I was tantalisingly close now, but also firmly out my element. Although I failed to spot my companions from yesterday, I do luckily meet another racer on the stairwell to disembark the ferry, and we team up for the last leg.





Albanian border formalities were minimal: with British citizenship I can enter visa-free, and there were no questions, just a scan of my passport.

The first ATM I spot furnished me with a single 5000 lek note. This is a closed currency so I couldn't obtain any beforehand; thus I paid a hefty 800 lek for the privilege. This at least makes the maths simple; the transaction ran me £49.71 so each lek is essentially a great British penny.

I knew a bus depot could be found across a footbridge, so we just had to run a gauntlet of beggars and even more persistent taxi drivers (it was quite impossible to explain that travelling with them would void our race).


Bus ???
Operator: ???
Departure: Durres ??:?? (scheduled) 09:30 (actual)
Arrival: Tirana ??:?? (scheduled) 10:04 (actual)
Journey time: 34m







Don't expect price lists or timetables here - you find a bus with your desired destination in the window, take a seat, optionally buy some bananas from the guy who is providing catering, wait for seats to fill up sufficiently for departure to look profitable, then pay whatever the asking price is once in motion.

I had heard that euros would be acceptable, but it's a good job we got lek as (not unreasonably) that's all that counted today. The fare was 680; I've no idea how typical that is.

We had sat for 20 minutes before leaving, but the run from Durres to Tirana was a mere 35 minutes, that passed in deep travel geek conversation and angry traffic noises (the view blotted out by curtains offering some respite from already soaring temperatures).


Tirana's “North and South Albania bus station” is about 6km from the final checkpoint; taxis would now be fair game, but having got all this way by proper public transport I didn't want to use one. The buses were incomprehensible to me, but my new partner knew where to wait at least, and we found several other teams at the same spot.

I don't know how they ascertained that the first unnumbered, destination-less bus was wrong but the next to arrive was right, but I trusted the herd and boarded with everyone else. Payment is again handled during transit, and was a bargain 40lek.

Reaching central Tirana took almost 40 minutes, and the route had no resemblance to any bus line Google maps knew about. Still, we eventually spotted landmarks - first, helpfully, was my hotel, and later the iconic pyramid - and all hopped out at a stop that seemed closest.

No one set off at a dash, and instead we all strolled amicably to the finish line - the gardens of a co-working space, Coolab. There we found several other racers - including, somehow, the ones I had met yesterday - enjoying beers and water.




Their welcoming applause summoned the event organiser, James, who logged our times, verified our evidence for unstaffed checkouts, then dished out medals.






And so, suddenly, it was done: I had made the Albanian connection! I don't have my exact timing yet, but it was just shy of a full 7 days from London to Tirana, roughly midday Saturday to midday Saturday. But I do have the final tally of the travel stats I’ve been logging each evening, which ended up as follows:


Miles travelled: 2384
Countries visited: 8 (UK, BE, DE, CH, AT, IT, SM, AL)
Additional countries transited: 1 (FR)
Trains: 20
Time on trains: 42h03m
Buses: 4
Time on buses: 4h07m
Ferries: 1
Time on ferries: 9h08m
Total travel time: 55h18m


I should note that these exclude local travel at checkpoints: bussing to and from my Bruges Airbnb (seemingly so long ago!), between Tenero and the Contra Dam, and crossing Tirana. Otherwise I feel I'd also need to log all everything I did by foot too (Graz checkpoint being quite a slog from the HauptBahnhof).


I spent an hour at the checkpoint chatting away, and latter that evening we all regrouped at a cocktail bar for the awards ceremony. This was a wonderful opportunity to catch up with everyone I'd met at the dam, and to discover the stories of other racers who'd taken completely different routes through Germany or Romania. Everyone seemed to have had an experience, and I think most of us would do it again!


I had two nights in Tirana (at the excellent Marriott) before flying back to the UK on Monday. But as I've belatedly penned these last two posts on the plane, and am posting them from a train to Devon, I think perhaps I'll end the tale here.

I'll be back to share the details of the amazing achievements of the more competitive racers, but for now, thanks to those of you who stuck with my more modest adventures to the end - and apologies for keeping you waiting on some of the updates!