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We entered Romania after a three hour hold up at the border. Not sure
why, but there you go, so we ended up sleeping just over the border again.
We then headed east towards Arad and then turned north and inland a bit
to see some hills. The roads deteriorated at this point, to be expected
really but the countryside was quite something. There were lots of people
out walking their cows. Sunday is presumably their day of rest so they
get to eat fresh grass along the sides of the roads or wherever they can
find it. There were lots of horses and carts out on the roads so driving
at night was definitely out, despite the pot holes that is.
Then, the brakes decided they were less than happy so we stopped in a
supermarket car park in Sibiu to sort them out. The supermarket was similar
to a UK Lidl or Aldi and was obviously something new to Romania. It came
complete with annoying boys trying to make money for sweets by collecting
and returning your trolley to the park for you. Some may say enterprising,
some will say a nuisance, and they kept asking us for euro's, well, for
the first day anyway. A few days later and with new seals in the rear
brake and master cylinders and, with new rear hub oil seals fitted we
were still having problems getting the back brakes to work. We found out
about a campsite so clamped the back brakes and hobbled there.
Amazingly, they welcomed us and turned on all the lights for us and fed
us some freshly distilled something. We had to use the hotel toilets and
showers as the campsite water had been turned off as the weather was too
cold. We stayed there for three nights whilst we did a bit of washing
and finally traced the problem to a leaky brake fluid bleed nipple.
We wandered off from there south to the Bulgarian
border. The crossing from Calafat turned out to be a ferry and we had
to wait for enough vehicles to fill it before it would depart. That is,
after, we had paid our three taxes to leave Romania. The ferry was rustic
and the crew were friendly but it will need some improvements to achieve
EU standards.
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