The Long and Winding Road: Our Gumball 3000 Adventure Continues

We're currently sitting at the entrance to the EU, with 4.2 kilometers from the border still ahead of us. We've been driving for what feels like an eternity, and our car is starting to show signs of wear and tear. The truck drivers have kindly helped us out by moving forward to create a gap for us to drive through, but it's clear that we're in for a long night.

As we approach the border crossing, I can feel my anxiety levels rising. We've had our fair share of close calls and frustrating delays already, and I'm not sure what to expect next. The truck driver who helped us out earlier has now asked the trucks in front of us to move forwards again, but it's clear that this is going to be a long wait. The delay so far has been around 10 minutes, but I know that time can fly when you're waiting for something as mundane as a border crossing.

I've got my eyes on the clock, and we still have an early start tomorrow. We need to find some fuel soon, or risk sleeping in the car with no fuel at the entrance to a petrol station. The thought of it sends shivers down my spine - it's not exactly the most pleasant prospect. And to make matters worse, we're now crossing into Romania, which means we'll have to deal with all the usual bureaucratic red tape that comes with international travel.

As we approach the bridge that marks the entrance to Romania, I can see that there are a lot of trucks waiting in line ahead of us. It's clear that this is going to be a long wait, and I'm not looking forward to it one bit. The truck drivers are getting frustrated, and it's starting to get tense. I just want to get through this crossing as quickly as possible and get on with the rest of our adventure.

We've finally made it through the border crossing, but it's been a long and arduous process. We were stamping our passports for what felt like an eternity, and I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. The good news is that we're now technically in Romania, which means we'll have to navigate the roads here without the hassle of international travel. But at least we've got a break from all the bureaucracy and red tape.

As we pull up to the petrol station, I'm greeted by an interesting sight - rows and rows of trucks lined up waiting for fuel. It's like they're all stuck in some kind of surreal dream world. The driver looks at me with a mixture of annoyance and confusion, and asks us to stop and wait our turn. It's not exactly what we were hoping for when we set out on this adventure.

We've been driving for 16 hours now, and I'm starting to feel the effects. We still haven't had lunch or dinner, and my stomach is starting to protest. The fuel station is our best chance of getting some sustenance, but it's also a reminder that we're not exactly well-prepared for this adventure. As we queue up to buy our vignettes and fuel, I just want to get through this as quickly as possible.

The GT Black Series has performed admirably so far - it's been driven in Hungary, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, and now Romania. It's still going strong, but I'm starting to feel the strain of all the driving. I know that we've got a lot more adventures planned for this trip, including some famous roads in Romania and beyond.

As I sit here writing this, I can feel my eyelids starting to droop. We're due to head off at 3am, which means I'll have only three hours of sleep tonight. It's not exactly the most pleasant prospect, but at least we've got a good night's rest before us tomorrow.

Well, that's it for today's adventure - or rather, what's left of it after a long and eventful day. We'll be back with more updates from our journey as soon as possible, so stay tuned. For now, I'm off to bed, exhausted but exhilarated by the day's events.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi guys I'm shmee hello and welcome back to the channel where today marks the start of another crazy adventure we have a whole rally ahead of us you could say from here in beautiful Porto Montenegro just take a look at these views and the lineup of Mega Yachts here in the ports but having finished Gumball 3000 from Edinburgh all the way down six different schmimobiles over six days the AMG GT Black Series was my car of choice for the last leg because of what we're doing now like we had go ball in the support vehicle up to Edinburgh to the start we now have the traditional home ball to get us back home from Gumball 3000 except with a Twist because along the way we've got a lot planned and today is effectively another Gumball leg we have a whole full day of driving ahead of us through three other countries or into three other countries which means some border crossings some very sketchy places to drive through from what I've been told but we're going to be getting off from here in Montenegro Crossing into Serbia I've never been there before then Crossing into Bulgaria I've never been there before either and then into Romania where of course we finished the Gumball in 2016 a few years back but this car has been around the world all through Europe it's been out to the Middle East to Dubai to Abu Dhabi it's also been all the way around the USA in fact to 29 States and DC when we had our Mega Adventure so it's the car of choice to continue this Global tour if you will and today is home ball let's see how this goes oh well the guys are here now we've loaded everything up and we're about to depart but before we do something has happened while the car's been here in Montenegro which is frustrating have a look at this on the wheels my valve caps have been pinched I didn't know that was a thing people still did but all four have gone from the GT Black Series so stop one is to find some new ones the Ferrari still has theirs the G63 as it happens which is from Sweden has also had them stolen because we've had a look at the cars down here you wouldn't expect surrounded by Mega Yachts like this that your valve caps get nabbed but hey we look back at some pictures they were on it when we were on stickering it yesterday and they were gone a little bit later in the afternoon and the car didn't move in the meantime so 100 they were stolen from right here on the car or up there on the car and yeah weird anyway we're gonna get started now they're gonna head onwards they've got a two-day Drive 24 25 hours to get that back home we've got 13 hour drive ahead of us today and then obviously many many many many many more hours because technically we're heading slightly further from home than we are right now so in the car we go let's get this journey underway they're off they're going see you guys they've got reverse Gumball well they've got their own home ball they're kicking off but for us it's time to go with this I genuinely can't believe that this is the first time in my life I've had some battle caps stolen but we are driving out from the port here it is time to go it's time to make a move and there's a particularly nasty bump actually just at the end in front of us here thankfully they've opened the gate it's gonna scrape for sure there we go oh that's horrible thank you for the people who waited on us through obviously the cars like this here have stood out quite a bit Porto Montenegro is an unbelievable little Enclave just this area so I'm quite surprised that valve caps gets on I did have like a Mercedes logo on the end of them but they're not particularly expensive and theft is that that's not what I would expect especially considering that this car's basically been around the world and it took until here for them to go uh we will be able to get some new ones in fact I had the car washed yesterday just around the corner as a local car wash I'm gonna head straight there and see if they've got something for us this is where all the gumball cars were loaded yesterday that's the last time we'll see that Gumball flag we've gone we've driven past so let's head up this way get this journey started it's a beautiful day but like I said we are heading today through Serbia firstly well we've got like an hour or two in Montenegro then into Serbia border crossing should be fine we've got the registration docks the green card insurance we've obviously got passports and everything else that you need then I've been told that there are lots of police that might pull you over or try and pull you over for the wrong reasons and therefore you should know where the local police stations are so we've done some research and we're going to be ready for that and that you should just keep driving until you get to a police station so hopefully we're not going to get pulled over and then of course we enter Bulgaria and Romania uh where I suppose things might slightly normalize a totally new routes for me I've been to Bucharest before with Gumball but I've certainly never been into either of um Serbia or Bulgaria so that's a brand new experience ahead this has already gone wrong it's a Sunday that's a tire shop but they're closed oh dear I didn't think about that I didn't think about that at all um what does that mean we do what do we do because I don't really want to drive a few thousand miles in Dusty countries without valve caps that's not ideal because TPMS sensors are not cheap this has just become a really big problem out of nothing such a petty little thing but now it's like how how do we fix this time to get my Google on I'm pulling into a petrol station in the hope that this is going to have something I have no idea I've never actually had to buy valve caps on the road so learning as we go here but that's part of the car just here and pop inside and go and have a quick look well unfortunately absolutely no luck here a bit of a language barrier anyway but that's a little don't hold my door off um yeah let's maybe at a Motorway I don't know if we're going to be going along any Motorway anywhere this could very quickly become a little bit of a problem today probably not but give it a few more days of driving and um yeah I don't really know hit by a truck here it's gonna have to go with the flow a bit on this one and um see what we can find along the way what am I doing with my hands I have no idea this direction and then it says 11 and a half hours 761 kilometers that is a proper Gumball stint and a half that's a lot of border crossings a lot of sitting in traffic jams fingers crossed it's all going to go fine without having to give any extra money for random fines and things that we don't quite understand I guess the last time we see the gumball Livery for now f8 sitting in a bit of a traffic jam here as we're trying to figure out from the gumball group how we solve this and whether anybody has a solution but this place is currently in basic gridlock with some roadworks going on hey a chimney in kinetic yellow like mine used to be probably a good car for around here to be honest small streets rough roads not bad this petrol station looks a little bit more substantial so I'm gonna I don't even know where we're gonna Park but I'm gonna Park here and just pop in I have no idea if you can buy these things at petrol stations but let's see there's an air machine so if there's an air machine there might be some valve caps back in a sec I think this is wishful very Wishful he thought I should try the next gas station back in the direction we've come from so that would be the one we just went to um yeah don't really know we're about to go through 35 000 kilometers today as it happens which is a big number for a car like this and if you're wondering just turn off the music while we've got the action cams out that is in preparation to just have them rolling a little bit later on when who knows what's going to happen we're driving past tivat airport and look at this filled with private jets my word there are like 10 there that's cool those will be gumballers and the yacht owners and probably some other people as well there's some nice planes around but basically very small airport we've just driven past the place that says it's called Auto Service and it looked open so I'm gonna pull in here this is a petrol station the auto service place is next to it let me just pull up here and see if we're going to get any luck at this one see if we can find something that doesn't look open in the slightest unfortunately and we've not had any luck so oh music always does that when you've just stepped into the car I guess we're gonna have to give up on this one for a moment and see what happens a little bit later on though the guy said on the other side of the road but I'm pretty sure that's just a car wash what we can see and it doesn't look like anything more than a car wash so ah game over oh nice G63 probably this is a cool part of the world lots of nice cars around right let's go this way slowly past here have a little look just Car Wash just a car wash oh no it is it is look there's a shop let's come through maybe maybe you never know you never know oh they could do let me go and have a look well the good news is that I've got four valve caps they very kindly had some and he just grabbed some and he didn't even want charging I gave him a note anyway but this means we're not going to have dust issues magic magic how convenient is that huh I'm glad to have resolved that problem although I'm sure this is going to be a day that brings with it a few more problems along the journey I wasn't expecting views like this today look at this road obviously stuck behind a learner driver at the moment but look out to the right look at that wow the scenery here is stunning this is going to be a day of small roads along the coast for bits down here and then as we head across Serbia look at this look at the rock formations out there huh that is beautiful we've just driven past the place where I stopped with the LT FF and GT4 back in 2016 so that means right now in terms of not shipping or flying a car this is the furthest a car of mine has ever been driven away from home right now in like I say even that because I did technically transport it but we are driving it home so I'm going to count it as driven because we are a very very very long way away right now in very much a tourist town as you can see gonna make our way up this way and head a little bit further south before we start going Inland this is quite random but right in front of us is another British registered car that is a one series with a UK plate on it which is not what I was expecting to find kind of an hour or so south of Puerto Montenegro as this journey is rocking and rolling because we're a long way away from the UK right now like two and a half thousand miles or something it's a long long long journey out here would you look at this stretch of road going up the hill here this is absolutely Mega lovely tarmac albeit very dusty so quite slippy not gonna lie but look at this go past the Quarry here on the right this is awesome if it's a day of driving roads like this I am not gonna complain I've just realized a bit of a disaster pulling in because we need to fix this the nav has taken us a slightly different route and I didn't consider something the fastest route that it's picked for us is actually through Albania and I haven't got insurance for Albania so we're gonna have to drive back a long way back of the route that we've just been traveling down I don't know how far but I mean I don't mind driving that road again because that was good fun but it's certainly going to be quite a decent stretch oh this is not ideal um okay let's turn around start driving in the opposite direction enjoy this lovely bit of road but I don't currently know if it's 15 minutes back or if it's an hour back not ideal and normally I would have checked that kind of thing the day I didn't I feel a little bit stupid for it oh not good not good here's the long story short we could definitely have gone that way if it wasn't weekend because then I'd be able to call my insurance and try and arrange something but because it's the weekend we can't do that so what we are doing is taking this very very very very sketchy kind of one lane road that's going to take us back up to a place called bar and I want to say maybe 10 kilometers and then from there we can basically head in land so I think we've lost something like 45 minutes perhaps that kind of region anyway it's not ideal but we did get to see some cool scenery and drive on a lovely road so at the end of the day I'm glad to have done that and you never know what we might experience coming down here as well like what on Earth is this that we're about to drive past like what that's how random exploring can become I can't go off the road because I'm in a car that's way too low I don't know what we're gonna find I don't know where we are I do quite like exploring although in a car like this you didn't kind of want to know and you don't want to be left in an awkward situation well this happens you're driving along and the road just suddenly ends that's actually quite funny this is okay I mean it's not it's not ideal uh I think it's just some Road works it's quite funny because the road up to this point where we are right now has been really smooth and lovely um we're on the right route or at least we're on what we think is the right route at the moment we've probably lost about an hour I think it's around an hour but in that time God's drive on a pretty epic Road and went to about eight kilometers from the border with Albania so you win some you lose some it's going to be a really long day and there's another big bump here there's another bump here and then we're back on nice tarwak oh here we go we've just been driving on this completely brand new section of Highway that they're clearly continuing to build which was lovely superb one of the best roads I've ever driven on and this is where we have a split now technically going right here is the faster Direction on any nav and we've been looking at this quite extensively but going right down that side road there would be a route that then takes you very close to Kosovo and for today's purposes we don't really want to go too close to Kosovo in an AMG GT Black Series on a day with a very long drive when we're pretty tired so we're heading basically a little further north which according to the nav has a very sketchy section here of road at least and then adds about 16 17 minutes I think it said but I'll take the 17 minute I mean when we've got 10 hours to go 17 minutes isn't going to change anything and if it means that we're on a slightly safer route you've got to think about these things so that's what we're going to do go that way a little bit of off-roading not too bad then we are Unleashed we've got about an hour an hour and a quarter still in Montenegro before we get to the border with Serbia so before we cross the border we're going to start get a full tank of fuel so that we can kind of just go through one hit that's the plan at least 300 kilometers across five hours towards the Bulgaria border this is quite funny but also a secondary part of why we had to find some new valve caps earlier because this is exactly what you don't want basically the valve would just kind of get blocked by dust and then obviously it's going to ruin the sensors and blah blah blah blah anyway down here um this is not the normal environment for an AMG GT Black Series but that's the kind of thing I like cars are built to be driven they should be taken everywhere you should do everything with them and life's an adventure and this is the epitome of that where we are and what we're doing this looks like it's about to get a bit nastier are we going to be able to get through here there's a quite some big dips on the right hand side okay let's go to the left under the Rope yeah we're fine totally fine why am I doing this again we're currently in no man's land behind us is the exit from Montenegro so down below will be the entrance to Serbia not really sure what all of this is this Logistics and transport and stuff so down here I presume will be a Serbian border entrance well that's gone very wrong I'm not quite sure what they were going for there but we're stuck so I'm just gonna wait a moment yeah they'll pull forwards that's everybody heading back into Montenegro let's hope that we're not going to have any issues concerns stress at the Serbian border down in front of us look at this View we go through we've got some kind of Ravine running up through this Valley um obviously lots of freight but we're gonna hope that this works out as we hope it will doesn't make much sense but you know you know what I mean Republic of Serbia welcome I think that means we're in Serbia I've never been in Serbia before in my life and I'm here in the GT Black Series I hope this turns out to be a good idea the Border Point must still be in front of us the Customs side of it where we have to show the green card and all of that kind of documents to actually enter the country so let's see what happens we've crossed the border we're in Serbia and in fact it was quite funny the very nice chap at the border crossing was basically like when I've done everything stamp passports Etc can you just floor it so I floored it away from customers obviously you can't film there but that was quite funny anyway new country never been here excited a little bit nervous we've got about 300 kilometers something like that maybe it's 350 400 kilometers across Serbia which we're going to do just basically in one hit all the way through actually we're going to pop that back into comfort and basically enjoy the country and some beautiful scenery as we make our way through well Serbia so far is stunning there have been some floods recently so you have quite a lot of that kind of kind of there's modern trees and stuff that slid down onto the roads but it's a beautiful place to drive I mean roads like this endlessly so far Meandering up through the hills some unbelievable scenery and the only person we've spoken to here was the uh the Border officer who was super friendly so lovely lovely lovely experience to date this is awesome what a cool place to be driving look at this it's just endless Rolling Hills check out these views Castle just on the hill there I have no idea where he's at a hotel maybe it's even a hotel I have no idea where exactly we are but Serbia so far is stunning it's a beautiful beautiful evening it's gonna be dark before we have left the country for sure um it's five or six hours to drive all the way through but on these kind of Roads you won't see me complaining like I've missed this over the last week because we've been doing a lot of Motorway driving um there's an annoying amount of time spent behind trucks but again not that much we can do about it all I'm hoping is that when we do get to the border with Bulgaria later on um in the dark at night it's not going to be too hectic do longer wait like we had going into Montenegro Plus got to take this into account there's a time zone chain who adds an hour from here I don't know if it's Bulgaria or Romania it must be a Bulgaria um so that will make it a very very very late evening there are a lot of tunnels on this stretch which can obviously only be this thing is popping and banging like crazy it's also really dark in these times this thing sounds bigger it's like I've been saying there's a lot of times spent behind trucks basically waiting for gaps to go past that gap's a little bit too small unfortunately I probably could have done it but don't take chances there's a whole lot of overtaking and one funny thing check this on the wiper there's a bit of confetti stuck on it you probably should get out of it do that sort it out a little bit later I've just got to say a quick apology I might have messed up the microphone audio on the last couple of Clips because it wasn't where it should be and I'm gonna blame that on an exhausting week it's been completely knackering over the last well 10 days 12 days or so and my brain is not doing what it should do but we're in a tunnel again which is just fun and silly and all the good stuff anyway back on some twisty roads for this final 80 kilometers or so up ahead of us is the border to depart from Serbia and then enter Bulgaria so obviously we'll have to pop the camera away but this is literally our farewell from what has been a fabulous country to drive through honestly really enjoyed today here in Serbia it's been great we're through this is goodbye to Serbia I think on the right there is welcome to Bulgaria so let's go through it all again we've had a complete search of all of our luggage and everything it's taken like half an hour but we'll talk more about that in a moment and we're now into Bulgaria it has been um yeah a bit of a long process this I think we arrived at the other side about 45 minutes ago but we're now done paid the E vignette for where are we Bulgaria first time for me again in this country another that's two today two brand new countries for me to visit but we're gonna take it easy join the highway go fill up somewhere get some dinner because it's gone 10 o'clock or no does the clock Change here I don't even know maybe it's 11 o'clock here at night I am I don't know whether that's here or Romania but um we're on the road we're heading across Bulgaria for a short period and then into Romania this is not my idea of fun we're trying to join the motorway in Bulgaria you'll see there's a dip down there off the edge of the Sip Road and I can't drop the car down there we're clearly in a queue of trucks um who are I think that one's kindly helped us a little bit but don't think we can get through I don't know if I can chance this because basically we need to get to the left lane but getting to the left lane is going to be harder than you would think and we are basically on empty on the fuel which is also a disaster so I have no idea how long this might end up taking because we've got to wait until these guys Shuffle forward I I can't see how I can join the carriageway right now I I don't know how I can squeeze out there at all feeling very deflated because we've still got another border crossing out of Bulgaria into Romania it's already midnight we're 100 kilometers away and we've got no fuel and we've been to about five petrol stations and they were all closed already I should stop running this because that's not good it's gonna be a long night it's gonna be a very long night and we've got an early start tomorrow oh dear one of the truck drivers just kindly helped us and asked the trucks in front to move forwards and then the truck on our left closed the Gap immediately completely just no benefit for him to stop us going through and the truck driver then asked them to move forwards again and this all happened really quite quickly but I guess that was probably only a 10 minute delay but still still I I just today I just need it to end now we need to find some fuel I don't want to be sleeping in the car with no fuel at the entrance to a petrol station that would be really really really bad um oh that's an interesting squeeze here what is going on what is going on I mean it's obviously the Border but with 4.2 kilometers from the border this is the entrance to the EU and this is absurd this is like over here huh can't get my head around it we're now crossing the bridge we're technically in Romania these guys are all fed up because we're going way over the speed limit but hey it is what it is from here in theory I think we have a border crossing right in front of us and then it will just be like quick and easy way to know it's going to be a whole load of checking through the car again like we had at the last stop but hey we'll get there it will take as long as it takes we'll make our way through or hopefully catch our destination tonight Halo Romania Romania there we go we've entered Romania we are through with our stamps it wasn't too painful they didn't need to check everything but it is 1am I think we arrived here at about 12 so it has been an hour to get through that Crossing I would not recommend it at night that has not been Pleasant and there should be a petrol station up here and somewhere where we can buy vignettes and all that stuff I hope I hope I'm not supposed to have bought it before and I'm going to be in trouble for not doing so it's also 1am and I should point out at this moment in time that we have not had lunch or dinner and that is not a good combination and that's the text message saying welcome to Romania oh my goodness gracious man these are all the trucks who have hit their Taco Time or they've been in the queue and they have to just park and line up that's not fun that is not fun at all so we are gonna go for fuel and there are a couple of fuel stations up here so which one first let's see how this is gonna end up why is it so late it's not what you want when you've just finished Gumball 3000 and you're exhausted you're gonna have to excuse me for a very brief outro for this one it's 3am that means it was 17 hours ago because we've added an hour time zone change since we were on the jetty in Porto Montenegro we left about half an hour later so it's been 16 and a half hours on the road and that doesn't include like a lunch stop or anything it's been full on we had going in the wrong direction we've had extraordinarily frustrating border crossings the very very long wait for the Border Crossing into Romania and then arriving and finding a parking garage to pop the car away in in the city we're now in here in Romania I am tired beyond words we haven't had a night's sleep longer than about five or six hours for 10 days tonight with what we've got planned which is really exciting by the way is going to be like a three hour sleep three hours if I'm lucky because we've got to get up in the morning um yeah the GT Black Series has performed admirably it's now been to well driven in Hungary Croatia Montenegro Serbia Bulgaria and Romania which is really cool adding to being in the UAE and the USA et cetera Etc yeah time to lock the car head to bed and wrap up for today home ball has started and it's an adventure and this is just the beginning because here in Romania bears well let's just say a really cool very famous road to go and drive plus there's some other stuff which I'm going to keep under wraps for now but you're going to see very soon I'm exhausted thank you very much for watching guys I hope you've enjoyed this adventure from my valve caps being stolen the dust caps on the car being stolen having to track down some new ones through to just everything going wrong that can possibly go wrong on a road trip today was not as well planned as our days on the Gumball 3000 but that's it home ball begins thanks again and I'll see you soon cheershi guys I'm shmee hello and welcome back to the channel where today marks the start of another crazy adventure we have a whole rally ahead of us you could say from here in beautiful Porto Montenegro just take a look at these views and the lineup of Mega Yachts here in the ports but having finished Gumball 3000 from Edinburgh all the way down six different schmimobiles over six days the AMG GT Black Series was my car of choice for the last leg because of what we're doing now like we had go ball in the support vehicle up to Edinburgh to the start we now have the traditional home ball to get us back home from Gumball 3000 except with a Twist because along the way we've got a lot planned and today is effectively another Gumball leg we have a whole full day of driving ahead of us through three other countries or into three other countries which means some border crossings some very sketchy places to drive through from what I've been told but we're going to be getting off from here in Montenegro Crossing into Serbia I've never been there before then Crossing into Bulgaria I've never been there before either and then into Romania where of course we finished the Gumball in 2016 a few years back but this car has been around the world all through Europe it's been out to the Middle East to Dubai to Abu Dhabi it's also been all the way around the USA in fact to 29 States and DC when we had our Mega Adventure so it's the car of choice to continue this Global tour if you will and today is home ball let's see how this goes oh well the guys are here now we've loaded everything up and we're about to depart but before we do something has happened while the car's been here in Montenegro which is frustrating have a look at this on the wheels my valve caps have been pinched I didn't know that was a thing people still did but all four have gone from the GT Black Series so stop one is to find some new ones the Ferrari still has theirs the G63 as it happens which is from Sweden has also had them stolen because we've had a look at the cars down here you wouldn't expect surrounded by Mega Yachts like this that your valve caps get nabbed but hey we look back at some pictures they were on it when we were on stickering it yesterday and they were gone a little bit later in the afternoon and the car didn't move in the meantime so 100 they were stolen from right here on the car or up there on the car and yeah weird anyway we're gonna get started now they're gonna head onwards they've got a two-day Drive 24 25 hours to get that back home we've got 13 hour drive ahead of us today and then obviously many many many many many more hours because technically we're heading slightly further from home than we are right now so in the car we go let's get this journey underway they're off they're going see you guys they've got reverse Gumball well they've got their own home ball they're kicking off but for us it's time to go with this I genuinely can't believe that this is the first time in my life I've had some battle caps stolen but we are driving out from the port here it is time to go it's time to make a move and there's a particularly nasty bump actually just at the end in front of us here thankfully they've opened the gate it's gonna scrape for sure there we go oh that's horrible thank you for the people who waited on us through obviously the cars like this here have stood out quite a bit Porto Montenegro is an unbelievable little Enclave just this area so I'm quite surprised that valve caps gets on I did have like a Mercedes logo on the end of them but they're not particularly expensive and theft is that that's not what I would expect especially considering that this car's basically been around the world and it took until here for them to go uh we will be able to get some new ones in fact I had the car washed yesterday just around the corner as a local car wash I'm gonna head straight there and see if they've got something for us this is where all the gumball cars were loaded yesterday that's the last time we'll see that Gumball flag we've gone we've driven past so let's head up this way get this journey started it's a beautiful day but like I said we are heading today through Serbia firstly well we've got like an hour or two in Montenegro then into Serbia border crossing should be fine we've got the registration docks the green card insurance we've obviously got passports and everything else that you need then I've been told that there are lots of police that might pull you over or try and pull you over for the wrong reasons and therefore you should know where the local police stations are so we've done some research and we're going to be ready for that and that you should just keep driving until you get to a police station so hopefully we're not going to get pulled over and then of course we enter Bulgaria and Romania uh where I suppose things might slightly normalize a totally new routes for me I've been to Bucharest before with Gumball but I've certainly never been into either of um Serbia or Bulgaria so that's a brand new experience ahead this has already gone wrong it's a Sunday that's a tire shop but they're closed oh dear I didn't think about that I didn't think about that at all um what does that mean we do what do we do because I don't really want to drive a few thousand miles in Dusty countries without valve caps that's not ideal because TPMS sensors are not cheap this has just become a really big problem out of nothing such a petty little thing but now it's like how how do we fix this time to get my Google on I'm pulling into a petrol station in the hope that this is going to have something I have no idea I've never actually had to buy valve caps on the road so learning as we go here but that's part of the car just here and pop inside and go and have a quick look well unfortunately absolutely no luck here a bit of a language barrier anyway but that's a little don't hold my door off um yeah let's maybe at a Motorway I don't know if we're going to be going along any Motorway anywhere this could very quickly become a little bit of a problem today probably not but give it a few more days of driving and um yeah I don't really know hit by a truck here it's gonna have to go with the flow a bit on this one and um see what we can find along the way what am I doing with my hands I have no idea this direction and then it says 11 and a half hours 761 kilometers that is a proper Gumball stint and a half that's a lot of border crossings a lot of sitting in traffic jams fingers crossed it's all going to go fine without having to give any extra money for random fines and things that we don't quite understand I guess the last time we see the gumball Livery for now f8 sitting in a bit of a traffic jam here as we're trying to figure out from the gumball group how we solve this and whether anybody has a solution but this place is currently in basic gridlock with some roadworks going on hey a chimney in kinetic yellow like mine used to be probably a good car for around here to be honest small streets rough roads not bad this petrol station looks a little bit more substantial so I'm gonna I don't even know where we're gonna Park but I'm gonna Park here and just pop in I have no idea if you can buy these things at petrol stations but let's see there's an air machine so if there's an air machine there might be some valve caps back in a sec I think this is wishful very Wishful he thought I should try the next gas station back in the direction we've come from so that would be the one we just went to um yeah don't really know we're about to go through 35 000 kilometers today as it happens which is a big number for a car like this and if you're wondering just turn off the music while we've got the action cams out that is in preparation to just have them rolling a little bit later on when who knows what's going to happen we're driving past tivat airport and look at this filled with private jets my word there are like 10 there that's cool those will be gumballers and the yacht owners and probably some other people as well there's some nice planes around but basically very small airport we've just driven past the place that says it's called Auto Service and it looked open so I'm gonna pull in here this is a petrol station the auto service place is next to it let me just pull up here and see if we're going to get any luck at this one see if we can find something that doesn't look open in the slightest unfortunately and we've not had any luck so oh music always does that when you've just stepped into the car I guess we're gonna have to give up on this one for a moment and see what happens a little bit later on though the guy said on the other side of the road but I'm pretty sure that's just a car wash what we can see and it doesn't look like anything more than a car wash so ah game over oh nice G63 probably this is a cool part of the world lots of nice cars around right let's go this way slowly past here have a little look just Car Wash just a car wash oh no it is it is look there's a shop let's come through maybe maybe you never know you never know oh they could do let me go and have a look well the good news is that I've got four valve caps they very kindly had some and he just grabbed some and he didn't even want charging I gave him a note anyway but this means we're not going to have dust issues magic magic how convenient is that huh I'm glad to have resolved that problem although I'm sure this is going to be a day that brings with it a few more problems along the journey I wasn't expecting views like this today look at this road obviously stuck behind a learner driver at the moment but look out to the right look at that wow the scenery here is stunning this is going to be a day of small roads along the coast for bits down here and then as we head across Serbia look at this look at the rock formations out there huh that is beautiful we've just driven past the place where I stopped with the LT FF and GT4 back in 2016 so that means right now in terms of not shipping or flying a car this is the furthest a car of mine has ever been driven away from home right now in like I say even that because I did technically transport it but we are driving it home so I'm going to count it as driven because we are a very very very long way away right now in very much a tourist town as you can see gonna make our way up this way and head a little bit further south before we start going Inland this is quite random but right in front of us is another British registered car that is a one series with a UK plate on it which is not what I was expecting to find kind of an hour or so south of Puerto Montenegro as this journey is rocking and rolling because we're a long way away from the UK right now like two and a half thousand miles or something it's a long long long journey out here would you look at this stretch of road going up the hill here this is absolutely Mega lovely tarmac albeit very dusty so quite slippy not gonna lie but look at this go past the Quarry here on the right this is awesome if it's a day of driving roads like this I am not gonna complain I've just realized a bit of a disaster pulling in because we need to fix this the nav has taken us a slightly different route and I didn't consider something the fastest route that it's picked for us is actually through Albania and I haven't got insurance for Albania so we're gonna have to drive back a long way back of the route that we've just been traveling down I don't know how far but I mean I don't mind driving that road again because that was good fun but it's certainly going to be quite a decent stretch oh this is not ideal um okay let's turn around start driving in the opposite direction enjoy this lovely bit of road but I don't currently know if it's 15 minutes back or if it's an hour back not ideal and normally I would have checked that kind of thing the day I didn't I feel a little bit stupid for it oh not good not good here's the long story short we could definitely have gone that way if it wasn't weekend because then I'd be able to call my insurance and try and arrange something but because it's the weekend we can't do that so what we are doing is taking this very very very very sketchy kind of one lane road that's going to take us back up to a place called bar and I want to say maybe 10 kilometers and then from there we can basically head in land so I think we've lost something like 45 minutes perhaps that kind of region anyway it's not ideal but we did get to see some cool scenery and drive on a lovely road so at the end of the day I'm glad to have done that and you never know what we might experience coming down here as well like what on Earth is this that we're about to drive past like what that's how random exploring can become I can't go off the road because I'm in a car that's way too low I don't know what we're gonna find I don't know where we are I do quite like exploring although in a car like this you didn't kind of want to know and you don't want to be left in an awkward situation well this happens you're driving along and the road just suddenly ends that's actually quite funny this is okay I mean it's not it's not ideal uh I think it's just some Road works it's quite funny because the road up to this point where we are right now has been really smooth and lovely um we're on the right route or at least we're on what we think is the right route at the moment we've probably lost about an hour I think it's around an hour but in that time God's drive on a pretty epic Road and went to about eight kilometers from the border with Albania so you win some you lose some it's going to be a really long day and there's another big bump here there's another bump here and then we're back on nice tarwak oh here we go we've just been driving on this completely brand new section of Highway that they're clearly continuing to build which was lovely superb one of the best roads I've ever driven on and this is where we have a split now technically going right here is the faster Direction on any nav and we've been looking at this quite extensively but going right down that side road there would be a route that then takes you very close to Kosovo and for today's purposes we don't really want to go too close to Kosovo in an AMG GT Black Series on a day with a very long drive when we're pretty tired so we're heading basically a little further north which according to the nav has a very sketchy section here of road at least and then adds about 16 17 minutes I think it said but I'll take the 17 minute I mean when we've got 10 hours to go 17 minutes isn't going to change anything and if it means that we're on a slightly safer route you've got to think about these things so that's what we're going to do go that way a little bit of off-roading not too bad then we are Unleashed we've got about an hour an hour and a quarter still in Montenegro before we get to the border with Serbia so before we cross the border we're going to start get a full tank of fuel so that we can kind of just go through one hit that's the plan at least 300 kilometers across five hours towards the Bulgaria border this is quite funny but also a secondary part of why we had to find some new valve caps earlier because this is exactly what you don't want basically the valve would just kind of get blocked by dust and then obviously it's going to ruin the sensors and blah blah blah blah anyway down here um this is not the normal environment for an AMG GT Black Series but that's the kind of thing I like cars are built to be driven they should be taken everywhere you should do everything with them and life's an adventure and this is the epitome of that where we are and what we're doing this looks like it's about to get a bit nastier are we going to be able to get through here there's a quite some big dips on the right hand side okay let's go to the left under the Rope yeah we're fine totally fine why am I doing this again we're currently in no man's land behind us is the exit from Montenegro so down below will be the entrance to Serbia not really sure what all of this is this Logistics and transport and stuff so down here I presume will be a Serbian border entrance well that's gone very wrong I'm not quite sure what they were going for there but we're stuck so I'm just gonna wait a moment yeah they'll pull forwards that's everybody heading back into Montenegro let's hope that we're not going to have any issues concerns stress at the Serbian border down in front of us look at this View we go through we've got some kind of Ravine running up through this Valley um obviously lots of freight but we're gonna hope that this works out as we hope it will doesn't make much sense but you know you know what I mean Republic of Serbia welcome I think that means we're in Serbia I've never been in Serbia before in my life and I'm here in the GT Black Series I hope this turns out to be a good idea the Border Point must still be in front of us the Customs side of it where we have to show the green card and all of that kind of documents to actually enter the country so let's see what happens we've crossed the border we're in Serbia and in fact it was quite funny the very nice chap at the border crossing was basically like when I've done everything stamp passports Etc can you just floor it so I floored it away from customers obviously you can't film there but that was quite funny anyway new country never been here excited a little bit nervous we've got about 300 kilometers something like that maybe it's 350 400 kilometers across Serbia which we're going to do just basically in one hit all the way through actually we're going to pop that back into comfort and basically enjoy the country and some beautiful scenery as we make our way through well Serbia so far is stunning there have been some floods recently so you have quite a lot of that kind of kind of there's modern trees and stuff that slid down onto the roads but it's a beautiful place to drive I mean roads like this endlessly so far Meandering up through the hills some unbelievable scenery and the only person we've spoken to here was the uh the Border officer who was super friendly so lovely lovely lovely experience to date this is awesome what a cool place to be driving look at this it's just endless Rolling Hills check out these views Castle just on the hill there I have no idea where he's at a hotel maybe it's even a hotel I have no idea where exactly we are but Serbia so far is stunning it's a beautiful beautiful evening it's gonna be dark before we have left the country for sure um it's five or six hours to drive all the way through but on these kind of Roads you won't see me complaining like I've missed this over the last week because we've been doing a lot of Motorway driving um there's an annoying amount of time spent behind trucks but again not that much we can do about it all I'm hoping is that when we do get to the border with Bulgaria later on um in the dark at night it's not going to be too hectic do longer wait like we had going into Montenegro Plus got to take this into account there's a time zone chain who adds an hour from here I don't know if it's Bulgaria or Romania it must be a Bulgaria um so that will make it a very very very late evening there are a lot of tunnels on this stretch which can obviously only be this thing is popping and banging like crazy it's also really dark in these times this thing sounds bigger it's like I've been saying there's a lot of times spent behind trucks basically waiting for gaps to go past that gap's a little bit too small unfortunately I probably could have done it but don't take chances there's a whole lot of overtaking and one funny thing check this on the wiper there's a bit of confetti stuck on it you probably should get out of it do that sort it out a little bit later I've just got to say a quick apology I might have messed up the microphone audio on the last couple of Clips because it wasn't where it should be and I'm gonna blame that on an exhausting week it's been completely knackering over the last well 10 days 12 days or so and my brain is not doing what it should do but we're in a tunnel again which is just fun and silly and all the good stuff anyway back on some twisty roads for this final 80 kilometers or so up ahead of us is the border to depart from Serbia and then enter Bulgaria so obviously we'll have to pop the camera away but this is literally our farewell from what has been a fabulous country to drive through honestly really enjoyed today here in Serbia it's been great we're through this is goodbye to Serbia I think on the right there is welcome to Bulgaria so let's go through it all again we've had a complete search of all of our luggage and everything it's taken like half an hour but we'll talk more about that in a moment and we're now into Bulgaria it has been um yeah a bit of a long process this I think we arrived at the other side about 45 minutes ago but we're now done paid the E vignette for where are we Bulgaria first time for me again in this country another that's two today two brand new countries for me to visit but we're gonna take it easy join the highway go fill up somewhere get some dinner because it's gone 10 o'clock or no does the clock Change here I don't even know maybe it's 11 o'clock here at night I am I don't know whether that's here or Romania but um we're on the road we're heading across Bulgaria for a short period and then into Romania this is not my idea of fun we're trying to join the motorway in Bulgaria you'll see there's a dip down there off the edge of the Sip Road and I can't drop the car down there we're clearly in a queue of trucks um who are I think that one's kindly helped us a little bit but don't think we can get through I don't know if I can chance this because basically we need to get to the left lane but getting to the left lane is going to be harder than you would think and we are basically on empty on the fuel which is also a disaster so I have no idea how long this might end up taking because we've got to wait until these guys Shuffle forward I I can't see how I can join the carriageway right now I I don't know how I can squeeze out there at all feeling very deflated because we've still got another border crossing out of Bulgaria into Romania it's already midnight we're 100 kilometers away and we've got no fuel and we've been to about five petrol stations and they were all closed already I should stop running this because that's not good it's gonna be a long night it's gonna be a very long night and we've got an early start tomorrow oh dear one of the truck drivers just kindly helped us and asked the trucks in front to move forwards and then the truck on our left closed the Gap immediately completely just no benefit for him to stop us going through and the truck driver then asked them to move forwards again and this all happened really quite quickly but I guess that was probably only a 10 minute delay but still still I I just today I just need it to end now we need to find some fuel I don't want to be sleeping in the car with no fuel at the entrance to a petrol station that would be really really really bad um oh that's an interesting squeeze here what is going on what is going on I mean it's obviously the Border but with 4.2 kilometers from the border this is the entrance to the EU and this is absurd this is like over here huh can't get my head around it we're now crossing the bridge we're technically in Romania these guys are all fed up because we're going way over the speed limit but hey it is what it is from here in theory I think we have a border crossing right in front of us and then it will just be like quick and easy way to know it's going to be a whole load of checking through the car again like we had at the last stop but hey we'll get there it will take as long as it takes we'll make our way through or hopefully catch our destination tonight Halo Romania Romania there we go we've entered Romania we are through with our stamps it wasn't too painful they didn't need to check everything but it is 1am I think we arrived here at about 12 so it has been an hour to get through that Crossing I would not recommend it at night that has not been Pleasant and there should be a petrol station up here and somewhere where we can buy vignettes and all that stuff I hope I hope I'm not supposed to have bought it before and I'm going to be in trouble for not doing so it's also 1am and I should point out at this moment in time that we have not had lunch or dinner and that is not a good combination and that's the text message saying welcome to Romania oh my goodness gracious man these are all the trucks who have hit their Taco Time or they've been in the queue and they have to just park and line up that's not fun that is not fun at all so we are gonna go for fuel and there are a couple of fuel stations up here so which one first let's see how this is gonna end up why is it so late it's not what you want when you've just finished Gumball 3000 and you're exhausted you're gonna have to excuse me for a very brief outro for this one it's 3am that means it was 17 hours ago because we've added an hour time zone change since we were on the jetty in Porto Montenegro we left about half an hour later so it's been 16 and a half hours on the road and that doesn't include like a lunch stop or anything it's been full on we had going in the wrong direction we've had extraordinarily frustrating border crossings the very very long wait for the Border Crossing into Romania and then arriving and finding a parking garage to pop the car away in in the city we're now in here in Romania I am tired beyond words we haven't had a night's sleep longer than about five or six hours for 10 days tonight with what we've got planned which is really exciting by the way is going to be like a three hour sleep three hours if I'm lucky because we've got to get up in the morning um yeah the GT Black Series has performed admirably it's now been to well driven in Hungary Croatia Montenegro Serbia Bulgaria and Romania which is really cool adding to being in the UAE and the USA et cetera Etc yeah time to lock the car head to bed and wrap up for today home ball has started and it's an adventure and this is just the beginning because here in Romania bears well let's just say a really cool very famous road to go and drive plus there's some other stuff which I'm going to keep under wraps for now but you're going to see very soon I'm exhausted thank you very much for watching guys I hope you've enjoyed this adventure from my valve caps being stolen the dust caps on the car being stolen having to track down some new ones through to just everything going wrong that can possibly go wrong on a road trip today was not as well planned as our days on the Gumball 3000 but that's it home ball begins thanks again and I'll see you soon cheers\n"