Camping Arges

We managed to get off our pitch without further incident this morning. Phew!

Then off to Dâmbovicioara for a canyon hike.

Not being completely sure where the hike started, we called in at the Tourist Information Center and spoke to a very helpful woman. Her opening remark was, "the canyon walk is completely safe but don't go into the mountains because of the bears". We had no intention of going into the mountains anyway but she repeated about 3 times that we shouldn't go beyond the end of the canyon hike, which was about 3k along a tarmac road and 3k back.

Ok, so not the most exciting of walks but we decided to do it anyway, mainly on the basis that it was the only walk on offer! By the time we parked the car it was pissing down. Undeterred, we carried on, picking up a stray dog to keep us company.

About 0.5k into the walk Sara said, "Look, there's a bear". I initially thought she was joking but sure enough, up in one of the fields above the village, just below the tree line, was a big bear. We stopped and watched for a while... as did a man in the garden of one of the nearby houses. His chickens and dogs were going ballistic - we assume because of the bear, rather than because of us. He certainly watched it very closely until it disappeared.

He didn't speak any English, but he made it pretty clear that we should go back to the van, which we did. Quite exciting, but probably the shortest walk ever! Unfortunately, neither of us took a photo.

After driving for what seemed like hours (actually about 2 hours) on the worst road ever - non-stop roadworks for the first half, followed by a really lumpy bumpy surface for the second - we are now at Camping Arges, located at the southern end of the Transfăgărășan, ranked as one of the best roads in the world, at least according to Jeremy Clarkson. Unfortunately, we learned today that the tunnel section (at around 800m) is not yet open so we can't do it all. But we'll drive as far as we can and see what happens. The road itself gets to just over 2000m but we're not sure if that is on the section we are doing.

Worst case, we'll be back at this campsite tomorrow night! But we are hoping to see a lot of bears en route.Read more