Does 9am count as a sleep-in? Well, it probably would if that was the real time. Unfortunately, we didn't realise that Romania was in a different time zone and 9 am local time was really only 8 am body clock time. Never mind - we would be back to body clock time as soon as we crossed over the border into Hungary just 150 km up the road.

Still no mountains or rivers to ride beside today but to make up for the lack of scenery we had great weather all the way. Our first stop for the day was actually at the Hungarian border. This should be our last formal, document check border crossing as from now on we will travel through the Schengen Area for the rest of our European trip. The Schengen Area is made up of 26 European states that have officially abolished all passport and border control at their shared borders. So no more officious border guards to deal with!!

Our border crossing today took longer than any of the others, about 50 minutes in total. Not because we had any major problems, there were just long lines of traffic waiting to get through. While in the line, a lady called out to us through the window in her van - she was holding a bottle of Bundaburg Ginger Beer - now you don't see that every day in Romania! After a chat we discovered she was Romanian living in Austria and had a daughter living in Melbourne. She later jumped out of her car and ran over to Kerrie to get a selfie. All because of a bottle of ginger beer.

When we finally reached the front of the queue our Registration papers for the bike were a bit of a mystery to the officials both on the Romanian and the Hungarian control points. After both officials consulted with their respective bosses, we were waved through with a smile and a passport stamp. We then had to stop to buy the Vignette (road tax) required for travel in Hungary - 1470 Florints about $7.30 for 10 days. We didn't mind paying the road tax at all because the 150 km of motorway to Budapest was a magnificent road.

Still no mountains or rivers in Hungary but the landscape had changed from agricultural to forested land with a variety of trees almost all the way to Budapest.

Before we even went to our apartment we had to find the Triumph Dealer as we have our bike booked in for its 40,000 km service on Monday. Even though it was closed we got our bearings and it should be an easy drop off on Monday morning.

We had booked an apartment about 700m from the Danube River and soon discovered that our street was 'party central' on Saturday night with many groups of "Hens" and "Bucks" sewing their wild oats before tying the knot. Most had British accents. We found the 'Caravan Food' stalls just up our street and enjoyed a 'Night Quarter' experience for our first Hungarian meal.

Off to explore the city tomorrow.