Day 66

22/10/2011 – Day 66

Hârşova to Tutcoaia – 70km

I slept very little during the night mainly because I was cold. The trucks passing the hotel never stopped. During the early hours of the morning I studied Google maps to see if there was an alternative to riding back down the busy road to the official route.

The whole section through Romania seems to have been planned with little research or thought. Looking at the maps I can see that there is a track on the top of the dyke running most of the route for today. Just 400m from the hotel it a farm track that we can follow and that will cut a huge distance from the official route and keep us off the roads totally.

After breakfast we set off down this track and are making good time all in the right direction. At one point we lose the track and have to turn back but quickly find the dyke path which is as good (or bad) as some of the track we used in Hungary.

For the next 23km we use these tracks without any problems, there has been very little rain here for most of the summer so the tracks are rock hard just a little bumpy in places. This also cuts at least 6km off the route we were supposed to take.

There were only two points where we ran into trouble, one where the dyke has been washed out by a river and the second where the track stops for reasons unknown. At the first point there is a gaping hole in the track. My first instinct is that the gypsies would have found a way round it but no, there were no tracks indicating a way past. The only solution is to unload the bikes and manhandle them across the gap. This is not a problem but takes about 20 minutes to get back on the road.

The second area is where the track just stops through lack of use, the dyke is there but no one uses it for some reason. This time though the gypsies do come to the rescue with a track leading off to the beach where it runs parallel to the river until we come back to the dyke. This does not slow us down at all once you find the track.

After about 35km the dyke and the road meet, at this point we join the road as the there is no alternative. It also gives us the chance to stop for a coffee. It has taken us two and a half hours to get here which by Romanian standards is quite slow, but it is the same speed we were achieving in Slovenia, Hungary and Serbia.

We are on the road for the next 21km until we get the opportunity to return to the dyke, again it is not as smooth as the road but there is no traffic (apart from two cars and a horse and cart).

Using the guide and Google we have a few options for where to stay tonight, the first is Tutcoaia where there is supposed to be a guest house but when we first enter the village and ask no one knows where it is. Stopping for a coffee we ask again and the guy tells us to go to the mill and turn left. This does not make sense but as we cycle through the village we look down every left turn. Stopping again to ask we are directed down a side street and told to turn right.

When we get to the bottom of the hill and turn we find ourselves in a factory complex. Asking the workers they point to the door and tell us to ask there. It turns out this is a flour mill that makes bread and has rooms to let as well.

The room is well furnished and large; we are spoilt after last night and able to have a shower at last. Something we have come to expect here is the bathroom floor flooding, either from the drain overflowing or the shower leaking. For some reason they find it impossible to set a drain at the lowest point of the floor, as a result the water sits on the floor in a puddle. Tonight’s problem is that the bathroom floor is higher than the room’s floor and the water drains towards the step. After seeing the leak it is a case of forming a dam with the towels and trying to sweep the water uphill to the drain.

The dinner is served in the mill canteen but in a separate dining room to the workers. The food is plain but good and filling, finishing off with cakes made at the mill.