An early start this morning for a number of reasons the first being if we couldn't get through the Albanian border we would have time to re route, if we did get through then we knew the route we were taking was a long ride and given the road conditions that we have experienced already this trip we knew that it would take far longer than the predicted 6 hours and we were right.
Also we didn't want to ride in the hottest part of the day.
The roads were as expected and a mixed bag of brand new tarmac courtesy we think of Saudia Arabia, as a new pipeline is being installed the length of the country which is funding the development of Albania.
We stopped for breakfast at 9:00 after already doing 3 hours, at a hotel and camping place outside of Erseke and Colin spent 30 minutes chatting with an Albanian man called Danny, who had been living in America for 25 years in the security business(!) putting the world to rights! When Colin said he was from near Manchester in England, the predicted response of Manchester United was given, there then followed a length discussion over the merits of different football teams, I thought Colin did very well as he knows nothing about football, his brother would be impressed with him. Colin did have to refuse the offer of joining him in a beer