Saturday                      20/09/08                     Day 70                        Ukraine- Romania

We arrived at the border looking forward to returning to the EU soil of Romania, however, the Ukraine, keen to prove their border strict enough for EU membership themselves dealt us the most thorough customs checks we had experienced to date. We had to unload the back of the car in a special inspection hangar, unpack our cases, and answer repeated questions. Then, to the obvious amusement of some of the customs officers, the car was subject to a search by the soaking wet Alsatian sniffer dog which clambered around the inside of the car leaving muddy paw print across the mattress and pillows. (Additionally, they were the first border to notice that the V5 we were using was a photocopy)

Eventually we were free to go and breezed the EU customs, passport check and glance in the car, in less than 10 minutes. Romania  immediately felt more like central Europe, with standardised road signs, pervasive acceptance of credit cards and new European cars on the relatively busy roads. We were aiming to reach Brasov the next day to meet up with our friend, Paul, from One Life Adventure (www.onelife.co.uk), whose Wales off-road weekend we had attended back in June in preparation for our trip. By dark we were just a few hours from Brasov, and made camp in a pumpkin patch for the night.

Sunday                        21/09/08                      Day 71                        Romania

We woke up in the pumpkin patch to a welcome bit of sunshine.  The light also revealed a nearby river, and, given the filthy state of the car following the drive across Russia we parked up on the bank to wash it.

Continuing on through the lovely Romanian countryside, we were pleasantly surprised as earlier on our travels we had heard a couple of horror stories about the country from some of the Mongol Ralliers.  Arriving in Brasov we parked up and stumbled across a quaint, cobbled and pedestrianised street, lined on both sides with long rows of beautifully gothic buildings, opening up at the end to an equally gothic town square.  We ate a fine traditional Romanian meal, impressing the waiters with out defiant wearing of shorts of flip-flops, despite the cold and called at an internet café before heading out of the centre in search of Paul and the people taking part in his OneLife Adventure overlanding holiday.  They were staying at a campsite on the outskirts of town and had an evening of bear-watching planned, for which we tagged along.  The bear watching was not for another couple of hours so there was time for showers, swapping stories, and having and having a good look at the cars that they had come in.  Expecting to drive off into the woods, we were a little surprised to find we were waiting by some bins in a residential area, right next to a car park!  The bins are apparently a favourite feeding spot for the bears, despite many attempts by the local to make them think otherwise.  We stalked the streets for a few hours before finally admitting defeat, heading back to the camp site to sleep.

Monday                       22/09/08                      Day 72                        Romania

The day started nicely, with oats for breakfast and conversation with someone other than the two of us!  The OneLife guys were heading off in the direction from which we had just come, so, after having some good tracks pointed out to us on our map, we waved goodbye to the three 4x4s and were on our own once again.

In another bid to slow the constant decline of our fitness we headed out for a morning run before a shower, then away.  Before we could go and enjoy the mountains and the tracks we had been shown, we had to stock up on supplies, this usually means calling at a supermarket, and in this case it was the giant Carrefour supermarket.  Getting the supplies in is nearly always something to relish, not only does it mean we are going to be eating well for the next few days, but it is interesting wondering round the foreign supermarkets seeing what crazy things we can lay our hands on!  Being now out of Russia and Ukraine also means we can get English language DVDs, so, having been starved of movies for the last few months we stopped off to buy a couple of bargain-bin 80s classics as evening entertainment.

By the time we had finished exploring the aisles of the supermarket and chose our DVDs, time was pressing on, we loaded the car and headed off.  The route we had chosen, heading in roughly the right direction whilst taking in a few of the recommended tracks, had us driving along narrow mountain roads through the small gothic villages set amongst the stunning Transylvanian Alps.  The narrow roads, steep hills and small villages, although beautiful, do not make for the best camping locations.  To find anywhere decent will take some effort.  And effort it did indeed take; we left the main narrow track for an even smaller narrow track, then, in turn, left this for a much steeper and smaller still narrow tack (probably wasn’t a road, but we went anyway).  We were rewarded for our hard work with what had to be the only unoccupied piece of flat land for miles.  We barbequed and ate the massive slab of beef bought earlier, whilst watching the light fade and windows light-up in all the houses dotted around the slopes below, never fully able to relax as we kept one eye on the tree line, just in case the huge steaks attracted a bear (or a vampire).

Tuesday                       23/09/08                      Day 73                        Romania

Having wondered around the mountain tracks the previous evening in search of a camp, the first job of the day, after breakfast of course, was to find our way back down to the main road.  Back on the main road we found ourselves on route to Bran Castle, the fourteenth century gothic fortress upon which Dracula’s castle is said to be based.  We stopped off for a look around but, to our surprise, with the castle still in use until relatively recently the interior more resembled a stately home than the evocative hide out of a vampire.

Back on the road our route was to take us over a high pass which, we were told, has stunning views.  We were not disappointed.  The road snaked its way along valleys, skirted lakes and climbed mountains, often clinging perilously the vertical rock walls.  As we climbed the temperature fell and with the light fading, not too far from the pass summit, we spotted a smaller track branching away and up from the main road.  Perfect.  Up we went, past the snowline, until the track stopped, reducing to a hiking path, but we would give it a go! We put the car into low range, engaged the diff-lock and scrambled on for another 100m and set up camp.

The spot where we had  finally settled for the night was at an altitude of around 1800 meters (about 500 meters higher than Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the UK), and hence it was very cold!  With the thermometer reading 3 degrees we set about having a barbeque.  High winds and near freezing temperatures make for a torrid time when it comes to starting a barbeque.  Drastic times called for drastic measures.  We covered the coals with a liberal dosing of paraffin based paint thinners; then lit a match.  The resulting fireball had us both checking to see if we still had eyebrows and left the immediately surrounding rocks burning off the fluid for a couple of minutes!  The barbeque was lit, and in a glorious fashion, producing some fine chicken which we ate in the car, with lots of clothes on, trying to keep out the cold, whilst enjoying one of our new DVDs.

Wednesday                 24/09/08                      Day 74                        Romania

In the night the temperature had dropped down to six degrees inside the car, making it extra hard to firstly drag ourselves out of sleeping bags, and then even more so to get out of the car and pack the barbeque away.  A quick look around showed that a small stream, next to the car, had frozen solid in the night, and, with the sun not yet reaching into the steep sided valley, it was still bitterly cold.  A quick breakfast (with the engine running and the heaters on) and we were away to climb the last spectacular section of the pass before through a tunnel and out the other side.

The way up the mountain pass had patchy snow, as had our camping spot, once through the tunnel things got a lot whiter!  Thankfully the road had been cleared but at the sides the snow was drifting several feet deep in places.  The pass had taken us over the range to which the Moldoveanu Peak belongs.  Standing at 2544 meters makes it the highest mountain in Romania, and higher than anything either of us has climbed before.  Despite lack of map and equipment, worth a try!

Stopping several times on route to ask the generally quite strange locals which was the best route to the base camp, we eventually made it on to a forest track heading towards the looming mountains.  The condition of the track got progressively worse and, consequently, progressively more fun.  We powered through the mud until we could go no further and parked up.  On our way to the mountain we passed a German guy, who, as luck would have it, was on his way down.  He gave us his printed map and told us of a couple of cabins where you could spend the night on the way to the summit.  Time was marching on and there would not be enough light to make it up and down today so we decided to make use of these cabins and do the climb in two stages.

By the time we had decided what was needed, loaded the packs with warm clothes, sleeping bags and food, another hour had passed.  We set off up the mountain; thankfully the trail was clearly marked with white and red triangles, zigzagging its way through the forested lower region of the range before emerging, after fairly strenuous two hours, above the trees and within sight of the first cabin.

When we were told of the cabins up in the mountains, we had assumed that these were basic, unmanned climber’s survival cabins, the likes of which you might see on some of the UK’s higher peaks.  They were, in fact, manned, with electricity, heating and even nigh on a dozen donkeys!  In our rushed preparations we had, unsurprisingly, forgotten something.  Unfortunately, this something was cash.  The man running the cabin, a former Romanian Army Officer helping out his daughter and her eco-friendly travel company, took pity and agreed to help us out.  We could stay the night and, as he was heading down the mountain the next morning with the donkeys for supplies, he could get the cash out of the Land Rover and we could pick up the keys from his cabin on our way down from the summit.  This enabled us to spend the night here and still head to the summit in the morning.  We settled down and tucked into some of our food supplies amidst the cosy surroundings of the cabin before a quick game of cards and bed, tired from the day’s exertions.

Thursday                     25/09/08                     Day 75                        Romania

Having already experienced one night sleeping at high altitude we were expecting a cold night.  We had both gone to sleep with, not only our sleeping bags, but with several blankets that were already on the bed, too.  What we didn’t take into account was the furnace located around 1 meter away from the bed, the blankets and indeed the sleeping bags were soon shed as the temperatures in the room rocketed leaving us to get on with a bit of quality sleep.  At least Dave could, Al was battling with some stomach problems, the difficulty was, it was pitch black, everyone else was asleep, the toilet was outside, but he had no idea where…

Twilight arrived; Al found the toilet and the cabin stirred into life.  Given Alex’s depleted state and our severe lack of suitable hiking equipment we made the reluctant decision to abort the push for the summit and to head back down the mountain instead.  One door closes and another opens.  Alex retreated back to bed whilst David tried his hand at a new skill, donkey herding.  Along with the old Army Officer he set about the tasks of rounding the donkeys up off the mountain and saddling them up before, joined by the recovering Alex, the three of us, and the donkeys, started the long decent down, off the mountain.  The pace was slow and, predictably, the donkeys stubborn.  The path that had taken us two hours to climb the day prior now took us three hours to descend.  When we finally reached the bottom we were told we no longer needed to pay for the room, I guess our donkey herding and company was more than enough payment.

We waved goodbye to the man and the donkeys, and drove on towards an area of woodland that was part of Paul’s recommended route, containing some nice tracks and scenery.  Stopping briefly on route to pull out a local who somehow had managed to reverse his car into a ditch (as we arrived there was about to be an attempt made to leaver the car out with a big piece of wood…).  The wooded area was criss-crossed by dozens of tracks, used by the small scale logging industry, and were fun to drive, if not navigate.

With night setting in we made camp by crossing a river via a long disused ford to a flat and sheltered area amongst the pines where we could get the barbie going without getting too wet.

Friday                          26/09/08                      Day 76                        Romania

Getting back across the river from our camp spot to the road proved a bit trickier than hoped.  The bank was greasy with a large step up, and the river bed was home to some large rocks, meaning we couldn’t get up any speed.  Taking one for the team, Alex rolled up his trousers, took a deep breath, and braved the icy waters, moving the bigger rocks aside and giving us a clear run up to the bank with enough momentum to get clear of the water and mud.

We eventually made it out of the labyrinth of tracks and back onto the main road to Bucharest where, through a contact of a contact of a contact, we had managed to locate the Land Rover parts we needed.  We met Florin, our contact’s contact, and collected the parts before carrying on towards the boarder and setting up camp in an empty field, the evening only slightly ruined by an unfortunate incident involving Al’s sandal and a strategically placed dog turd.

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