The car journey Cyprus to England

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Setting the scene - October 2010

A quick update first, we have now been living in Pegeia (pronounced Peyia)since December, 2009. We had a heatwave over this summer and enjoyed several of our friends and family visiting for holidays from more Northerly climes.

When we left the UK and took four months to drive over to Cyprus, the car was only one year old and did not require it's first (UK) MOT until 18 October, 2010. At which time, as we did not wish to register it in Cyprus, it would no longer have valid insurance.

As the summer of 2010 rushed past Pat and I had a discussion and decided that our only sensible option was to drive the car back to England, sell it, fly back and purchase a car locally. This would then be Cypriot plated and could be insured in Cyprus.

At the time of making our decision we already had plans for a weeks holiday in Egypt from 13 September, 2010 followed by a week in England catching up with friends & family. We also had a walk to organise and lead on 4 October, 2010. That left us with the date of leaving as the 5 October and giving us until the 18th to get back to England - 13 days.

From conversations over time with various people, we understood it was about one weeks journey to drive from Cyprus to England. We had a window of greater than that, so hopefully more than enough time.

The decision making process took us about 20 minutes and once this was completed we then commenced research into various matters to help the journey. I say “we”, this is actually Pat’s talent, and she did the knowledge seeking.

The journey would be undertaken as follows:-

Republic of Cyprus (ROC)
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC)
Turkey
Bulgaria
Romania
Hungary
Austria
Germany
France
England

There are some other route options but for various reasons, our security and politics included, we chose this route.

MONDAY 4th OCTOBER 2010.

We had packed and readied most of our belongings for the journey over the weekend, prior to leaving.

These we gathered downstairs by the front door.

We had booked a car service for the Friday before, but unbeknownst to us, and being away hadn't helped, it turned out to be Cyprus Independence day and everything was shut. I shan't tell you what I thought of the garage for letting me book in for that day!

We set off for our walk at 1540 to meet everyone down at Hearns bookshop, Coral Bay.

We were all gathered and set off for Akoursos at 1615, the walk started slightly earlier than usual as we didn't want to run into any problems with losing the light as the evenings were drawing in.

The walk was all the way up a mountain and then all the way down; the best way to do a walk, not the other way round as sometimes happens.

We finished after two hours and headed off to Astrofegia for our planned meal.

We had had some great takeaways here, but never sat and ate in the restaurant, so a little bit of a question mark, we had a Meze for 16 people and they did us proud. 14 Euros per head and the food kept coming and coming. A good meal.

Replete, we got home and packed the car ready for an early start.

I had made a note of the mileage on the car; 29392 miles.

Tuesday 5th October, 2010.

The alarm was set for 0515 hours, we were both awake when the alarm went off.

Quickly showered and dressed, a cup of coffee, final tidy up of the house, and we left just before 0600 hours.

There was heavy traffic into Nicosia as we arrived around 0800 and we got through to the Aghios Dometios border crossing at 0830 hours.

The ROC border was a non-event, we drove past the gatehouse but didn‘t even see anyone.

Then to TRNC side, stopped the car and purchased car insurance for one month €25.00, took but a few minutes.

Then to passport control and received the usual stamped pieces of paper. This is so you don’t have stamps in your passport that might upset the Greek Cypriots. Didn’t take long, we were through our first hurdle with no problems, as expected.

Next drove up to Girne (Kyrenia) which is approx 20 kms and doesn't take long. They have speed camera's on this side and everyone slows down, so they must work!

Made our way round to the Port and arrived by 1000, in really good time for the ferry.

However when we tried to book the Ferry, we encountered our first obstacle. In order to book on the ferry they needed the yellow entry form for the car, which we had received from TRNC Customs on the way in nearly two years ago. We didn't have this form and advised him that we had had it stolen in a burglary.

We tried to talk our way around the problem and he made a phone call to the Customs office, who said we needed the form.

The booking clerk advised that we could get a copy from Customs in Nicosia.

This was obviously a blow but the implication was that the copy could be easily gotten from the Nicosia Customs office and still make it back in time for the sailing today. How wrong that was!

So we hurried back to Nicosia (20 kilometres)and tried to find Customs, sadly we were unable to find it and the Cyprus mobiles weren't working (this is something TRNC does to get the ROC backs up and I‘m sure ROC does the same for TRNC mobiles)and couldn't figure out the international dialling codes for TRNC for our UK mobile to phone the booking office. So we drove back up to Kyrenia (another 20 kilometres), got better directions then headed back (a further 20 kilometres)and this time found the Customs office.

They found their copy of the paperwork - which I have to say astonished me. After discussing what had happened to our copy of the form and our circumstances, she advised that she wasn’t able to just give us a copy of the form, but we would have to get a police report to confirm paperwork was missing. She also mentioned something about an In & Out form, which I didn’t really follow, as this didn’t mean anything to me.

We asked where the nearest Police station was and were given some directions.

Our frustration level had by now increased even further as another obstacle had been added.

We drove off and tried to find the Police station, stopped at one stage and asked in a small shop, a barbers, a nice guy Ahmed, who spoke English gave us more directions.

Now deeper into Nicosia found a police station, told them our story on reception. They said we needed a different office, gave us more directions. This fortunately wasn’t to far from the first station.

At the next police station, told our story at reception, again, he made a call to someone, and we were told to come back in the afternoon, between 1600 hours and 1700 hours. We were going outside when the guy told us it would probably be OK to come back at 1530. We were also told about stamps that would be needed for the paperwork and that these could be purchased at various kiosks, he pointed one out to us just across the road.

We had some time to kill and we headed towards a bus station we had seen which had a Parking sign. Not sure where the parking was, but we pulled off the road, and did the usual parking Cypriot style,…wherever you wanted!

We got some Turkish Lire (YTL) from an ATM, so that we had some cash. Pat spotted a fast food restaurant, a Kentucky chicken type place, the Califorian (sic), cost 25 YTL.

We found a Post Office in the dingy bus station and purchased our 7 YTL stamp, for the paperwork.

After wandering around a little we went back to the car, sat, then headed back to the second Police station.

Got back at 1530 hours, went through and talked to a very nice guy. He told us we were in the wrong place, for what we wanted. He phoned through to the other police station, the first one we went to, and gave us a name of who to go and see. So off again back to the first police station.

Explained our situation, gave our details, and the 7 YTL stamp, had to wait 10 minutes while it was typed up and we then got our form.

We mentioned about the in and out form and he pointed round the corner but that the office was shut until the morning.

We shot back to the Customs office and gave the lady the form, she had advised there would be a penalty, and did some calculations came up with a figure of 2280 YTL (approx GBP1100) which of course took the wind out of our sails.

After some discussion she advised that it could be reduced if we could prove we had paid UK car tax, I said we could and that it was in the car now. This would reduce it by half to 1140 YTL (approx 550 GBP). Also if we could prove our time in TRNC with the in & out form and our staying in ROC.

At this stage it was getting towards 1700 and she said the office was closing, she wasn't very well suffering with a cold and was losing patience with us a little.

I asked her what time the office opened - 0800 - and told her we would be sleeping in the car out there and see her then.

We left the office somewhat downhearted. Drove from the office and parked up to discuss our options, which were nil other than paying the penalty and getting the car back to UK. So we worked out what we needed to do, decided to check the time the Police station opened, raid the cash machines, get more stamps.

Went back to the first police station they opened at 0800 hours.

We then went to a cash machine and went through our various cards and got enough cash to pay the penalty. Also visited the kiosk pointed out to us earlier and got three lots of 7YTL stamps which he charged us 24 YTL - 1 YTL commission for each stamp!

We needed to stop somewhere for the night and decided that maybe Nicosia wasn’t our best option, and that as it wasn’t far away we would stay in Kyrenia.

So we headed back that way (20 kilometres, we were getting to know this road!).

We parked in the centre and walked down to the Harbour area, wandering around looking for a suitable hotel.

We walked past the Dome hotel, which looked up-market, therefore expensive, but thought what the hell, and we had nothing to lose by asking the price.

Went in and they said normally 200 YTL but could offer 180 YTL (90 GBP) and we went for it.

We walked back to the car and moved it to the rear of the hotel.

Took our stuff up to the room and decided on a necessary sundowner. We had an Efes beer and diet coke in the bar, overlooking the North coast of Cyprus with Turkey off in the distance.

We had eaten a meal at lunchtime and so finished our previously prepared sandwiches in the room - Cheese and Marmite, with crisps and a banana. We read for a while and had lights out by 2000 hrs.

We texted my father to say we weren't on the ferry today, but hopefully tomorrow.

We both had a fairly good night sleep, mostly probably through the stress and exhaustion of the day.

As an aside I had read previously that the Dome Hotel was originally Greek Cypriot and that there was something about suing all the people who stayed there, so watch this space.....

This was day one and so far could only described as being full of a series of lows.

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Photos

Kyrenia
The Calypso