Saturday 19 January 2019
A day out with good intentions, it was bit of a waste of time TBH, but we had loads of fun.
Aura saw a face-ache post from a self appointed group called 4x4 Rescue Romania, appealing for volunteers with capable 4x4s willing to help to dig out the snow to reinstate access for supplies to the Priest at a little church called Saint Ana’s, on the old Road that goes up to 1400m on Mount Sinaia.
I’m not religious at all, but my wife is and I respect that - and that the church site dates back to the 1400s - and the priest lives there full time - which is miles from nowhere, and because of recent snowfalls he’s had no supplies delivered for the last 6 weeks or so.
Some that have visited us might remember the serpentine dirt track running up through Sinaia forest, and I think Shayne and Helen (and maybe others) came with us and on a trip up the cable-car to the top at 2200m. Anyway this little church is a few hundred meters before you get to the cable-car station.
The appeal asked for anyone with a good 4x4 to meet in a local supermarket car park armed with shovels and anything that might help to enable a regular vehicle to get from the church to the “new” asphalt road and civilization.
Admittedly it was well past 10:00 when we all assembled and this was the line-up in Penny Market carpark:
This next photo’s dedicated to
@Shayne (37x14.50x15 winter boots)
2 Trolls, 2 Mitsubishis, and 1 Toyota Land Cruiser 80 series (guess who?).
One of the Trolls had a snow-plough blade thingy bolted to the front of it, so we were slightly taken aback that these guys really did mean business...
After much helloing and introductions (we did know the snow-plough guy, he’s the one that some of our visitors might remember, who kindly showed us the way up to the quarry at the top of a hill overlooking Bolboc reservoir in his previous vehicle, a red Pajero full of Dutch holiday makers) off we went in convoy.
We side-stepped the town and made our way up the “new” (but still old ) asphalt road, aiming to start at the top of the priest’s “old” road track, and work our way downhill to the church.
Part way up the asphalt road, we stopped for a photo-pose and snow-plough guy cut a few passing places in the snow, mainly to try his new toy out before putting it to real work. It worked well, so after this pause it was onward and upward.
Green Pajero guy was having difficulties getting a grip, so he jumped out with a set of chains. He was funny, arsing around pretending he didn’t know how to put them on... like a pair of trousers....
It’s strange how photos of this handsome 80 keep cropping up...
After that we met a load of cars coming down. They were slipping and sliding, so we pulled over as far as we could to let them pass. It took a while, there was 30 or 40 of them crawling, so we switched off and waited.
After they passed, we all fired up again.... well, except for the Troll behind me that didn’t. Then he made my day, “can you give me a tow up to a safe place for me to fix my truck, I think I have water in the fuel and need to drain some water off my fuel filter”.
“Oh, OK said I, don’t mind if I do”
So strapped to the back of my 80, I hauled his Troll up the hill. It was slippery as hell, ice under fresh snow, but the 80 didn’t miss a beat, all 3 lockers worked a treat, and up we went - no drama bar some all-4-wheels scrabbling to get a grip.
He drained off his fuel filter and we were soon on our way again.
Further up we rescued a few more stuck cars, and eventually got to the top. Lo and behold, because the word was out about our voluntary mission, the local Mayor got shamed into providing a JCB and driver to do the job. Lucky he did too, it was a meter deep of packed snow, snow-plough Troll guy wouldn’t have scratched the surface with his lay-by / car-park clearing machine.
We parked up our trucks as best we could in the snow. I’d parked on the side of the road and as I was locking up, another car came down the hill, visibly not quite under control, and he slid past me really close, so close that I dropped my keys on the back seat and slammed the rear passenger door quick, to save him clipping it. As soon as he’d passed I thought “what the feck have I done, why did I drop the keys?” I should have kept them in hand. And sure enough, I was locked out of my 80.
Anyway, not to be disheartened, we all stomped down the now-cleared part of the old road, past JCB guy, and on down the old road to the church. There, we met the priest who was very pleased to see someone especially us with some shopping bags of supplies. So we told him it was our intention to light a fire and cook “lunch”.
It was a fabulous day, cold and fresh with plenty of snow about...
Sno-plough guy couldn’t resist playing with his toy...
Now lighting a fire on the surface of 1m deep packed snow needs a bit of thought... “I’ve got an old wheelbarrow” said the priest, “you can light your fire in that if you want”. So we did. Comical it looked too, but quite practical, we could even move it if we wanted to.
Brian, the Indian guy, was our guest ... he was visiting us from Dubai and wasn’t at all prepared for the snow, hence the shoes. He was sliding about all over the place, but he wouldn’t give up...
Soon after, this was bubbling away nicely...
It ended up as pork chunks, onions, garlic, herbs, smoked sausages, tomato purée and all stewing away in 2 lt of red wine... yummy.
While it was cooking we managed to drink a (modest) amount of hot red wine (about 8 lt of it), but there was about 20 of us in all...
We had a great time !
A while later, JCB guy eventually dug his way down to the church, but he must have been upset with us causing him to work on a Saturday, because when he got there, he just spun it around and buggered off back up the hill without a word (no hot wine or pork stew for him).
Our party grew a bit, some walkers stopped by for some sustenance, they had walked up to the summit at 2000m and were on their way back down again when they met us. It was bloody cold, some -8C or so, and they were all but exhausted, but we had a nice fire going and with some hot wine and stew, they were soon on their way with renewed energy.
We cleared away and made our way back up to the trucks. I was really annoyed with myself for the stupid lock-out, and as I thought, I ended up breaking one of the sliding rear side windows to retrieve the keys from the back seat
It’s no biggie really, I’d kept the original complete window set from when I fitted Chas’ old sets on my truck after he had gullwings fitted.
I went to see Dan, my friendly paint-shop guy today, and fitted it in only 15 minutes!
What a good day out we had, lots of stories, we made some new friends and enjoyed the snow.
The priest was happy too, although we never shifted more than a couple of scoops of snow!
Seems like the photo order has all gone to pieces, no matter, I’ll blame the hot wine...