Romania
June 18 – 27
Crossing over the Romanian border we had our first border check in Europe. The police officer was extremely friendly and spoke surprisingly good English. He told us that an absolute must for our visit was the Transfagarasan Highway – the best road in the world according to Top Gear.
Our first destination was Retezat National Park, but with the journey taking around five hours, we planned a stop along the way. We stopped in Timișoara, a large city in western Romania, to stock up on supplies before heading into the mountains. There, we had our first taste of Romanian cuisine — which may well have been the largest plate of meat we had ever seen! And managed to pick up bear spray from the local hunting shop.
Not far on from Timisoara we parked up for our first night. Finding good wild camping spots in Romania was incredibly easy, since it is widely tolerated and legal outside of national parks boundaries. A local Shepard came through the area with his flock of sheep in the evening, and we took a dip in the river.
The following day we explored our first national park, Retezat, the oldest national park in Romania. Bear spray at the ready.
We settled for the night just outside the park boundaries, close to a stream where we were able to wash our clothes and bath in the morning.
Next up was the Transfargarasan highway in the hope of seeing some bears! Shortly after winding up into the Fagaras mountains we stopped for the night just off the highway.
The Transfargarasan lived up to its reputation with breathtaking views of the mountains and valleys below. We stopped at the top for a hike – this turned out to be a bit more adventurous than we had anticipated as our hiking app Komoot took us up an unmarked route along a ridge which we eventually abandoned.
We got back onto the marked trail which lead up further up into the mountains, but eventually hit an impassable snow covering the route near the peak. Lola was pleased to be out of the heat and enjoyed running around on the snow!
We had not planned for it being so cold at the top, so bundled Elodie up in my fleece for the descent.
To top off our Transfagarasan experience we saw a total of 10 brown bears! The highlight being a mother and her three cubs.
Our next stop in Romania was Piatra Craiului national park, another bear hotspot. We planned a short hike for the first day. On arrival Lola quickly made friends with two stray dogs who decided they would join us for the hike.
This turned out to be another Komoot special — and possibly one of the worst hikes in Romania. What began as a trail soon became an overgrown path that felt as though no one had set foot on it for years. Eventually, it led us past a series of houses, each apparently guarded by packs of highly territorial livestock dogs.
We had read about Romania’s guardian dogs before the trip, but hadn’t expected to encounter them here, so being charged by the first pack caught us completely off guard. It did, however, give me my first opportunity to use the bear spray, which thankfully proved very effective. From then on, we adapted our strategy: rocks in our pockets for the rest of the hike, which turned out to be enough to discourage another two canine encounters.
By the time we finally reached the car — after trudging along a busy road in the rain — we had come to one very clear conclusion: never to use Komoot again. The one redeeming feature of the day was a worthwhile stop at a cave along the route.
We made a stop at Bran “Dracula’s” castle and a slightly odd Romanian coffee shop.
Thankfully our second hike in Piatra national park made up for the previous day.
Our next aim was to head for Apuseni nature park. Little did we know we would never make it. First our van EGR valve broke. This led us to spending a night in Fagaras whilst the garage, very efficiently, ordered and fitted the new part within 24 hours.
We made it to a nice peaceful wild camp spot by a river, ready to set off for Apuseni in the morning.
The next day third and fourth gear stopped working. We had thankfully just booked into some accommodation to escape the heatwave. The owner helped me call around garages in the area who might be able to help. After a visit to the closest garage, it turned out to not be a quick fix. We managed to find a manual transmission specialist who could help, nearly a 3 hour drive away. Highlight of the day was Lola swimming in the pond, this confirmed she is truly a terrible swimmer.
We woke at 4:30am to set off. After a painful drive with no third or fourth gear, we made it to the garage. The mechanics were men of few words, so we didn’t really know what was happening. But they removed, fixed and re-fitted our gearbox in a remarkable 7 hours. And one of the mechanics even lent us his car to drive into the nearest town for lunch.
We managed to squeeze in one last hike on the way out of Romania, though we had to keep it short with it being 36 degrees!
One last development was Lola realisation that Elodie’s bed is more comfortable than her own. She now has a habit of slipping in there when the opportunity arises.
Mayers on the road. 