At the time of writing this, Mark has no access to mobile data so updates have been limited.
His summary for the day is "I'm battered and sore but relieved to have made it into Romania. I arrived four hours after the customs deadline but I think the powers that be have been tracking my efforts."
While Mark has been out of signal and focused on crossing the border, I have been in close contact with many of the kind folk in Serbia who have continued to support him. There are so many people who have followed with interest and have offered every ounce of support that they could. The level of hospitality and consideration for Mark's welfare and success has been incredible and certainly reassuring for me. We can't thank them enough.
I've spoken to Igor a couple of times today. Igor and his family welcomed Mark into their home yesterday for a short break and some food. Igor was keen to check Mark's progress today and took a trip out to see him while sending me a quick update.
It's safe to say that things have been fairly hectic in the short amount of time that Mark has been in Serbia. The delay in accessing Chappie meant that he didn't have sufficient time to unpack all of the boxes of supplies that we had filled it with. The idea was to ensure that everything was appropriately placed in the various cargo nets inside Chappie so that Mark had easy access to them as and when required. With time against him to get to the border, he's not been able to spend any time at night sorting this either meaning that he's been sleeping alongside boxes and has had limited access to various supplies.
Thankfully having crossed the border into Romania, Mark will now have time to refocus and plan for the next milestone. Mark struck up a conversation in the queue for the border crossing with some Romanian locals who were keen to learn more about his journey. One gentleman kindly offered shelter for the evening which means one less task for Mark in having to locate a suitable spot.
Mark will use tomorrow as an unplanned recovery day so that he has time to prepare for the next stretch through to Ukraine. He'll have more updates that will follow once he's reconnected with the world.
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