Sibiu. In the centre of Romania.
We hit town the same day as the Sibiu Romaniacs Enduro Rallye. Mad off-road motor bikers.
One street just outside the wall was set as an obstacle course for the prolog. Early, it was the hobby riders who had to get over all the logs. Couple of Ozzies, most competitors mature well built guys. In the evening there was much more of a crowd for the experts and the pros, so we didn't see much of that. Then 5 days in the local bush. See the website.

Ozzie










First jump

Failed at the first, with the next rider ready.

Choosing the high log was the quick way through, but most tried for a lower log an he who hesitsted got the back wheel jammed.

All getting bogged down together.

The dolly bird with the checkered flag at last.

Old town.

For Mal, a special edition coming of the steam train grave yard.

Enough to make us homesick, remembering the twins on their first birthday.

People are smartly dressed, more so than the ultra casual Ozzies.

One of the Churches in evening light. Patterned roof.



                                     

First of 3 trips to the top of the world.         Busteni, just an hour down the railway line from Brasov.

On the way up, 4 telecabina stanchions visible. This is the top one.

Neil on the plateau. Like the High Country.

Sandra, really enjoying stepping out in the cool breeze.



Snow patch.

Little brown job moving off, later certified as a meadow pipit.

Weathered rocks

Looks like......?

Time out for a member of the film crew. Medieval knights had neither bananas nor 4WD. Met the driver. Takes over an hour to drive up. His usual business is adventure driving in the Nissan Patrol.

Passing the other car on the way down. It was a very vertical ride.

 

Brosov

Pedestrian mall in old town. Above me is the restaurant of our hotel, all decorated as in 1910, when the place was Austro-Hungarian and call Kronstadt. Our room was huge, on the first floor corner on that curve you see.
All the street cafes had the same umbrellas, very unifying, with the old and new town names.

As noted by Lonely Planet , the name is on the ridge top. The cable car or telecabina is the way to get up and see the old town in its bowl of hills.

There is a beautiful linear park all along the base of the ridge where all the known world of Brasov take the air. Various brass bands are in residence, with little kids scooting about .
Met a pair of Americans navigating by Lonely Planet and a Dutch couple who can't get it in Dutch. Have also seen French and Greek Romania editions.

We are still learning to drive this  blog. It was all neat and tidy in the set-up, but when posted, the captions shifted. Perhaps next time.....

Danube!  First thing, we took the local ferry across the River, a 2 minute trip, a wait of 13 minutes, then back across. We felt we had arrived.

A 4 hour cruise penetrates only the top corner of the Delta in a square tin catamaran. However, a 4 hour speedboat cruise reaches half-way down the Delta through the lagoons, with lunch at Mile 23.  Here the government pays pensions to a historic cultural group to maintain their way of life, and to feed traditional fish dishes to the tourists ! A handout with strings attached.

Stefan had asked for the speedboat, so the 4 of us agreed: Otmar & Lia, Neil and me.

Down a narrow channel, another boat, one of two large passenger cruisers was approaching.
1. Should our driver have pulled off earlier? He tried to hug the bank.
2. BUT the oncoming boat  neither slowed nor deviated even slightly. The word "cowboy" was used of him later back at the dock.
3. So under the prow we went, tipping up. Stefan was right into the water, Otmar and Lia were, too, but still holding on to the rail, but the driver quickly pulled them on board. Neil ended up in the corner, while I slid along the floor. 2 of us dunked and 3 of us awash to the armpits, all in the moments it took to right the boat.

4.  The second big boat took us on board, leaving our driver to head home alone. We were plied with hospitality, as shipwrecked people are. We stayed on the upper deck drying out, for we were now captive to the remaining 2 hours of their cruise.

5. Stefan's phone and camera stopped, while Otmar's came good later. So did our moist binoculars.
Otherwise all the bag contents were given a good airing. No loss, no injury.
6. The young boss met us on the dock and gave us our money back. He was mortified!  His first incident in 10 years, and his father the retired captain of one of the cruise boats.
7. In the afternoon, the father gave us the catamaran cruise. His life is the Delta.
Great weather, great company with Otmar & Lia again, (Stefan had to go on to the Black Sea Coast), and close to the birds.

The roller








Common tern

Squacco heron



                   Spoonbill juvenile



This insect was one of thousands providing a meal for hundreds of birds of over half a dozen types for a few kilometres along the river.

Neil's hat, made by the captain.













                                          Lia and Otmar

The last bird of the trip - a Kingfisher !






8. Two halves of the day.
Neil read that morning in Psalm 37.23 "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord and He delights in his way." It was me who added the next verse, "Though he fall, he will not be cast down, for the Lord upholds him with his hand."  Well, we had v24 in the morning and v23 in the afternoon!

The next day was a rest, due to the tremendous thunderstorm downpour (& we were tired !).

Thursday began with the minibus to I C Bratiani and a ferry crossing over the Danube at its widest to Galati (Galatch).

Pastor Mihai was free for an immediate lunch, and took us on a tour of his Church.  Modern and still being increased.
His sister, Nicoleta and her husband work in the Church.  It is quite a family enterprise, from his parents' time.  All Mihai's 9 brothers and sisters are in the Church too. Of course the development of the fellowship has made great changes these last 20 years. Pastor Radu in Tecuci is one of 14 outreaches from this Church.
This is specially for PenCC readers, to whom they send greetings.

                                                                                                                                                                 

Our Varna host, a great touring motorcycle enthusiast.

Constanta. Our hotel was a modern Ibis for a change, but in the Old Town. Archeology conveniently displays Greek language stele, or life stories written to memorialise the dead to the "Passerby", calling "Salutations".
My favourite was an agoranomus, the market manager, I think, who at 50 left this thought in his life story.
"I considered friendship for all as a title of glory."


Quite a contrast from opinions given to us. Bulgarian thinking Greeks were out to do you, Romanian waitresses asking why on earth we came to Romania, but agreeing it was heaps better than Bulgaria. Yet we are constntly indebted to the kindness of strangers.

Huge Roman pavement from there centre of business. Like Philippi, ruined by earthquake in the 6th C.

Sofia's synagogue is alive and well, Constanta's Jewish history is different, with the ruined synagogue occupied by gypsy squatters.

The local brew, pronounced "chook".








A day in the country in  Renault Dacia Logan.

How others travel.




The shepherd.
From the train we saw 2 successive shepherds on mobile phones. Go figure.......


BIRD OF THE DAY
Stone curlew, a weird chook.
Lots of cuckoos.

Left to right: cuckoo (first good picture), jackdaw and 2 bee-eaters.

Ciprian (Chiprian), whose father captained the big tourist cruiser till he retired. Ready for the speed boat trip with lunch at Mile 23. The people who live there are now encouraged by a pension to maintain their culture and serve lunch to tourists, majoring on fish soup. See next episode.

Our second rail trip, Plovdiv to Burgas. some productive countryside, especially sunflowers, mixed with depressing old factories. One enormous old oil comlex with only a few colourful new pipes. And rain.

People. Out enjoying the sun at last.








Even the kinder kids.

And getting on with their jobs. OHS issues, especially here. The short ladder is held in place manually, but only on a bent old board.





This shows how big the yellow-legged gulls are, like chooks! They are everywhere, and noisy. But this old Crusader knows how to
 see them off.

The Black Sea. Both Burgas and Varna have enormous Sea Parks, large wooded public spaces before the beach. Our bus to Varna was only a minibus, and rather a rattletrap, passing condos waiting for resort visitors, some in the midlle of country, then over wooded hills.

George was our taxi driver for the morning, getting us where no bus could and much cheaper than a hire car. Nothing much doing in the birdwatching line, So George took us to an ancient Thracian tomb. All hidden under a grass mound or tumulus. Sort of doughnut or mushroom shape inside round a central chimney. Deified but dead chief was buried here and rituals sounded like a good orgy.

Curator insisted we take a CD of Bulgarian history for Australia.

With the language, we are indebted to the kindness of strangers every day.

Here are St Cyril and St Mathodii who invented their own cyrillic alphabet based on the Greek. The flowers are from the 24th, their national celebration of this work. A minibus is mhnhbyc, and all the rest is too hard to share.

Another thunderous wet afternoon.





Tomorrow to Constanta, Romania.