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To Destinations Unknown
- Thread starter grantw
- Start date
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- Jul 15, 2012
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Novi Pazar Serbia - Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, known for being the oldest intact church in Serbia (9th century) and is UNESCO listed. It was so peaceful there, and had great views over the town of Novi Pazar also.
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Queueing for the border Kosovo to Serbia - only 5km away when we joined the end of the line, but took 8 hours to cross over Partly due to Serbia not considering this to be a real border (as Serbia doesn’t recognise Kosovo independence) and partly to minimise refugees crossing. They didn’t even look at our passports when they finally waved us through.
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Bucharest - such an interesting city! Little Paris with its mini Arc de Triumphe (pic 1), Palais de Justice (pic 2- a bank) and various other styled buildings, interspersed with communist buildings and apartments, mosques, churches and some more modern styles too; they lay claim to the second largest building in the world (the Palace of the Parliament) and are in the process of building the tallest Orthodox Church (pic 3).
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looks like you guys are having an amazing time out there. Keep up the good photos.
Good to see you’ve made it to Romania Grant (you’ve only been gone 3 weeks) 
Hope the repair to the bike rack is holding up.
It’s a pity you had to spend more time in Bucharest than sampling the mountains near the house.
happy travels both, it was a real pleasure to have you guys stop by
Hope the repair to the bike rack is holding up.
It’s a pity you had to spend more time in Bucharest than sampling the mountains near the house.
happy travels both, it was a real pleasure to have you guys stop by
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The wedding was lovely - it was held in the stately Tregenna castle in Cornwall on a perfect day and we partied into the wee hours with the bride and groom and their families and friends who had flown in from all over the world.
The two weeks flew by, trying to catch up with friends, it felt like it usually does when we go back to visit Australia ... not enough time!
We did manage to fit in another bucket list item for Sarah, Kew Gardens - somewhere she has wanted to go the whole time she has lived in London, but never got round to doing. It was AMAZING! It was huge! We walked around for 6 hours and still didn’t get to see it all; will definitely be going back one day.
Before we knew it we were back on plane and on our way back to Bucharest.
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We landed back in Bucharest around 7pm and Clive was there waiting to pick us up and take us back to his apartment in the city centre, just in time to enjoy a lovely dinner at a local restaurant.
Beastie was not finished and we also wanted a few things done at at a local mechanics, so we knew we would have to wait a few more days, but what better reason to explore Bucharest whilst we were waiting.
We were lucky enough to get a loan of a small central apartment, a great place to base ourselves for the sightseeing we wanted to do.
We took ourselves around the old town, wandered through the massive fountain area at Plaza Inirii, meandered down to Victoria place, enjoying the old town with its Parisian style buildings, offset with drab communist style apartments dotted in between. We visited some of the many parks, found a great coffee shop and French patisserie, some of the most amazing eclairs, a few craft beer bars and we even took a few rides on the electric scooters you could hire; they have lots of bike lanes in Bucharest, which is great as the traffic is very chaotic, it feels like way too many cars on the road and everyone pushing to get in and ahead. It was a very easy way to get around, even if the handles were a bit high for Sarah and it took her a while to see where the handbrake was hiding, meaning she did a bit of foot braking when a car only saw her at the last minute. We are now joking about getting a pair and using them instead of bikes
We also managed to attend a walking tour one morning, and it was great to get a bit of history around what we had already explored and more of an appreciation for Romania itself. Some of the churches were physically moved to ensure they didn’t get destroyed, the second biggest administrative building in the world lives here, the Palace of the Parliament ( Pentagon is the first); a fascinating view into a country we knew very little about before visiting.
We managed not to cook for ourselves except for one dinner, enjoying lunches with Clive at a restaurant close to his work (yay salad!!) and some great dinners, including trying some Romanian fare ... surprising ourselves, we really enjoyed the tripe soup which was so tasty.
We spent another weekend in Comarnic with the Horridge family, enjoying more driving the countryside, to Bolboci Lake and the nearby quarry viewpoint, Ialomicioara Monastery and the Bucegi National Park, where we did an hour hike up to the amazing Babele rock formations.
Once Beastie had all that she could done, we took her for a final weekend to Comarnic, where we took advantage of the space to rearrange some drawers and shelves ready to hit the road again. Still a work in progress .....
After two weeks, it was hard to say goodbye to Clive, Aura, Ana (and the cats), we had such a wonderful time and are so appreciative of all the help they gave us, we can’t thank them enough. We will pop by again one day!!
After squeezing ourselves out of the gate, we were off again, heading towards Transylvania and looking forward to our next adventure
Beastie was not finished and we also wanted a few things done at at a local mechanics, so we knew we would have to wait a few more days, but what better reason to explore Bucharest whilst we were waiting.
We were lucky enough to get a loan of a small central apartment, a great place to base ourselves for the sightseeing we wanted to do.
We took ourselves around the old town, wandered through the massive fountain area at Plaza Inirii, meandered down to Victoria place, enjoying the old town with its Parisian style buildings, offset with drab communist style apartments dotted in between. We visited some of the many parks, found a great coffee shop and French patisserie, some of the most amazing eclairs, a few craft beer bars and we even took a few rides on the electric scooters you could hire; they have lots of bike lanes in Bucharest, which is great as the traffic is very chaotic, it feels like way too many cars on the road and everyone pushing to get in and ahead. It was a very easy way to get around, even if the handles were a bit high for Sarah and it took her a while to see where the handbrake was hiding, meaning she did a bit of foot braking when a car only saw her at the last minute. We are now joking about getting a pair and using them instead of bikes
We also managed to attend a walking tour one morning, and it was great to get a bit of history around what we had already explored and more of an appreciation for Romania itself. Some of the churches were physically moved to ensure they didn’t get destroyed, the second biggest administrative building in the world lives here, the Palace of the Parliament ( Pentagon is the first); a fascinating view into a country we knew very little about before visiting.
We managed not to cook for ourselves except for one dinner, enjoying lunches with Clive at a restaurant close to his work (yay salad!!) and some great dinners, including trying some Romanian fare ... surprising ourselves, we really enjoyed the tripe soup which was so tasty.
We spent another weekend in Comarnic with the Horridge family, enjoying more driving the countryside, to Bolboci Lake and the nearby quarry viewpoint, Ialomicioara Monastery and the Bucegi National Park, where we did an hour hike up to the amazing Babele rock formations.
Once Beastie had all that she could done, we took her for a final weekend to Comarnic, where we took advantage of the space to rearrange some drawers and shelves ready to hit the road again. Still a work in progress .....
After two weeks, it was hard to say goodbye to Clive, Aura, Ana (and the cats), we had such a wonderful time and are so appreciative of all the help they gave us, we can’t thank them enough. We will pop by again one day!!
After squeezing ourselves out of the gate, we were off again, heading towards Transylvania and looking forward to our next adventure
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- Jul 15, 2012
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Bran Castle - well worth a visit, spent a very pleasant afternoon exploring the castle; got a parking spot right out the front and you can’t ask for much more better service than waiting right next to our car and cheaper than the nearby car parks too
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Vulcanii noroiosi, the muddy volcanoes - we camped at the walking entrance to this spectacular reserve and spent around an hour walking around the alien landscape, watching for the mini eruptions and being amazed at the scenery, shades of grey up close leading to greens and yellows and a cloudy atmospheric sky, an alien landscape, another world!
- Joined
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As we left Comarnic, we commented on how it had now been nearly 4 whole weeks without our setup, staying in houses, apartments and hotels, moving from bed to bed to bed all that time. After repacking and reorganising and culling again, it felt almost like we were starting our journey anew.
So off we headed into Transylvania, towards Bran Castle, where we had already scoped out a campsite as we knew we would be lateish arriving, the aptly named Vampire Camping Bran.
Luckily it was still light when we arrived so we could easily choose a level spot, and set ourselves up quickly ready to enjoy dinner watching a lovely sunset over the mountains. We had been told we were sharing the campsite with two massive groups of German (20 vans) and French (10 vans) campervanners, who were having a ball with their group dinner, especially the Germans singing songs well into the early hours. I was impressed with their stamina, as we were so tired we were in bed by 10pm!!!
We took a while to get going the next morning, and did a bit of catching up on cleaning and organising the car and trailer, and watching the German & French contingents pack up their vans and leave. We always feel like it's a bit of an effort for us to pack up, especially putting away the tent; we often we discuss the pros and cons of caravans and campervans, but really it seems to take everyone a lot of faffing around before they can just up and leave to go anywhere; they are still putting away awnings, chairs and tables, cleaning windows, etc. It's one of the benefits of the trailer being able to leave it behind all set up to go exploring, but a bit harder setting up or putting away our tent if we are on the move every day.
Before it got too late we headed into Bran; we found a rock star park outside the Castle, and went to find a snack before we went in.
There were a few supermarkets and fast food stores, but the supermarkets didn't have any warm snacks, and the fast food joints seemed on the pricey side (tourist mecca of course!). We ended up finding a little bakery, but it didn't seem to sell the yummy cheesy bread we saw everyone else walking around with. We got a semi satisfying snack and off we went into the castle.
Bran Castle is known for being the castle written about in the book Dracula, but Vlad the Impaler (who Dracula is loosely based on) never actually lived here. It belonged to Queen Maria of Romania, who left it to her daughter Princess Ileana, and her descendants still own it today.
We had been told it was a must see, and we must agree, the castle itself was incredible, beautiful old rooms and furniture over multiple levels, with amazing woodwork, stone features and wrapped around a lovely courtyard - the only downside was the many other tourists who were also there, blocking the doorways and crowding the stairwells; we keep saying it's better to get to these attractions early before the tour buses, but sometimes its just too hard to get going in the mornings! Hopefully days like this will keep us a bit more motivated to get going earlier.
Once we had our fix of the castle and the lovely large grounds, we snuck out the back exit (i think the tourbuses came in this way) and were back at our car, where the lovely parking attendant was sitting right next to our car - how's that for service? And it was cheaper than any of the large parking sections on our way in ... double win!
We decided we hadn't done enough sightseeing and drove towards a small town called Zarnesti which we had been told was lovely, and it took us further towards the mountains of Piatra Craiuilui. We drove a little up into the mountains to look at the views, only realising later how close we were to the Pestera drive we had been on recently. We really hadn't moved far at all!
Back to our campsite via the local Mega Image supermarket to stock up for a few days, and to enjoy the rest of the late afternoon.
Next up, we had found an interesting area that had mud volcanoes; there was a campsite nearby but we had no idea how much it would cost, the last review said approx 45 lei (which is around £8) but it was a few years ago .......
Again arriving at a decent hour, we asked how much the site was. The man answered 1000 lei (a leftover from communist times where the currency was so devalued that it was in the thousands); we didn't really know how much that meant, but he waved us into a site and we parked up, it was so picturesque but we were a bit concerned that the price would be more than we wanted to pay.
If we aren't sure what the price is, we tend to pay upfront so we know for sure; so off I went to the reception to pay for our one and only night. It was a different man this time, so I asked again how much. 35 lei for one night, plus 10 lei for water - washing machine, taps, shower .....what?! charging extra for a shower?? We could do without the washing machine or the tap water, but Grant needs his shower each day So for the sake of £2, I kept quiet and paid the extra, assuming that the toilet was included in this additional price too
Once again we had arrived in time to cook dinner as the sun was going down, and the colours were absolutely beautiful. As the golden sun made it's way behind the mountains, the sky changed from pink to purple to blue, as we took unsatisfying pictures on my iphone. The mosquitos were out in droves, so as soon as we finished dinner and washed up, we were straight into the tent.
The next morning was a bit overcast; Sarah was a bit annoyed as she had wanted to go up and see the mud volcanoes the afternoon before when it was sunny and nice but Grant was too tired after the driving. But up we went on the 10 min walk, realising how much more unfit we had become living our city lives the past few weeks. We got to the top and realised neither of us had brought any cash with us! And of course the entry fee was cash only (even if it was only 4 lei or 75p per person). But we saw there was a parking lot, so told the attendant we would be back, walked back down, got the car and Sarah had her first go of driving with the trailer, up some quite steep rocky roads.
The mud volcanoes were amazing. You could walk around them and up close to them, even touching them if you so desired (Grant did, they were cold ... and muddy, funnily enough). The site was enormous, too big to walk all around in one day, and there were no real pathways, so off we went exploring, moving from one mud puddle to another, amazed at the views, the alien scenery compared to the mountains and yellow & greenery in the background; everything nearby was different shades of grey, either gloopy mud puddles or dry cracked earth.
Being able to be up so close was pretty incredible; something we realised when we drove 5 minutes to the second site where they had one big volcano and you were only allowed near it in certain conditions. This site had signs and explanations and warnings - if we had seen this site first, we would probably not have explored the other - we would totally recommend to explore the other one first (even though the second is more informative).
Minds blown, we jumped back into the car, back towards Bucharest, where we would find a campsite that would be a decent drive to the mechanics in the morning. We had found an issue with the airbags that the mechanics installed which annoyingly meant we needed to go back to get them fixed.
We found one about 45 mins drive away, it was fairly empty (a few GB plated caravans with occupants no where to be seen - weird??) and lots of wild puppies to keep Sarah entertained.
We will write a separate post on the mechanical side of things later, but once we had been to the mechanics (which was of course took longer than we expected and we ended up having a nice warm soupy lunch nearby, tripe again for Grant, creamy mushroom for Sarah - it's starting to get a bit cold!), we decided to head to Bulgaria. There is so much more of Romania that we want to see, but time (and weather) is getting away from us and we want more sun!
So off we headed into Transylvania, towards Bran Castle, where we had already scoped out a campsite as we knew we would be lateish arriving, the aptly named Vampire Camping Bran.
Luckily it was still light when we arrived so we could easily choose a level spot, and set ourselves up quickly ready to enjoy dinner watching a lovely sunset over the mountains. We had been told we were sharing the campsite with two massive groups of German (20 vans) and French (10 vans) campervanners, who were having a ball with their group dinner, especially the Germans singing songs well into the early hours. I was impressed with their stamina, as we were so tired we were in bed by 10pm!!!
We took a while to get going the next morning, and did a bit of catching up on cleaning and organising the car and trailer, and watching the German & French contingents pack up their vans and leave. We always feel like it's a bit of an effort for us to pack up, especially putting away the tent; we often we discuss the pros and cons of caravans and campervans, but really it seems to take everyone a lot of faffing around before they can just up and leave to go anywhere; they are still putting away awnings, chairs and tables, cleaning windows, etc. It's one of the benefits of the trailer being able to leave it behind all set up to go exploring, but a bit harder setting up or putting away our tent if we are on the move every day.
Before it got too late we headed into Bran; we found a rock star park outside the Castle, and went to find a snack before we went in.
There were a few supermarkets and fast food stores, but the supermarkets didn't have any warm snacks, and the fast food joints seemed on the pricey side (tourist mecca of course!). We ended up finding a little bakery, but it didn't seem to sell the yummy cheesy bread we saw everyone else walking around with. We got a semi satisfying snack and off we went into the castle.
Bran Castle is known for being the castle written about in the book Dracula, but Vlad the Impaler (who Dracula is loosely based on) never actually lived here. It belonged to Queen Maria of Romania, who left it to her daughter Princess Ileana, and her descendants still own it today.
We had been told it was a must see, and we must agree, the castle itself was incredible, beautiful old rooms and furniture over multiple levels, with amazing woodwork, stone features and wrapped around a lovely courtyard - the only downside was the many other tourists who were also there, blocking the doorways and crowding the stairwells; we keep saying it's better to get to these attractions early before the tour buses, but sometimes its just too hard to get going in the mornings! Hopefully days like this will keep us a bit more motivated to get going earlier.
Once we had our fix of the castle and the lovely large grounds, we snuck out the back exit (i think the tourbuses came in this way) and were back at our car, where the lovely parking attendant was sitting right next to our car - how's that for service? And it was cheaper than any of the large parking sections on our way in ... double win!
We decided we hadn't done enough sightseeing and drove towards a small town called Zarnesti which we had been told was lovely, and it took us further towards the mountains of Piatra Craiuilui. We drove a little up into the mountains to look at the views, only realising later how close we were to the Pestera drive we had been on recently. We really hadn't moved far at all!
Back to our campsite via the local Mega Image supermarket to stock up for a few days, and to enjoy the rest of the late afternoon.
Next up, we had found an interesting area that had mud volcanoes; there was a campsite nearby but we had no idea how much it would cost, the last review said approx 45 lei (which is around £8) but it was a few years ago .......
Again arriving at a decent hour, we asked how much the site was. The man answered 1000 lei (a leftover from communist times where the currency was so devalued that it was in the thousands); we didn't really know how much that meant, but he waved us into a site and we parked up, it was so picturesque but we were a bit concerned that the price would be more than we wanted to pay.
If we aren't sure what the price is, we tend to pay upfront so we know for sure; so off I went to the reception to pay for our one and only night. It was a different man this time, so I asked again how much. 35 lei for one night, plus 10 lei for water - washing machine, taps, shower .....what?! charging extra for a shower?? We could do without the washing machine or the tap water, but Grant needs his shower each day So for the sake of £2, I kept quiet and paid the extra, assuming that the toilet was included in this additional price too
Once again we had arrived in time to cook dinner as the sun was going down, and the colours were absolutely beautiful. As the golden sun made it's way behind the mountains, the sky changed from pink to purple to blue, as we took unsatisfying pictures on my iphone. The mosquitos were out in droves, so as soon as we finished dinner and washed up, we were straight into the tent.
The next morning was a bit overcast; Sarah was a bit annoyed as she had wanted to go up and see the mud volcanoes the afternoon before when it was sunny and nice but Grant was too tired after the driving. But up we went on the 10 min walk, realising how much more unfit we had become living our city lives the past few weeks. We got to the top and realised neither of us had brought any cash with us! And of course the entry fee was cash only (even if it was only 4 lei or 75p per person). But we saw there was a parking lot, so told the attendant we would be back, walked back down, got the car and Sarah had her first go of driving with the trailer, up some quite steep rocky roads.
The mud volcanoes were amazing. You could walk around them and up close to them, even touching them if you so desired (Grant did, they were cold ... and muddy, funnily enough). The site was enormous, too big to walk all around in one day, and there were no real pathways, so off we went exploring, moving from one mud puddle to another, amazed at the views, the alien scenery compared to the mountains and yellow & greenery in the background; everything nearby was different shades of grey, either gloopy mud puddles or dry cracked earth.
Being able to be up so close was pretty incredible; something we realised when we drove 5 minutes to the second site where they had one big volcano and you were only allowed near it in certain conditions. This site had signs and explanations and warnings - if we had seen this site first, we would probably not have explored the other - we would totally recommend to explore the other one first (even though the second is more informative).
Minds blown, we jumped back into the car, back towards Bucharest, where we would find a campsite that would be a decent drive to the mechanics in the morning. We had found an issue with the airbags that the mechanics installed which annoyingly meant we needed to go back to get them fixed.
We found one about 45 mins drive away, it was fairly empty (a few GB plated caravans with occupants no where to be seen - weird??) and lots of wild puppies to keep Sarah entertained.
We will write a separate post on the mechanical side of things later, but once we had been to the mechanics (which was of course took longer than we expected and we ended up having a nice warm soupy lunch nearby, tripe again for Grant, creamy mushroom for Sarah - it's starting to get a bit cold!), we decided to head to Bulgaria. There is so much more of Romania that we want to see, but time (and weather) is getting away from us and we want more sun!
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2012
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Bulgaria
We had a little Romania Leu left over in cash, so decided on a little shopping spree before we left the country, treating ourselves to crisps, chocolates and wine, which felt like it was free
Upon reaching the border, we noticed there was a charge for crossing; this is a bit unusual, but we were going across a bridge, so guess it was the toll for that. We were very surprised when the lady tried to charge us 28 eur to go through though! We hadn't paid too much attention to the signs, but that seemed quite steep for locals (and non-locals really!). As we had spent all our leu, and of course, they only accept cash, we tried to understand why it was so expensive before forking over the money. It seemed to be because of the trailer - sometimes the trailer is treated as a separate vehicle, other times not. We couldn't really hear her over the engine, so Grant turned off the car - all of a sudden, the price had dropped to 14 eur. We still felt this was quite high, but weren't in the mood for arguing anymore, so just paid and drove through. This no mans land is a beautiful bridge over the Danube, and Grant drove slowly so we could get our monies worth, so slowly that many cars overtook us along the way
Arrive at the Bulgarian border was chaos ... cars pushing in, lots of horns beeping, people jumping in and out of cars and wandering around to find out what was going on - we've never been at a border like it! There were also a couple of cars parked up on the side of the road, and the driver was approaching cars in front of us - he wanted to borrow jumper leads, and we were able to quickly grab them out of the back to help out; we didn't even need to leave our queue! Unfortunately it seems their engine was kaput, and even though we offered to pull over and try and charge from our car (they didn't speak English so we tried this in a few different languages, then charades!), they thanked us, gave us back the jumper leads and we waited a bit more for the border.
This was a relatively easy crossing, we didn't get stopped by customs, but we did need to buy a vignette to drive through, luckily there was an office as soon as you crossed the border. However because of the trailer, this ended up being a bit of a mission again, we had no idea how to use the electronic kiosks, so we asked for help at the counter, and finally managed to get a vignette for the car and the trailer - another 30 euro down, but as we were to find, well worth the cost, as Bulgaria has cameras and trackers everywhere making sure your car a vignette.
By now it was quite late in the afternoon, and we realised our internet didn't cover Bulgaria, so once again we were without internet. We tried a couple of kiosks, but no luck, so we continued driving towards the wild camping spot Grant had saved on his phone.
Again the scenery has changed subtly, but now the main difference is that the signs are predominantly in Cyrillic; Sarah's head starts aching trying to get her head around the new characters as not all signs have Latin translations.
We find the dirt road leading to the wild camping spot, nestled between two large fields and drive down leaving a trail of dust behind us, not at all the inconspicuous attempt we were aiming for.
But no one is around and the maintained fields give way to more fields that haven't seen a tractor in months - we are in the right spot. We try a couple of spots, but the ground is too uneven, the grass too high, some kind of weird plant with prickles getting all over our shoes.
Finally we come to the end of the track - no one has been past here in forever and there is nowhere really for us to set up; without internet we will struggle to find a new location this late in the day. Discussion are had, maps are scoured - should we stay in the carpark of the cave area we want to visit tomorrow? It's hard to see if we would be able to set up properly, maybe we could drive and see? A farmer goes by on his tractor, but Sarah is too slow getting to him to ask if they can stay on the corner of his field for the night. We are both tired, and getting a bit grumpy, so in the end, we decide to drive another hour into Bulgaria, towards a campsite we were planning on going to the day after, and coming back to see the caves in a few days.
It starts raining and gets dark, Sarah has a massive headache and the oncoming headlights do not help with this at all. The oncoming cars continue to overtake like madmen, and half way through the drive, we come across an idiot trying to overtake a truck around a corner..... so scary! Well done Grant for his quick reflexes so we didn't end up in a ditch. Although we have both had enough, we are so close to the campsite, we make it for around 9pm.
We are warmly greeted and told to camp anywhere except in front of the yellow house - the spot Grant had already eyed off of course! We saw a campfire nearby and headed straight for that area, and found a nice little spot behind the camper of the couple at the fire. Who of course were Australians! Jake and Nikki, who were on the european leg of their 2 year travels having only recently purchased their campervan to explore for a few months. They had already been through Mongolia, so we had lots to talk about.
Even though a well earned beer called to us, we set the tent up quickly first (luckily because as soon as we did it started to rain!) and then went and joined our new friends at the campfire; the time passed quickly and we ended up having quite a late night, extending the invitation to some German and French campers who were also staying!
Feeling quite exhausted, Grant and I ended up spending five nights at this campsite; we didn't go sightseeing, but instead enjoyed the tranquil surroundings, watched other campers fishing in the lake, read, and were entertained by the menagerie of animals - cats, dogs, chickens and a turkey! We took some time to recharge our batteries whilst also getting a few things ticked off our never ending to do list.
One of those things was to make sure our back seat could finally fit a passenger ... we were getting a visitor!
We had a little Romania Leu left over in cash, so decided on a little shopping spree before we left the country, treating ourselves to crisps, chocolates and wine, which felt like it was free
Upon reaching the border, we noticed there was a charge for crossing; this is a bit unusual, but we were going across a bridge, so guess it was the toll for that. We were very surprised when the lady tried to charge us 28 eur to go through though! We hadn't paid too much attention to the signs, but that seemed quite steep for locals (and non-locals really!). As we had spent all our leu, and of course, they only accept cash, we tried to understand why it was so expensive before forking over the money. It seemed to be because of the trailer - sometimes the trailer is treated as a separate vehicle, other times not. We couldn't really hear her over the engine, so Grant turned off the car - all of a sudden, the price had dropped to 14 eur. We still felt this was quite high, but weren't in the mood for arguing anymore, so just paid and drove through. This no mans land is a beautiful bridge over the Danube, and Grant drove slowly so we could get our monies worth, so slowly that many cars overtook us along the way
Arrive at the Bulgarian border was chaos ... cars pushing in, lots of horns beeping, people jumping in and out of cars and wandering around to find out what was going on - we've never been at a border like it! There were also a couple of cars parked up on the side of the road, and the driver was approaching cars in front of us - he wanted to borrow jumper leads, and we were able to quickly grab them out of the back to help out; we didn't even need to leave our queue! Unfortunately it seems their engine was kaput, and even though we offered to pull over and try and charge from our car (they didn't speak English so we tried this in a few different languages, then charades!), they thanked us, gave us back the jumper leads and we waited a bit more for the border.
This was a relatively easy crossing, we didn't get stopped by customs, but we did need to buy a vignette to drive through, luckily there was an office as soon as you crossed the border. However because of the trailer, this ended up being a bit of a mission again, we had no idea how to use the electronic kiosks, so we asked for help at the counter, and finally managed to get a vignette for the car and the trailer - another 30 euro down, but as we were to find, well worth the cost, as Bulgaria has cameras and trackers everywhere making sure your car a vignette.
By now it was quite late in the afternoon, and we realised our internet didn't cover Bulgaria, so once again we were without internet. We tried a couple of kiosks, but no luck, so we continued driving towards the wild camping spot Grant had saved on his phone.
Again the scenery has changed subtly, but now the main difference is that the signs are predominantly in Cyrillic; Sarah's head starts aching trying to get her head around the new characters as not all signs have Latin translations.
We find the dirt road leading to the wild camping spot, nestled between two large fields and drive down leaving a trail of dust behind us, not at all the inconspicuous attempt we were aiming for.
But no one is around and the maintained fields give way to more fields that haven't seen a tractor in months - we are in the right spot. We try a couple of spots, but the ground is too uneven, the grass too high, some kind of weird plant with prickles getting all over our shoes.
Finally we come to the end of the track - no one has been past here in forever and there is nowhere really for us to set up; without internet we will struggle to find a new location this late in the day. Discussion are had, maps are scoured - should we stay in the carpark of the cave area we want to visit tomorrow? It's hard to see if we would be able to set up properly, maybe we could drive and see? A farmer goes by on his tractor, but Sarah is too slow getting to him to ask if they can stay on the corner of his field for the night. We are both tired, and getting a bit grumpy, so in the end, we decide to drive another hour into Bulgaria, towards a campsite we were planning on going to the day after, and coming back to see the caves in a few days.
It starts raining and gets dark, Sarah has a massive headache and the oncoming headlights do not help with this at all. The oncoming cars continue to overtake like madmen, and half way through the drive, we come across an idiot trying to overtake a truck around a corner..... so scary! Well done Grant for his quick reflexes so we didn't end up in a ditch. Although we have both had enough, we are so close to the campsite, we make it for around 9pm.
We are warmly greeted and told to camp anywhere except in front of the yellow house - the spot Grant had already eyed off of course! We saw a campfire nearby and headed straight for that area, and found a nice little spot behind the camper of the couple at the fire. Who of course were Australians! Jake and Nikki, who were on the european leg of their 2 year travels having only recently purchased their campervan to explore for a few months. They had already been through Mongolia, so we had lots to talk about.
Even though a well earned beer called to us, we set the tent up quickly first (luckily because as soon as we did it started to rain!) and then went and joined our new friends at the campfire; the time passed quickly and we ended up having quite a late night, extending the invitation to some German and French campers who were also staying!
Feeling quite exhausted, Grant and I ended up spending five nights at this campsite; we didn't go sightseeing, but instead enjoyed the tranquil surroundings, watched other campers fishing in the lake, read, and were entertained by the menagerie of animals - cats, dogs, chickens and a turkey! We took some time to recharge our batteries whilst also getting a few things ticked off our never ending to do list.
One of those things was to make sure our back seat could finally fit a passenger ... we were getting a visitor!
