's go. We have 61 miles range and I've got to get 73 miles. See you in a few hours. Message me if you need me. Well, again today, a little disappointed. I thought we were going to get a great day of charging and we only managed to get like 130% and we needed 200% today. It means tomorrow we need to get 250% charge. Oh, well, I'm trying my absolute best. I'm trying my absolute best. So yes, we're definitely not going to get to the Serbian border tonight but we might almost get there and I'm counting on us being able to charge all day tomorrow and cross the border tomorrow night and then head as far into Serbia as we can. I mean, we really need to do... What is tomorrow? Is that tomorrow, Thursday? We need to get halfway from the Serbian border to Sofia. So we need to get over halfway across the country tomorrow night and that's really ambitious. But when the sun's out, those panels are freaking pumping. I don't even think we've seen the maximum we can get from them yet. Like midday, sun directly above, we haven't got a clear cloudless sky at midday yet and I honestly don't even know if we're going to get one tomorrow but I think tomorrow will be a lot better than today. I'm saying again, do not jinx it. Come on. Yeah, the annoying thing is there's still an hour of sun that we could have just... I'm so sure we could have got more wattage from but whatever. We're on the road now. My dad will be following closely behind and he actually needs to go and charge the Tesla because the Tesla's on 40% so he's probably going to nip past me and then stop and charge for 45 minutes to an hour. That might work out perfectly actually if he nips ahead. I'll tell you this though, I'm much happier tonight not riding in the rain than I was last night riding in the drizzly rain. I think in about 20 minutes, I'm going to stop and put my other coat on to keep me extra warm because once you start getting a bit cold, it's very hard to warm up again but if you stay nice and toasty from the beginning, I think that's the key. Look at this cute little village. Balkan villages. I feel like the life here that people have must just be so simple. It's funny how no one's rendered the outside of their house. Okay, a few people have but there's a lot of these houses that are just brick and sloppy grout. Yeah, this does just remind me of Romania, Bulgaria. It's probably going to be identical going into Serbia as well. It'll be really nice. We're making a plan possibly in a couple years, maybe next year, to do some road tripping with the Tesla pulling the caravan through this region and maybe we'll do a road trip to Bulgaria. That'll be really nice and I might even suggest we do some of these back country routes just to get the amazing views although we're going to have a very young baby. We're going to have like a one-year-old and a three-and-a-half-year-old by then so maybe not, we'll see. Okay, this is the stark reality. We are 34% charged. We were hoping to get more but 99 hours which is it's about four days, isn't it? Yeah, we've got to make a move because the sun, as you can see, it has gone behind some funny clouds. We are losing it now. I pray that we get this lot cleared. So we've got to clear out the solar farm. We've got to put in the back of the Tesla. We've got to go and get some charge on the Tesla then meet up with Louis. We've got to swap out the batteries. He's doing three hours of driving then he's going to carry on after he's done his recharge. It's going to be a long night. If the light's good, we might get us a nice evening. Well, that's all cleared up. That was a bit cruel because as I was finishing, the sun came out but it dipped behind the tree there so we were in shade. It's all loaded up. We have got to hit the road. Another critical thing that's left up to me is pressing one button. If I don't press it, the whole last five hours is pointless. And here it is. Over to AC. That comes on a head of bleep there. That means the batteries are now charging. The batteries, I hope they're well enough to go. I heard some sort of... Yeah, I think they're ready to go. Made me wonder. I might double check that. Anyway, that's it. Hi geese. All right. My dad just messaged and he's leaving now so I got a bit of a head start. But yeah, there was a tiny bit of sun. I can see the sun now just kind of setting but I don't think we got much more charge. I haven't found out but I'm guessing it's about 35%. But I think we might be able to do it on that if we just keep it nice and slow. This road is pretty bumpy. I don't know what town this is. This is just such a random remote north Croatian town. I feel like we're just in such a random area that's probably tourists never come to. It is a beautiful evening and I'm feeling much warmer now. I have my other coat. I've got my little balaclava for when I need it and I'm in a good mood. I've got range-wise, my bike is saying I've got 55 miles left and I need to do 64 miles and if yesterday's anything to go by, I think we're fine. I think I can happily do that. Yeah, I think we're going to be okay getting there tonight. I'll just keep it nice and easy. Lovely. 64 miles and then switch over the battery and then hopefully to the Serbian border where we may tomorrow need to bribe the Serbian border patrol to let us in without physical documents because I stupidly forgot all of the papers. I just want more sunshine in my life. I think that's one of the things that makes me most happy. I think it always has as well, you know. I remember as a kid, I remember in my 20s, I just couldn't get enough of the sun. I'd literally be sunbathing every chance I had. I don't know if that was vitamin D or UV or infrared or whatever it is that just makes me happy and probably damages my skin as well but oh yeah, baby. Oh, the sun, sun on my back. We're not quite riding into the sunset. We're actually riding away from the sunset but it feels like I'm riding into the sunset. I'm dry, I'm warm and I'm enjoying Croatia. It's definitely a different experience this trip and it's not necessarily better or worse but I think I obviously had a lot of time on my own in my own head, thinking, processing and I think this trip's changed into a beautiful hangout time with my dad, quality time and then really the only alone time, headspace I'm getting is whilst driving which is good but when we're parked up and we're just hanging and chatting all day we had some great conversations today on our differing views on spirituality and God which I think was good. I think it was a good chat. I tend to get quite passionate when I'm talking and processing stuff that I've been thinking about a lot so I need to learn to communicate my views and thoughts calmly and lovingly rather than getting a bit hyped which I did at one point today. We're just out in the countryside. What's nice is the storm system is ahead of us. All of these dark clouds are moving that way and the clear skies are coming in behind us and I'm hoping that just continues so when we park up in the morning all of this storm system and dark clouds has moved further east and we are able to bask in the glory of sunlight and fuel our batteries with sunshine. I think I've never been more appreciative of the sun coming out to play than on this trip because everything hinges on the sun. Look at that stunning sunset. That is awesome. My dad is catching up with me but I think he needs to stop soon to charge a Tesla. I forget where he's going to do that but a little update we've got 48 miles range and we need to go 55 miles so we're making up that difference again like last night where we should be good and the crossover will happen where we'll end up with more range than we've got miles to drive but right now we are minus six miles in the tank. Wow, the sky, look at that. Epic, epic, epic sky. Hiya. How are you doing? Great. Amazing sunset, right? Incredible. How far do you need to get to the testing site? 43 minutes. Okay. Do you want to go ahead and I'll meet you? I'll catch you and see. Right, lovely, I'll catch you in a bit. I've made it to the Tesla charge point. It's funny though, all the Tesla drivers basically they know that these supplies are split so if another car arrives they end up moving to the next one and to try and not find beyond the one that's split so I've just got under an hour now to wait here and twiddle my thumbs or do something. I just pulled over because I've realised we're going into more and more of a remote part of Croatia to the border and I need to pull some euros out to potentially gift the Serbian border so I tried to find an ATM. It's saying there's an ATM here. Oh no, I bet it's inside, isn't it? Or is it in here? Is this? That's not an ATM. Okay, I tried to detour to an ATM but that is not a proper ATM. Let's see if there's one that's like outside. Quick look. Okay, we're making good progress. My only worry is that we're 38% battery which is similar to what I'm going to get and we might be all right. We might be all right. Okay, let's search. Right, we have 25 miles range to do 22 miles and then I'm going to search en route for an ATM. How's my dad getting on? My dad's almost finished charging the Tesla. Okay, this could work. Let's try that one. Okay, we've got six miles. I think everything's going to plan so far tonight. I've been able to do some pretty accurate calculations about the range that we have and it's a fresh chilly evening. Well, 14 degrees. However, it's dry and that's what matters. So I'm a little chilly but I'm dry so I'm happy. The moon is looking pretty amazing. Don't know if you can see that and yeah, let's keep going. 17 minutes till the ATM and then we'll just crack on. Right, little update. We are two miles from where I had pinned to do the battery changeover. We still have 11 miles on the bike's range and we're at 16% so I'm imagining any moment we will go into limp mode. My dad's caught up finally. He's only just reconnected with me after charging the Tesla all the way up and I just need to hope that whatever he's managed to charge the other set of bike batteries up to is enough to get us to the border town just outside Serbia. So that is where we're at. Managed to pull out my cash for potentially gifting slash bribing at Serbia border guard. We'll see how that goes. But yeah, any minute now we'll be going into limp mode but thankfully we're only like just a mile, mile and a half away. So I might basically go into limp mode. I might just switch over the batteries knowing that I've still got 15% on these. Yeah, that'd be good. Limp mode. And to be fair, 16 miles an hour isn't actually that much slower than 20. It's not like the first couple of days when I was bragging it like 30, 33, 24. It's a real noticeable change but yeah, just pootling along and I'm guessing my dad will stop a mile ahead and then we can do the changeover. I think that's gonna work well. So it's good to know that we have 10 miles range still on the bike and maybe he'll pull over here. Basically at any point now we can switch out. I'm cold. My feet are cold. I need to put a second pair of socks on. It's definitely colder tonight. It's 14. I was getting worried. Oh, it's nice. I was getting worried because I felt a few little raindrops but I'm looking up now and I can see stars. So that's a good sign. Also makes more sense why it's 14 degrees because a lot less cloud cover. Dad, we can pull over anywhere here really because I'm in limp mode so we can switch the batteries over. Do you want to just find a spot where you can pull over? Is that going to be all right? I might need to come in and warm up for a second as well. I'm guessing a bit further up somewhere. Nice. Right, nine miles left on there. Yes, nice. Right, I've just been warming up in the car. Feeling all right. What I'm going to do now is switch the batteries out. I know I've got nine miles left on these batteries so that'll be good. I think we've got 33 miles that we need. Okay, so let's take these out. Those are undepleted. These look like they're fully, well, not fully charged but charged as much as they can. 41%, 27 miles and we need to do 33. Oh, I think we're all right. I think we're good at 41% because I already had a better percentage in there. I've just had a drink of orange juice and a biscuit and warmed up a little bit. Put another set of socks on and I think I'm ready to hit the road again. Yeah, cool. Catch you in a bit. Love you, Dad. All right. Okay, baby. This drive now is going to take us to basically the Serbian border. 33 miles. I'm feeling good. Annoyingly, it's going to be an hour and a half so it'll be like 1.40, probably asleep by 2am and then we need to get up at 8 to get the solar panels. So yeah, it's not too bad. Six hours sleep. I was saying to my dad, I think we could at that point after setting the solar up, actually go back to sleep and carry on napping and resting because we've got a lot of solar charging to do tomorrow. When we get there, we'd have done 106 miles today. I think that's right. And maybe a bit more. And tomorrow we need to do like 170 something. So we need to get another full charge in than we did today. Today we got one charge and a third. So yeah, we got 1.3 charges in. Tomorrow we need to get 2.3 charges in. So I think we can do it. I think we can do it. And then the following day, we need to do the same. Okay, we have 11 miles left till we're getting to our camping spot for tonight. 16% battery. So about to go into limp mode. My range on my bike is also 11 miles. So we'll see what happens, but we're pushing it very, very tight. I realised after my dad went ahead to set up the camping spot, I should have grabbed the other batteries and put them in my back box. And that would have meant I could switch over if need be. But now if I do break down, my dad will have to drive back with the other batteries, which I think will be annoying for him because it's already 1.20 in the morning and we're all sleepy. We're all ready for bed. But let's see what happens. Let's see if I can make it. There we go. 15% and we're in e-save limp mode. We've got 10 miles left in the range, but we've got 11 miles to go. So I don't think we're going to make it. And I hope my dad is awake. I've messaged him. He hasn't replied yet. Let's see what happens. Oh, all right. We're just pulling it, pulling along. I feel like once we hit 15%, the range goes down quicker from what I remember. But I think we've cut it too close. See how we get on. It is quarter to two in the morning. I am so tired. We're still 5.3 miles away from the border town and I'm down to six miles range. So we're really kind of fine. 9% battery. I don't like running the battery this low. I had a message pop up on the phone saying, you know, the batteries are really low. You know, they'll get damaged if you don't charge them soon. So let's see what happens. My dad, I did tell him, I did just message him saying, can you actually come back and we'll swap the batteries back over because this is just, yeah, this is just too low really to run them. So I guess I'll meet him in a minute. We can switch them over. I am very ready for bed. Very ready for bed. Oh, man, I've been rescued. Switched the batteries out at 7%. These batteries are 14% better than nothing. All right. Shall I follow you? My dad's found an alternative spot for us to park, which is probably like three miles closer to us now. Means we've got to go a little bit further tomorrow, but what's three miles in the bigger picture? Yeah, there's a lot of lorries and the spot my dad's found is like a lorry park. So it's going to be super noisy. I'd quite like to sleep in the Tesla, but maybe I can. Maybe I can. We'll see. I am so tired. Yeah, because of the delay of getting the distance we needed to, because of all the bad weather and the trailer breaking and everything, it just means the next couple of days are going to be pretty brutal in terms of kind of making the distance and actually succeeding on this mission. I think I'm going to have to sleep a bit tomorrow whilst we're charging the Tesla. Oh, that's so tired. Oh, wow. Must have rained here quite badly. OK, yeah, this could work. So muddy. Let me just, let me have a little look. Look at where the sun's going to rise in the morning. Sun is going to rise over there. Nice. OK. I think there's a spot here because it's like not right next to the lorries and it's got, look, this big, it's a bit further out, look. Mind the puddles. Look at that. Can you see that? The sun's going to rise over there. This looks hard enough to park the car and then we've got this big grass area here. It just means that we're not right next to the lorries. Right. I don't know if you heard that. Sounds like a gunshot going off. My dad told me it's explosives that farmers use to scare off animals and for some reason it's going off all night right by where we're camping. Also, very loud lorries and trucks going into Serbia because we're very near the border now. It's 3am. This is pretty brutal. We, good news is we covered 110 miles today even though we had a lot of overcast weather and did not charge as much as we wanted. Still over 100 miles of range. So yeah, that was our longest day on full solar and we've now done 622 miles of the entire trip. Let me just check the weather. It looks like it's pretty sunny and then it gets a little bit cloudy over lunchtime but it's looking way better than yesterday, today. It's way better than today. I think we should get some serious charge. I'm going to sleep now. I am tired. The next couple of days are going to be brutal. I'm going to try and nap tomorrow during the day as well. What are those noises? Got my earplugs. Hopefully I can sleep a little bit. It's only two days left to get to Bulgaria. Am I going to do it? We'll find out. Peace. Oh my goodness. This is too wild. My bike has fallen down the hill. Thank you so much.