Gwilym's Adventure Blog

What a great day, yet again Romania delivers! A 6:45 start and I was heading up the 7C by 7:30. "I am so great, I have missed all the traffic" thought I as I came round the corner and had to stop for over 10 minutes whilst about a million sheep , a few donkeys, dogs, a couple of horses and 4 farmers wandered down the road. Once I carried on there was a trail of sheep poo for 5km so they must have started early to move them that far. Once past this however, the road was virtually my own. I saw about 4 cars on the way up. I was riding South to North so the classic picture was my descent. It was pretty cold up to at 11 degrees as the sun was only just starting to touch the road in places. Once down the other side it was coffee and croissant and a chat to a group of British bikers. Staying true to my plan, I headed North without using the A1 (woudl have saved 3 hours riding) but used the DN1 which was a pretty good road in itself with fast sweeping be...

Ah Romania, thank you for having some decent roads. A very early start 5:45 from Moldova saw me through the border and into Romania by 7am.  I have to say, I am not impressed with the border back into the EU. All the barriers were up so anyone could drive through un checked, the customs lady really couldn't give a monkeys and was so half hearted at looking in vehicles and she had no interest in checking my bike paperwork. And the Romanian street dogs started chasing me less then 100m from the border gate. Arrrrgh. Within an hour, things started to look up. I saw hills in the distance and the road started to wind its way through them. First the DN11, then the DN73 and finally the DN73C that delivered me to my campsite here at 5.30pm. A long day. It was hot today with temps in the mid thirties so I rode for a few hours then hid in a cafe to cool down. This was repeated 4 times and I arrived in a very sweaty dehydrated mess. got more of the same to look forward to t...

Things have not quite gone to plan today. Firstly I was woken up around midnight last night by the mother of all thunderstorms. The wind was horrendous as well as the rain and lightening and for the best part of an hour I was lying in my tent wishing I was somewhere else. Anyway, this morning I got away at 6.30am after riding my bike off a waterlogged pitch. No hanging about as it was a 3hour ride to the ferry across the Danube which at only €3 seemed a bargain. Especially a only me and 1 truck on it. A quick passport check on docking and I was in Bulgaria heading south. There was a bureau exchange at the border control but it doesn't open on a Monday so I still have some Romainia Leu and Euros but no Bulgarian currency. A low cloud just hung around keeping the temperature down initially before it started climbing rapidly to low 30s. A great little road (162 and 16) bending and winding through the hills before I dropped down to use the Sofia ri...

 (Borrowed from Google) So Romania you delivered some awesome roads or at least, some awesome scenery with bits of tarmac. You could do with filling in a few holes here and there. A looooooong day in the saddle today, about 10 hrs in total. A relatively easy border crossing started the day before the heat cranked up and the roads started to have corners. Bugger, it is a Sunday and the banks are closed so can't change any money. Fortunately found a hole in the wall that my card would work it to get some Romainian Leu. 100? That should do it, so straight into a patisserie to buy a croissant for 2 leu with a 100 note. They didn't seem too impressed. Anyway, one of the roads on my list the 67C or "Transalpina" was pretty amazing. Stunning views all along it with wooded valleys (with some shade) at the northern end of the road before climbing up and over the pass to a nice cool 17 degrees before dropping back down to 30 something. The re...