I Rode My Motorcycle Into an Abandoned Underground Military Base

Welcome back. If you're new here, I'm riding a motorbike from Sydney to England via all these places. And in the last episode, I got tangled in razor wire, met some terrorists, camped on a freezing mountain eating pasta, weaseled my way into Istanbul, and finally reached the border to Bulgaria, my first European country. So join me in this episode where I see many weird things, go to places just because someone on a forum told me to, and ride through abandoned military bases through plane-shaped holes in mountains. Now Bulgaria is a little bit weird. And naturally, as always, I managed to piss some people off at the border. And this was because they've never seen an Australian motorbike before, so they didn't really know what to do in terms of paperwork. And seeing as I was so keen to get out of there, I kind of skipped the insurance step, which is really easy to do at the border, because the little office is a tiny little thing that you can go past without even noticing. And driving without insurance is kind of a big deal in Europe. So, mission number one, getting a green card. And no, I'm not talking about Mexican dreams. Well, I just got to Bulgaria. And I know I'm supposed to have green card insurance to travel through Bulgaria. And I asked the guy at the border, I was like, hey, where do I get the green card? And he was like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, go through, go through. I was like, oh, okay, no worries. So I've got no insurance, but haven't crashed so far. So who cares? Deal with it when it becomes a problem. But, you know, I'm going to look for a place where I can get it. It's just until then, it just seems there's nothing really I can do about it. So the drama continues. I just went to the Greek border because it was very close. And I assumed that they'd let you buy the green card insurance at the border, like they would have at the Turkey-Bulgaria border. But instead, they tell me that that's not possible at this border, because I guess this is a smaller border. So I'm going to have to go to this town, which is about, I don't know, seven minutes away by Google to a place that is probably going to have a massive language barrier, which is my fault for not speaking their language. But at least then it'll be solved, right? So hopefully that's the end of my troubles for the day. And then I can travel a bit more and then camp somewhere. I'm trying to follow Google Maps to this insurance broker or whatever it is that the person at the border told me about. Oh, I forgot about Europe Roads. And it turns out that it's trying to take me over a pedestrian-only bridge. And I mean, I've seen people going across on bicycles. So all I can say to that is I've got two wheels too. So I don't really want to mess around with all this garbage. Yeah, so I'm just going to go for it, you know. Hope for the best at the other end. What a pleasant area. So the plot thickens. This one can't help me, but they have sent me to a fuel station on the end of a roundabout where there will be two people waiting for me to help me get the green card insurance. This is going to be one of the strangest insurance experiences I've ever had. Well, I was told opposite a fuel station and I don't see a fuel station. Apparently I'm on top of a fuel station right now according to Google Maps. Oh, I'm glad that's over anyway because I'm now hopefully covered until I get to England. But I don't know, something wrong with my date of birth. Who knows? But it took like an hour to get that done. So that's about 100 kilometres less progress I can make today. What a lovely introduction to Bulgaria. Anyway, let's see how far I can get until I get tired and then I'll find somewhere to camp again. Anyway, drama's over. I'm now legal to drive through most of Europe, in fact. And Europe is actually pretty small, contrary to what you might think. And this means the countries are going to be pretty rapid fire from here on out. But they do have some of the best roads I've ever ridden on, including this one, which I think has been covered many times in various Top Gear episodes. Maybe. I don't know. I haven't checked. So now that that's done, let's hear about the border experience. That looks pretty good actually. So this will be day one of Bulgaria, I guess. I'm out of breath because I got to the hotel and the guy's like, oh, you're in suite 17. It's right at the top of the stairs and there's three floors. And I've got like, you know, 30 kilos of these things to carry up with me. Not exactly easy. But I guess I'll describe today as dramatically boring. Obviously, I went through the border into Bulgaria. And as I'm leaving Turkey, the woman in the thing is like, oh, a motorcycle document. So I give her my retro paper and I'll put a picture of a retro paper up there. I pointed to the yellow box and I said, look, this is the plate. This is the chassis. And you can identify a chassis number a mile off. They're like 17 digits most of the time. That's all you need to know. And she's like, no, no, no. Motorcycle document. So I'm like, look, this is the motorcycle document. There's nothing else I can give you. And she calls some guy over who like, goes over my bike and reads the thing off the back of the bike and then goes back to her. And only after that, she starts using the retro paper to do it. Anyway, I could tell she was pretty annoyed at having to use the document I'd given her after she'd said it was wrong. But once she gave it back, I pointed to the yellow bit and I said, motorcycle document. And that pissed her off a little bit. She just said, bye-bye and slammed the window in my face. So yeah, I rode off cackling. So thank you for sitting through many minutes of extremely boring stuff that is basically causing me to fall asleep while I'm editing it. It's a bit more interesting from here because the roads are good. There aren't any border dramas because it's Europe. And since I'm getting closer to the final destination, I'm actually starting to enjoy myself a little bit more. Apart from that pending Iraqi fuel syndrome that keeps popping back on my bike, but more on that later. Until then, this. Well, I come down that mountain. I didn't even realize this was a border crossing. So, uh, this is what Serbia, wherever, maybe I'll put it on screen wherever I am if I'm wrong, but hopefully I'm not. The long day is driving. I think I've done about 700 kilometers today, but this'll do. So what's on the menu today? Boiled water, apparently. Plus whatever pasta's left from before. Not combined with that. Combined with the mystery food I've probably forgotten about that was in this side. A can of coffee. Oh, there's something tinny there. Whatever the hell that is. Is that something Turkish? Turkish beans and pasta. Great. Barbeña pilaki. Oh, just seeing that it says red beans there. Red beans. I've actually been a bit silly with my water today. I've got about half of one of these left, which is what, 250 mils? Plus whatever's cooking in there. So I might drink the pasta water, disgusting as that'll be. But yeah, I'll fill these up properly tomorrow and get a better bottle. A bigger bottle. One that goes there. Get in that bowl, you peasant meal. I've realized I haven't learned from my mistakes and I still don't have a fork. So today's fork is belt buckle. Not my proudest work, but still better than ham and pea soup that you have to bite like a brick. It works. Shut up. And on that note, I bid you farewell from the weird wild camp in Bosnia. Oh my God. I wouldn't have gone up this road if I'd known it was so bad. It had better come out somewhere convenient. Oh, amazing. A main road. Marvelous. Now, if you remember, when I was in Iraq, I put some very questionable quality fuel in my bike and it ended up breaking down in the middle of the desert. I don't know what to do, to be honest. I'm just going to have to keep it running as much as I can. I think there might've been water in the bottom of that thing. Get it going on some antiperspirant. And that problem didn't really go away. Since then, the bike has really been misbehaving, especially at slow speeds, like going through towns. Well, I appear to be suffering from IFS again. That's Iraqi fuel syndrome. And I'm out of options really, because it's a full tank of fuel. I'm hoping the fuel's okay. I mean, it seems too convenient that it's two consecutive tanks of fuel that have been dodgy. So I'm guessing it's something a bit more sinister. So possibly injectors that are blocked or something. So unfortunately, I'm going to have to use a bottle of gimmick liquid and just fingers crossed and hope for the best. I mean, there's not much else I can do. Let's give it a bit of a mix up before I go and do that. Hopefully this works. If it doesn't work, I'm screwed. So close yet so far. I'm going to bother overtaking here because I know what's going to happen. But basically, the bike's been giving me dirty carb syndromes. Obviously, being fuel injected, it's not a carb bike. But if you know anything or have ridden older bikes in your lifetimes, you'll know what I'm talking about. It's like riding with lag, like you'll open your throttle, it'll die and then suddenly it'll kick in. It'll start bucking around and it's pretty horrible to ride. And driving through the slow speeds through that town just there, that was the first time it actually died properly. Because I think I just didn't have the momentum to get the fuel going again. But yeah, all I can think of is that it's just dirt in the fuel. Because I know in Iraq, I was basically filling up my fuel tank using dirty jerry cans that have been filled with who knows what. Most of them are old oil cans. So I'm sure it wouldn't have done any good. BMWs, these ones at least, they don't have an inline fuel filter. They've only got this weird sock that goes on the fuel pump. And it's a pain in the ass to get it out. I mean, I remember I got it half out in Africa at some point. But that was just to put negative 12 volts on the pump to run it backwards. But if the weird little sock thing is completely clogged up, I'm guessing I'd get symptoms like this. But there's not much I can do about it just because removing the tank is such an ordeal. So worst case, the bike is just going to die. Best case is I'm going to have to limp it bucking and screaming and running horribly all the way back to England. Which means that just to be safe, I'm probably going to have to rush through everywhere and avoid some of the nicer places just so that I actually make it on time. Because breaking down is not really in my interests. I mean, think of the recovery costs of this. So yeah, I'm gonna have to do a bit of thinking and reacting to whatever is going to happen to me in the next few thousand kilometers. It was at this point, the bike issues were starting to frustrate me a little bit, in case you couldn't tell. I'm slowly beginning to think that the bike isn't going to make it. Oh, **** off, you stupid ******* truck. But we'll see. Oh, **** off. You're just so boring. Everything is just like, oh, we'll see. Puedo gloto. This is a problem. This is not a problem. You're just a dickhead. Your bike's ----. You're ----. And this is massively concerning for me. Mostly due to the fact that I'm so close to finishing this trip and the amount of failure I would feel if I broke down so close to home and wasn't able to finish the trip because of something like this, which is why it's probably in my best interests to fix it now. I can't get my fingers down there as well as the camera, but basically this bit popped off and this bit was just flopping around in there. And what I ended up doing is clipping that bit back together and putting this in properly. But one of the pins is a little bit blue and corroded. So I just kind of moved it in and out and lapped it in just to kind of wear away a bit of the corrosion and get some metal to metal contact. So we'll consider that one fixed just in time for the Nürburgring. Seems OK. It's only been like 20 kilometers this morning, but I'm sure it'll rear its ugly head if it's going to. But this could be problem solved. Yeah, just had to get a shot of that. So bike finally fixed. Chances of completing this trip rapidly increasing. And then I see this. This is a War Memorial monolith that I'm not even going to attempt to pronounce. So here it is on screen. And from a distance, it looks walkable. But as I walk towards it, it got rapidly bigger and the hill got rapidly steeper. And by the time you reach the top wearing all your motorbike gear and your boots that aren't very good for walking in, you feel like you're about to have a heart attack. But since this is just past the border from Serbia, it's probably a good time to mention I'm now in Bosnia. Now, Croatia surprised me a little bit. And in preparation, I went on a forum. And the next part of my trip is coordinated by random people on a forum. And I basically said, I'm going to Croatia. What should I do? And one of the suggestions was this place. So I did it purely off the internet suggestion. Yeah, the weather's really closed in a bit now. It's kind of taken my enjoyment out of it. Get like, I don't know, halfway and then I'll find a hotel. I don't really feel like camping today. And I've got a lot of washing to do as well. So I'll see if they can manage that for me as well. One thing I do like about being back in Europe, though, is there's much more sort of camaraderie about the bikers around here. I mean, everyone's sort of waving at each other, which, you know, a little bit mincey, let's be honest. But, you know, everyone's friendly and like everyone who every time I've stopped at the side of the road, someone's come over and been like, oh, is everything OK? But if you do that in Australia, you know, nothing would happen. No one sort of acknowledges you on a bike. It's just like, yeah, kind of cold. But it's nice. I'm sure it'll get better as I get further in as well. So that was quite good. But the cliff top road that follows it all the way up the length of the country is something you'll never experience unless you've actually been there. It was ******* phenomenal. I think this is the bit that I'm going to remember as my highlight of Croatia. I've got some non-royalty free music playing. I've got my kangaroo pouch full of snakes that I'm munching on. What a ******* wonderful day. Hey, guys, Roadside Cooking here. I can't even remember what I bought, so this is going to be shocking. A bread thing. That. That. And I won't use that. What's in here? Oh, that'll do. It's time to offend some Italians and call this roadside pizza. Bellissimo, my friend. Sorry, I'm in a bullying mood. Anyway, there is purpose to this. I've chosen this route because it goes to this place. Another name I'm not going to embarrass myself by saying. And this abandoned military base is essentially a hollowed out mountain with a bunch of roads through it. And I don't mean a few paths. I mean kilometers of roads underground within a mountain. And you can just drive in there. So I did. Mysteries. This is ******* amazing. My mind's a bit blown right now. This is so ******* cool. I wonder how far you can go just riding underground. I want to turn off my lights. But you can't on a BMW. I'm in Fallout 4. I'm going to find a bunch of perfect place to drop your bike, isn't it? Let's pretend that didn't happen. What happens if you turn left here? Oh, yes, of course. Trampi. Who else? Oh, better get me some of that. Any goth pussy in here? So, Croatia. Almost done. So you can do this and press that so you can find out what happens in the next episode, which is the last episode. Yes.