Friday 16th June
Covered a fair distance since I last posted and now I’m sitting in the sunshine having lunch with very good company, although he doesn’t say a lot.
When I first crossed from Hungary into Romania nearly 4 weeks ago I wondered if I’d given myself too much time for this part of the trip – now I’m wondering where the time has gone to and trying to pack in as many miles as I can.
Had to say goodbye to the very cute and cuddy pussy cat- think he or she may have slept outside my bedroom door at Bicaz-Chei. Retraced my footsteps (or should say tyre tracks) to Bicaz to meet up with Road 15 again. I had 4 days to get to a campsite, that had been recommended, on the Danube Delta – again I didn’t know what to expect in-between.
The 15 had been my friend – not too busy, nice scenery and I could enjoy the ride without having to think about navigation – that would change in the afternoon.
I’ve crossed loads of railway lines in Romania but apart from the steam train I went on I’ve only seen one other train – crossing the railway lines is brutal – the tarmac, if any, is often badly broken up and higgledy piggledy – on the plus side the cars completely stop and they can’t overtake at a railway crossing. Got a friendly wave from the train driver as he passed – bet he doesn’t see many cycle tourers.
Back on lower and much flatter terrain and seeing lots of storks again – the babies are getting much bigger and practising to flap their wings – I’ve seen up to 3 young in a nest.
Stopped in the town of Piatra Meamt because I spotted the cable car – and rode up and down cause it was there – great views from the top, especially looking back the way I had come.
Then road 15 became less friendly – 2 lanes of traffic, each way, through the town but not too busy and then big long stretch of road works and 4 lanes down to one lane – I opted to use the pavement, which had its on hazards when it suddenly narrowed and I got badly scratched on an overhanging bush. Roadworks over – road 15 back to it’s nice quiet self – oh no – much busier this side of town and I was glad to escape the noise on some side roads and this coincided with seeing some stunning cloud formations.
Back onto the 15 – just one lane each way and not so busy now but had to overtake 3 horses and their carts – always a bit wary of overtaking a horse – at home I would slow down, let the rider know I’m there and give them plenty of room – in Romania the horse and cart driver’s don’t seem too phased by the traffic hurtling past them- I suppose they get used to it but there must be accidents at times. Over taking 3 horses and carts at a time and making sure I’m not in the way of cars in either direction involved precision time, going as fast as I could and hoping for the best and we made it.
Stayed at Holland Hostel in Bacau – location was picked because it was on route and was a good price – no idea what was in town – by the time I got there I was too hot and tired to care but can tell you that my twin room, with wee balcony and TV (that I didn’t use), shared bathroom, probably the best kitchen I’ve seen in a hostel and super friendly staff was a bargain at £15 – within a few minutes walk there was also just about every supermarket under the sun.
Next day back on nicer quieter roads. Still lots of people working the land but as well as hoes, scythes and rakes, some folks now have petrol strimmers. Houses that I pass vary hugely in size and style – anything from what appears to just a tiny 4 walls and a roof and not a lot holding it together to modern 2 and 3 storey houses and everything in between – there’s a lot of part finished but obviously lived in houses, stuff done as time and, more importantly, money allows – a lot of people still don’t have running water and regularly see folks collecting water from taps on the street – nowhere that I’ve been seems to have a posh end of town or a less well off end – it’s just a random mix of houses and I like that.
Have seen loads of bikes – most of them very old and a necessity rather than a luxury but saw a few folks out cycling for pleasure and a few newer bikes too. Beautiful weather again.
Cycled past another big lake – Lacul Beresti – unfortunately didn’t see much of the lake until the road crossed over the dam – when I did see it though, the water was so choppy you could have mistaken it for the sea.
On the outskirts of a small town – Ploscuteni I think – I swear a telegraph pole talked to me – slowed down and thought my brain was playing tricks on me and carried on but it happened again a few poles further on and glanced up and there is a video camera and flashing light – in the town there is music and prayers being played through loud speakers from one of the churches and I wonder if that is what I heard earlier – but no as I left the town and all was quite from the church there was definitely a video camera and a loud speaker and a voice – wonder what it said – “everything’s ok now – wee sweaty cyclist from Scotland has left the town??”
I was aiming for a campsite that night, just a few miles off my route – it was on Google maps but when I checked it other than mark on map no other information – no phone number, website, Facebook, reviews, etc and I didn’t want to do an extra few miles out of the way to find out it didn’t exist – nothing left on Booking.com that was in the right area or budget – a room on Airbnb sounded perfect – right place and price but they never got back to me – my blaziness about wild camping had disappeared sometime ago and at 3 in the afternoon decided I’d better have another go at finding somewhere to stay the night – one of the full hotels on booking.com had fab reviews including 2 saying they had been really helpful with finding room for folks, despite them being full – decided it was worth a shot and cycled a couple of miles to find this hotel – no room at the inn but, as per reviews, really helpful and she phoned a hotel round the corner and found me a room!
Next day mostly flat – much more arable farming – big big fields as far as the eye could see. There is a brand new bridge being built across the Danube at Braila and new road infrastructure to go with – a few miles beyond this I was getting on my first Romania ferry – this was a busy crossing with a number of boats tooing and froing and I wonder what will happen to the ferries and cafes beside them when the bridge is open. As I cycled to the ferry noticed some mountain bikes, with race numbers attached, strapped to car roof racks – there had obviously been an event on somewhere – as my ferry crossed over the one coming the opposite direction had more cars with bikes and I spotted a young lad with his Dad as the ferries passed – the lad was wearing a big medal – I gave him a thumbs up and got a wave back – there wasn’t much space between the passing ferries.
Onto my campsite for the night and this one definitely existed – no free wine or palinka but I could help myself to cherries from the trees – cherries for late afternoon snack, pudding and breakfast in the morning – yum.
Early start the next morning – I wanted to get to Camping Delta, at Murighiolin, in plenty of tme as I’d been told that I needed to be up for 5 for the boat trip on the Delta the next morning – as it happened I needed to be up for 4 as sunrise was earlier than when I’d been told about the campsite a few weeks ago.
The litte campsite was perfect – 4 campervans and me in my wee tent and it was full.
The early start was worth it – me and 6 others on the wee boat – saw lots of pelicans, one kingfisher, a European roller, white tailed eagle, different types of heron and a spoonbill. We stopped at the only remaining floating fishing village – the other floating villages have become holiday homes and small hotels. Also stopped at a wee village on land but only accessible by boat – only has a population of about 150 people – briefly towards the end of communism the population rose to about 3000 as a glass factory had been built there and new apartments for the workers – everything was in place except the conveyor belts for the sand and then communism ended and it was decided to protect the sands and the delta rather than dig it out – so the factory and apartments were never used.
Back at campsite by 12 and feeling surprisingly awake I decided to pack up and cycle about 60k to another campsite, gradually getting closer to the Black Sea. Had to be careful when pitching my tent at Jurilovca as there was a lot of baby frogs and I didn’t want to squash them.
Next morning, abandoned tent and panniers and cycled the 5k to see Greek Fortress – I didn’t find the ruins particularly interesting but it was worth going for the good views.
Bike loaded up and on mission to get to the Black Sea. Didn’t get far though when I met Bill from BC, Canada – first cycle tourist I’ve met since crossing into Romania – we blethered for a while and compared notes before he headed to the campsite I’d just come from – hope he looked out for the frogs. And not much later I met a German cyclist – he had cycled the more traditional Eurovelo route and was heading towards the Delta to do a similar boat trip to me. And then like busses – coming in 3’s I met Boris, car insurance man from Austria, of close to retirement age – we stopped and had a drink together – he tells me he used to cycle a lot when much younger – heart problems last year and needing stents encouraged him to improve his life style and start cycling again – he surprises me when he lights up a cigarette but tells me had given up and will give up again when he gets back to Austria. We didn’t cycle together as I was faster but I kept stopping to take photos and got a good video of him – we agreed that we would both stop at first campsite and then I would share video with him but I never saw him again.
Arrived at the big seaside resort of Marniai-Sat and have to admit felt a bit disappointed – I knew it was going to big and not like a wee deserted Scottish beach or a cliff top looking over the sea like where I ended my trip in America but this was huge – one big hotel after another after another. However once I’d got my tent and gone for a short wander and literally crossed the road from the campsite to the beach to dip my feet in the sea I started to like it in a strange sort of way. I stayed the following day there so I could relax and wash my clothes. I got lucky with my timings – not a huge amount of holiday makers there but everywhere busy with preparation for the holiday season proper which would start just a couple of days later – lots of repairing, cleaning and painting of existing buildings and new small buildings being erected for roadside cafés and shops. There was at least a dozen new hotels in the process of being built and I wondered if there would be enough people to fill them. According to the map there should be more campsites but think these have long since gone for the ground to be used as hotels – I wonder if my campsite will be there in a few years time? Advantage of big resort – plenty of restaurants and I had a fab seafood pasta.
Next day onto Constanta to find the lighthouse – I always like to find a new lighthouse but did wonder if I wanted to go to another busy seaside resort and should I just start my inland travel towards Brasov instead. But glad I stuck to my plans and made my way 19k south with a lot of noisy traffic and found the old town and harbour of Constanta.
And some more good food.
