London to Auckland

In the last post we looked at the route through the rivers of Europe. The Danube-Black Sea Canal in Romania saves around 400km of riding on the Danube River as the canal cuts into the Black Sea at Constanta.

On the above map the Danube is blue and the canal is red. The Black Sea is quite a large sea so we expect the riding there will be quite weather dependant. It could get quite rough which will be a wakeup call after the relative calm of the rivers. We’ll head south down the coasts of Romania and Bulgaria and then head into Turkish waters. From Constanta to Istanbul in Turkey is a distance of around 400km which we would expect to cover in a day in good conditions. To get to Istanbul we will have to pass through the Bosphorus(Istanbul Strait). We plan to stop for half a day to have a quick look at Istanbul and if maintenance is available for the PWCs we may stay longer.

From Istanbul we will head through the Mamara Sea  and the Dardanelles Strait to Gallipoli. We plan to stop at Gallipoli to pay our respects and then it will be on and out into the Mediterranean in between Turkey and Greece.

In the next installment we visit my favourite place in the World.