I woke up somewhere in Germany at a fuel station. Having the bus credit card means I'm going to be an ever present at fuel stops.

2am and Kev should be taking over. Apparently Jim though hadn't adjusted his watch and had somehow driven for 4 hours instead of 3. He had owl like eyes and cockatoo hair so we sent him to bed.

We put in just enough to get over the Austrian border but then found fuel was just as expensive there.

The bus seemed to be pulling a bit to the left as I took us from Vienna to the Hungarian border. It was suprisingly flat! We cooked bacon and eggs in the carpark of a Hungarian strip club.

At the next fuel stop Bill found out why it was pulling left. We had a flat. The inner tyre, hence we hadn't spotted it. With a good team effort we had the wheel off, the new one hauled down from the terrace, the safety rail broken and a cup of tea made. We were back on the road within 30 minutes. We'll have to get that tyre fixed though, it makes our card table on the terrace a bit wobbly.

The Hungary/Serbia border was the next challenge facing us. We were ushered out of the EU briefly by a sour faced Hungarian woman and greeted in to Serbia by a friendly policeman. He pointed me towards a building and told me to get insurance for the bus. I then found out credit cards were no use. A frantic whip round on the bus produced the 290 euros, just. I hurried back to the bus clutching the hugely expensive piece of paper and we were off again in the gloom of a damp Serbian twilight. > The rough plan was to find a hotel in Belgrade. For financial reasons we lowered our expectations and pulled in to a Serbian truck stop. Why pay for beds if we have beds on the bus ? We even found it had showers!

There was a wedding going on in the hotel/restaurant next door. A lively affair with a truly awful 5 piece brass band. It sounded like Serbian heavy metal. The beer and food were good value but I can't recommend Macedonian wine I'm afraid.

I slept well on the bus, apart from Eileen snoring like a pig. I was told the following morning that we had actually formed a duet. I can't believe that.

In the morning I set off on foot to track down a cash machine. I asked a chap for directions and if he spoke English. "Deutche" he replied.

This could be fun. The limit of my German is "Wombat" and "Look out!". I showed him a credit card and he pointed to the building I was outside of. Phew.

So, on the road again heading south through the drizzle. I'm expecting to drive somewhere in Bulgaria and hopefully if all goes well we shall get to the bottom of Turkey by tomorrow night.