Tuesday 17th August Bucharest to Transfagarasan Mountain

No wonder Tortoise had a heart attack!

Question: How do Romanians get a bulldozer off the back of a truck?

Answer:

Today we tackled the Transfagarasan road (featured on Top gear) this was built for military reasons as it has such sharp gradients and twists and turns. The road is meant to be one of the best roads in the world due to the spectacular scenery; it is surrounded by lakes and mountains including the highest peak in Romania. The road is only open from June-September due to heavy snow so we timed it right. We nearly made it to the top when Tortoise overheated, our fan hasn’t been coming on but we needed to get to Sibui to get fuses. We parked up for the night (as many others had done) in a very picturesque location surrounded by mountains, sweeping hills and a stream; we used the freezing cold stream water to keep our food cool overnight. As we sat admiring the scenery we commented how the sheep had very bad legs, some of the sheep’s legs were so bad they practically ate lying down. A while later the shepherd and his dogs herded the sheep and went past our camper they then scaled a huge mountain where they spend the night- this was the reason for the bad legs.

Monday 16th August Bucharest

arc de triomphe Romanian style

Bullet strewn wall

We spent the day wondering around Bucharest and remembered why we are not city people. The city was hot and humid and quite polluted, we found it funny to see Mont Blanc and Swarkovski and other designer shops nestled among sex shops.
We saw bullet holes from the 1989 revolution and sat in a nice park with a boating lake reading our books. At night we planned to eat dinner out but we had finished exploring the city by mid afternoon so instead we purchased a rotisserie chicken and some fresh bread and had dinner on our veranda back at the campsite.

Sunday 15th August Jupiter to Bucharest

After an early morning dip we headed to Bucharest and arrived late afternoon. The campsite was strangely charging more for a campervan than it was a room so we obviously paid for a room. When we opened the door to the room we laughed as it was tiny and like something from the 1950’s complete with built in stereo in the side board. At least we aren’t the fussy types and we wouldn’t have found anywhere cheaper. That night we had dinner in the garden grounds of the hotel and fell in love with a gorgeous puppy who took a liking to us and after playing fell asleep by our feet.

Saturday 14th August Jupiter (Black Sea Coast)

We spend the day relaxing on the beach and taking in the sights. Romanians tend to be on the large side and most aren’t shy about baring their bodies, some of the people we saw sunbathing were huge and were wearing no more than a g string bikini. We said it was good that the lettuce leaf diet or size 0 hadn’t caught on yet although some could have done with wearing slightly more clothing.
One elderly man was doing exercises about 5m in front of us, he bent over and the elastic had frayed on his Speedos so all hung loose which left little to the imagination.
As we entered the beach there were several people selling various things, one man was selling plastic bottles full of blackish coloured liquid. Cass thought it was blackcurrant juice although later on we found out it was black sea silt deposits which they applied to their bodies to aid circulation. We were glad we hadn’t bought any to drink although we weren’t too sure about smothering our bodies in it.

Friday 13th August Navodari to Jupiter

Another early start, this time it was to dodge our weirdo neighbour. We drove along many black sea coast areas including a strip which is Romania’s equivalent to Miami or the Gold Coast, they even made us pay for driving on the road lol The place was heaving and we were glad we didn’t book accommodation there, our campsite was further south in Jupiter which is a more local oriented area and much quieter. The campsite was 500m from the beach so once we had set up camp we headed for a swim and had dinner overlooking the ocean.

Thursday 12th August Murgihol to Navodari

After spending 6 days in the Danube delta we finally made it onto a boat and ventured into some of the 4187 sq km’s of wetland marshes, reed islands and sand bars. We were the only two passengers onboard a speedboat, due to its small size it meant we could get into the much smaller waterways many larger boat tours couldn’t. The delta is home to 300 species of birds including Europe’s largest pelican colony which we were fascinated by, we were also fascinated by the amount of frogs in the water at any one time we could literally see thousands. Bek and the guide thought Cass had turned Japanese as she was crazily snapping away and took hundreds of photos. We both had a great day which ended at 11am (we had an early start to bet the heat) with a rally driving session back to the campsite. The guide was dropping us back at the campsite, his car would be on the scrap heap in the Uk/Oz and when he careered over bumps and went round corners we felt like the bottom was going to give way and we would be left with a car resembling something from the Flintstones.
From Murgihol we headed to the Black Sea coast, it was a very hot day and the 44oc was too much for Tortoise. He gave up the ghost 20km from Constanta in a great free camping spot right on the beach, the area was full of local people as people only knew about the area by word of mouth. We met one guy who was camped there for a week (as many others appeared to be too) and we wondered what he would do for a wash and where he would go to the toilet as there weren’t any facilities nearby…we decided it was best not to think about this lol The guy was a bit strange and at night time we couldn’t get rid of him, in between talking he kept jumping up and down whacking himself with a towel as he said he was getting bitten by mozzies. Cass said it would help if he was wearing more than just Speedos and had some repellent on (on that point Romanians and Germans all over the world would do themselves great favours if they watched and heeded the trumpet ad! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-Lx2ihpGbc). He then went to his caravan, we thought we had got rid of him but he came back covered in vinegar as he said it was a good mozzie repellent. We said we would stick to mozzie coils and citronella candles lol

Wednesday 11th August Sulina to Murgihol

Best view of Sulina (leaving lol)

In order to catch the early ferry our alarm clock was set for 5am, we were both awake at this time eager to depart Sulina but suffering from lack of sleep. Throughout the night we had the noise of dogs barking, mosquitos buzzing and a nearby rooster’s cock-a-doodle-do which started at 2.30am… his perception of day and night was slightly muddled.
On arrival back in Tulcea we went to a farmers market and made our way to Murgihol which is situated on the edge of a lake in the Delta. We arrived in Murgihol thinking that it was a major town and would have a bank…wrong again! We backtracked to the nearest bank and then checked into the campsite, we decided that we didn’t want to be camped near the main road as the camp owner suggested but instead opted for a vacant spot down the bottom of the garden. Several hours after setting up camp we commented how the flies were driving us mad although no other campers appeared to be bothered by them and we couldn’t see anyone flinging their arms around. After hearing a snort we peered into the neighbours garden and saw a large pig laying in his sty, it was about 10m from our camper and the source of the flies.
That night we finally booked a boat trip for the next morning.