The weather has been unkind on our journey south alongside Cherno More. Wet and windy and on one occasion nail-hard hailstones are flung at us from a sky that was only minutes earlier clear blue. The wildness of the elements is infectious and we laugh hysterically paralyzed by the downpour that leaves us doubled over to protect our precious leather Brooks saddles. We are soaked to the skin and shelter in one of the incomplete building site that are scattered like never inhabited skeletons along this coast. Our wet temporary naked shivering limbs in these defacto changing rooms do not quite meet the vision we had of naked, sun-drenched wild beach living.

But all is not lost we have had two beautiful beachside camps – one with the Family Robinson at Kamchia, who very kindly let us pitch ourselves outside their cosy restaurant and another at Chernomerets. Here we were rewarded with a stunning sunrise over Sozopol – a beautiful morning for a swim.

This coast is beautiful but for the grotesque fondant fancy coloured follies and enormous Barbie holiday starred palaces that pock the dunes and woodlands. But the adventurous seek out the magical places. Where the Ropotamo river reaches the sea we have an exhausting adventure of decents and ascents up muddy coastal paths. We sleep at Beglik Tash, where the Skirmiani, a Thracian tribe,had their sacred site dedicated to their goddess the Earth and their god the sun. It is a wild place of snakes, hares, deers and wild pigs – protected as dent of previously being a hunting ground of the Communist leader. Despite exhausted limbs sleep evades us due to the presence of wild pigs, the intrepid are not immune to fear.

Onwards we cycle through history passing tasteful communist era happy-holiday camps, every where people are preparing for a season that will start in June. We are the sole visitors, a strange vanguard riding into town. Yesterday we finally had a perfect rest day of doing nothing on a sunny beach in lazy Lozenets. And now we head inland to the Bulgarian-Turkish border.Stories reach us but we will go and see.