Budapest to Bucharest..Crossing the Carpathian Mountains

We left Budapest on the 19th of April and headed east out of the city towards the border town of Debrecen where we planned to cross into Romania. A cycle path took us to Cinoka and apart from lots of twists and turns it made leaving Budapest relatively easy. Unfortunately after 30-40km Huw's pedal decided to strip the thread inside the crank arm and fall off. So we back- tracked a bit and camped before hobbling back into the city in the morning for repairs. After the epoxy resin gave up, Huw tied the pedal to his foot and carried on, managing to only fall off once. It was hard work and he didn't look too happy by the time we reached BikeBase. We stayed with Imre and Gyorti and left again the next morning with a repaired bike.

Leaving Hungary behind we entered Romania from the border town of Debrecen and passed on to Oradea. The  ride across Hungary hadn't been too eventful. Hightlights had included passing around Lake Tisza and through Hortobagyi national park and wetlands.  Interesting areas with big potential for fishing and bird watching.

Things went more smoothly this time and we made good progress towards Romania. The countryside was flat with some very interesting wetlands full of many species of birds and heaving with frogs. Cranes nested on electricity poles in the middle of towns unconcerned by us pointing our cameras at them.

Overlooking  Tau lake early on in Romania and maybe getting near the time for a haircut now the days were become warmer!

We reached the border after a few days of easy riding and passed through easily after the guards had questioned us about how far we had ridden. Luckily I persuaded the bank that was closed, to change some money for us before we headed east. The first few towns were a great change to what we had seen in Hungary. As the great cyclist Hamada said, they looked like they were straight out of Robin Hood. Chickens were everywhere, along with many mangy dogs, pigs, goats and bored looking villagers. Each house had a big cage outside, full of the seasons maize harvest. We found a lovely mixed hornbeam and oak forest to camp in and had a fire and cooked roasted vegetables and sausages. Just after dark a huge bunch of wild boar came for a sniff around the tents making much noise as they foraged about.

Romania offered some beautiful camping spots.  Here in a Hornbeam forest Huw saw a lynx walk past in the early evening.  It was a beautiful area that needed more time to explore properly. Wild boar were also around and quite possibly the occasional bear.

We headed east and left the larger roads for the mountains where the cycling was harder but much more rewarding. It was beautiful scenery with lovely streams and valleys and very light traffic. Camping proved a little more tricky to find than where we had passed through before, but the spots were usually much more like we had imagined when sitting in England planning the trip.

Tired out from a long day of cycling, Huw rests in the evening sun in  a forest in northern Romania.

We wanted to climb one of the passes in the southern Carpathians but were unsure which to go for. After asking a few people it seemed that the road to Moldoveanu was closed due to rock falls or snow, so we chose to take the 67c from Sebes to the 7a where we could then carry on to Bucharest. The first day was spent slowly climbing up the mountain road. We met a Romanian couple who told us the pass was blocked by one and a half metres of snow and that we must turn back as there was no chance of getting through. We carried on for a while before camping by the Sebes River. In the moring two fly fishermen came by and we chatted for a while. One had caught a 22cm brown trout but said it was pretty hard going. Apparently Slovenia is the place to go for big trout!

Climbing through the mountains in central  Romania spectacular scenery  unfolded  around every corner. Beautiful  streams,  surrounded by woodland flowers cascaded down from the steep and heavily wooded mountain sides.  Finding drinking water was never a problem in these parts.

We carried on the next morning intending to find out how bad the road was and whether it was possible to continue over the pass. We met Mark the hydroelectric technician at Tau Lake, who in his drunken state, gave us the latest report of the road conditions. Apparently the snow covered 20km of the top of the pass..hmm!! He also told us that three motorcylists had turned back that day. We had seen five more motorcyclists ascending that morning and hoped not to see them returning later on. That afternoon they came back much to our dismay. Later we met a Romanian couple, Sylvia and his wife at Vidra lake who had turned around as the road had become too rough for their car. Sylvia kindly gave us each a 2lt bottle of schwepps which proved to be a great help later. Thanks mate..

As We neared the highest part of the mountain pass, deep snow blocked the way for  anyone that had come before us.   Most vehicles had turned back judging from tyre tracks at the the snowline and from people we had spoken to. It was easy to back track in a motorised vehicle but less so for us, for it was a lengthy detour to find an alternative route through the mountains to reach Bucharest.

So we decided to push on over the snowy pass. It was a hard decision as we had  no real idea of how far  the snow continued. It might be 2km or maybe 20km. We had enough food for a couple of days so figured as long as the snow didn't get very deep we should be able to make a good distance and hopefully make it over to the other side. We could always turn back if things started looking doubtful.

The road quickly deteriorated into a muddy and pot-holed mess but not as bad as Mark the welshman had said (he claimed it would be the worst road we had seen in our lives). The snow came in patches at first but soon the whole road was covered in a layer a foot deep. We started to push and after 3 km I walked a further km to see if things got any better, which it didn't. I returned and went to look for Huw who was nowhere to be seen. I found him 500m down the hill and helped him by carrying his bags up to my bike. We then walked 4km up the road and although the snow became deeper, we seemed to have reached the top of the mountain. We returned and set up camp in the middle of the road, completely exhausted. We hoped if it was the top we had found, then the distance down to the end of the snow wasn't too far beyond.

It wasn't all that easy to move a fully loaded  bike through  the snow.  In places it was a couple of feet deep and  clogged the wheels but at least it wasn't mud!  One of my hammock ropes rigged as a sling helped me pull the bike through..

Camping in the middle of the road proved to be a cold  affair but a very pleasant and quiet experience. 

The next morning, everything was frozen solid after a very cold night on the snow. It was the quietest place I have ever been, that is apart from the noisy flapping jays flying past at five in the morning. I couldn't get my shoes on as they were frozen solid and my socks were frozen to the ground. Luckily the coleman camp oven came to the rescue and soon my shoes were nice and snug. Huw had a new pair he had bought in Budapest for a special occasion and this was that occasion!

It wasn't just the snow that slowed our progress.  A few times we encountered fallen  trees that blocked the road.  To get past this one we managed to easily snap the brittle branches and clear a path. Others we had to unload and carry our gear over.

We set off and the going was slightly easier as the snow was still frozen from the previous night. We ended up pushing and hauling the bikes for 11km through snow and over fallen trees until we emerged on the far side of the pass to be greeted by some very fresh bear tracks in the mud by the side of the road. Luckily it was all down hill from here so I scooted off and waited for Huw lower down the hill. After a few cups of tea and a snooze Huw arrived and we carried on down towards Lake Vitra. Some of the locals seemed pretty surprised to see us coming down from the pass. We stopped for a beer to celebrate getting through and not having to return and go the long way round. It was a fine moment indeed!

'No pollution'

Over the next days headed in the direction of Bucharest and after one day in a little campsite, where we became trapped thanks to the owner plying us with local spirits to celebrate our arrival, we arrived today on the 6th of May. We are staying at the Butterfly Hostel after a bit of a mission around the city looking for a room. Nice place and now I'm going to test the bed!

'No fishing?'

It has been to brought to my attention that the signs above mean something along the lines of "too much fishing harms your health" (I bet it does with a dirty great bear about to eat you) and "don't pollute the environment". I thought they were kind warnings to us about the wild animals that we may encounter in the carpathians but i was very much mistaken.

Huw crossing the river! Although there was no need to get across it was hard to resist having a go!

Mountain stream, Carpathians

Spectacular scenery in Romania.  It was a shame  that we didn't have more time to  stop and explore the surrounding forests

Camping next to a stream that ran into a large lake. I fished and spotted some perch  which  of course were decidedly  uninterested in my spinners. Still a lovely spot with a great view. Cycling in Romania was great as it felt for the first time that we were in proper wilderness.  Like it had been in England once, bears, lynx, wolves and boar still roamed the forests.

Beautiful views and good weather through Romania

The Romanian countryside

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Budapest

We arrived in Budapest two days before Angela after an easy ride through Austria and Slovakia, along the Danube Cycle Way. The weather had improved vastly since I last wrote on here and the snow was a distant memory.

In southern Germany we had five days of cold conditions with fresh snow every morning. This made for unpleasant riding conditions on the slushy roads, with a couple of days where not too many km's were clocked. After the snow we had some rain but once in Austria the weather improved and has been on our side since. The last two weeks there hasn't been a cloud in the sky and spring has come on very quickly, all the leaves are out and the woodlands around Budapest are carpeted with flowers.

The riding has been fairly easy going with around 90km covered each day without particularly early starts.
The day after we stopped for beers in the hunting cabin we rode just ahead of a dark black sky for a few hours pleased that the snow couldn't catch us. Unfortunately after a rest I realised I had dropped my woolly hat and so back tracked for a few kilometres only to find that the hat was sat on my back panniers all along. With the clouds now threatening to catch us we sped down a big hill and cruised away pleased with ourselves only then to realise that Huw's rear rack was missing a bolt. So the snow came and we sheltered at the local supermarket and drank tea and ate lots of cakes while all the shoppers gave us funny looks!

Cycling through Europe has made me realise how impoverished the UK is in regards to it's natural history. I've seen many plant and animal species that are either extinct or very rare in the UK. I saw my first Camberwell Beauty flitting along the banks of the Danube in Austria and in Slovakia saw 15 Common Swallow Tails in a few hours. Fritillaries are everywhere and the commomer Nymphalids are around in very large numbers. Every valley in the German hills has its resident pair of Buzzards and kestrels are everywhere along with Red kites. Its been a pleasure to see Red Squirrels, wild Boar and Red Deer. There seems to be plenty of Beech martens but unfortunately the only one we saw had lost a fight with a car.

In Germany we saw the first signs of beavers and couldn't believe it first that they were so far north in Europe in such numbers and that they could chew down such large trees. Following the Danube they are present even in the large cities such as Wien and Linz. They were introduced in the 1960's and now there are 250,000 compared to the four in the UK. I didn't actually see any in the flesh until I was fishing in a big pool on the River Traisen. Two young beavers, perhaps just a couple of months old popped up only ten feet from my feet and played before climbing onto the bank, oblivious to my presence . They wrestled for a minute and then dived back in and disappeared under the bank from where they had come.

The fishing hasn't been great, actually its been abysmal! I have tried maybe ten times along the way in various rivers, mainly with lures and have had no success which isn't surprising as its been very cold. One night I had a lovely run at two o'clock in the morning using a big piece of salami as bait. By the time I had extracted myself from my cosy cocoon and got to my rod the fish was probably a few kilometres up the river. You've got to try though! Hopefully now with the better weather the water will be warmer and the fishies will be in a mood for feeding!

During the last two weeks of cycling I decided that my frame was a little small as I had been getting neck pain after around 40-50km each day. I checked a few shops in Germany for a larger one but none kept anything in stock so my father very kindly arranged for a Thorn frame to be sent to Budapest from the UK. Andras at O G Bike Shop received and held the frame until I arrived. Thanks very much mate, its much appreciated. (n.b if you need a bmx come see Andras as he's the man to talk to). I planned to build up the new bike in a park but when we were renting a bike for Angela we met the delightful Imre and Györgyi at BikeBase (www.bikebase.hu) who offered me the use of their workshop.

 This was a great help and made things much easier. (if you need to rent a bike or flat in Budapest come see these guys). We also rented a flat from them and had a very comfortable stay. Thanks guys, you have been very kind and I hope I can repay the favour one day. Thank you also to Attila from Bringavilág Sportközpont bike shop for suppling new bike bits and generally being very helpful.


The new frame feels very much better and with other minor adjustments gained from the experience over the last two months, it should make everything a bit more comfortable for the ride down to Turkey, through Romania and Bulgaria. The best bit though is that I now have a ferret sitting on my handle-bars to show us the way as we keep getting lost!

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Holland and Germany

We are now in southern Germany feeling a little tired after conquering many big hills. Its a bit of a change from the easy going endless flats of the Netherlands. Its very pleasant to have a change of scenery as the north was getting a bit monotonous. Field after field of grass got a little boring. We even climbed the highest hill in holland that we could find but at 77 metres it was not very challenging!!

Camped in central Germany we woke to find snow had fallen. It made a nice  change to the continuous rain  for the previous three weeks

Spring is coming on fast here with many woodland flowers emerging and leaves and catkins bursting from all the trees. The last few days however have seen a change with the winter returning. This morning I woke to all my water frozen and the zips on my tent frozen solid. I have fished a handful of times but have not secured my first catch yet, but as things warm up so too will the fishing I hope. From here we are going to follow the Danube through Austria to Bratislava and on to Budapest to meet Angela who is coming out for Easter. Unfortunately the northern route through Czech Rep. will take too long so we are settling on the easier flatter option..with many fishing spots!!

In the first few days we passed through a cold and bleak northern France.   Crecy forest  provided some  quiet camping in an otherwise arable landscape.  It was cold and wet so there was only one thing to do! Cook pizzas in the camp oven!

Hopefully I will be able to write a longer account of the past month soon as at the moment we are pressed for time! Lets hope not too much more snow comes down but maybe just enough so I can throw a snowball at Huw!

The weather was truly abysmal for the first month of cycling through  France, Belgium, Netherlands and  most of Germany.  Underpasses were a good place to dry out a little and have a bite to eat.

Amazingly, occasionally the grey skies cleared and a weak sun shone through onto the  open and flat landscape of northern France.  Cycling suddenly became remarkably pleasant without cold drizzle driving into our faces but it was most days it was short lived.  we would hope to get a bigger enough window of good weather to dry our tents, still sodden from the night before.  A stop in a village boulangerie to buy ingredients for a baguette would be followed by a tent drying session much to the curiosity of the local

After a little over a week of cycling east we arrived at the  border  of Belgium  and felt a sense of elation, if we could make it through one country and the February weather then we were well on our way. It also meant we were a step closer to the Hague and warm flat. Nick had kindly invited us to crash at his for a while.

After a confusing and very long day picking our way around various water courses  and trying to follow cycle routes through western Holland we arrived at Nick's place in the Hague.  It was great to catch up and also give the rain a miss. We planned to stay just a few days before heading on to Amsterdam, but a few days turned into a week as every morning we were greeted by rain. it was an easy choice to stay in the nice warm flat, but eventually we did leave and of course didn't stay dry for too long. Thanks for your hospitality Nick.

In many of these photos the sun is shining but don't be decieved; the camera  stayed tucked away for most of the first month!

Following the Dortmund Ems canal made for quiet cycling and easy camping.  We didn't really  want to spend money on hotels so spent every night camped up in some likely woodland. No one ever bothered us and it meant we could cover exactly how far we wanted each day.  A big dinner of pasta stuffed full of meat and cheese kept us going through the cold times.

A powerful storm ripped through a big chunk of Germany  just prior to our arrival and the damage was visible everywhere. In coniferous forests large trees were broken clean in half and debris made finding camping spots pretty tricky. We just hoped that another similar storm wouldn't pass while we were camped in the forest as thing could have turned out pretty bad indeed.

As we moved south in Germany the landscape slowly became more forested and usually the small roads we cycled on were quiet.

It was a very interesting experience to be outside 24/7. It gave me  us a fine appreciation of  exactly what was happening  in regards to the weather and the natural world. We watched spring emerge day by day; it was however somewhat sped up thanks to our continuous movement south.  The fine intricacies of the weather started to become unlocked for us and changes could be seen before they were visible.  It was a very free feeling we experienced, the only question being which route should we follow on the map. 

The River Rhine, so full of big fish that I was convinced that something would take the bait  while we camped in  a small plantation by the river. It didn't quite happen how I imagined and it ended up with us nearly being the ones caught. A group of hunters slowly drove the river bank after dark with a powerful spot light looking for deer. And our camping spot was 15 yards from the track they followed. With nearly all our equipment being reflective we quickly covered the lot with the green fly sheets and lay low. We weren't sure whether we could camp there and really didn't fancy having to try explain what we were doing. They passed by very slowly, their voices seemingly on top of us but luckily their hunting skills were lacking and they missed the two English cyclists hiding in the bushes.

German architecture along the Rhine

After discovering there was no ferry running across the Donau, as we were  a month or so too early, a detour had to be made up a very steep hill.  It was a cold day and the sky threatened to drop rain any minute, which it did so as we neared the summit.  A little way back we'd passed a hunters cabin with a very inviting covered verandah out the front. Now it was raining,  the veranda seemed all the more inviting but we decided to push on.  Out across the fields we pedaled received by a strong headwind bringing a now slushy sleet to our faces. Some large stacks of fire wood in the field offered some shelter from the terrible conditions, but not much. Stumbling around the back I was greeted by a crate of beer and suddenly things no longer looked quite so bleak.  Now, usually I would never take someone's beer but after a lengthy discussion we came to the conclusion that the owner, if there, would probably happily share some of his beer with us. unfortunately he wasn't there so we had to make do with each others company but we thanked the owner heartily. A short ride back down the hill and we made ourselves at home in the cabin's porch confident that no German hunters could be stupid enough to be out in the blizzard that was now covering everything in a layer of snow.

Lunch stop of baguettes and salami by the River Donau while wondering what fish swim  beneath.

The Landscape of southern Germany and Austria was breathtaking and sometimes a little tiring. By now though our fitness levels were high and stamina's had increased so that riding a loaded bike all day was no great problem.  Compared to when I set off from England I now felt super fit and could happily keep up with some of the road cyclists that trained along the river paths. One guy cloaked in lycra on the latest light weight machine seemed slightly annoyed with me sitting on his tail for ten kilometres..ah the perks of cycling 7-8 hours day!

Dream girl on the River Danube

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