September 20th Stage 49 Donji Milanovac to the Romanian border ( Drobeta-Turnu Severin.)

September 20^th Stage 49  Donji Milanovac to the Romanian border ( Drobeta-Turnu Severin.) 53 kms

We could have entered Romania two days ago but I think we made the right decision to follow the Serbian side of the Danube Gorge. Today, despite the poor weather which turned even worse as the day went by, the riding was exciting and the views exhilarating. The two really narrow sections of the river at Cazanele Mari and at Cazanele Mici looked appropriately spectacular and threatening in the morning gloom, especially as the road climbs and the greater elevation makes for a wider and deeper viewpoint. With the change in weather again the wind was behind me and I hummed along, able to ignore the heavier rain in my enjoyment of the landscape. The only blot on that landscape (almost literally) were two long tunnels. The first at Cazanele Mari is 374 metres long and pitch black. I was cursing my inadequate lights as I peddled through furiously, afraid at one point that I was on the wrong side of the road.  The second, only slightly shorter tunnel a few kilometres later, was on an uphill stretch of road where I would be riding more slowly. I asked Katherine to drive behind me to light the way.  She was a little nervous of doing so having been overtaken in one of the earlier narrow tunnels even though (or perhaps because) she was driving at the 60 kph speed limit. It was just as well she did though because two vehicles did arrive but, thankfully, waited patiently behind the car as I pedalled through the gloom.

Cold and wet I arrived at Sip and the enormous barrage, spiked with yellow cranes and gantries, across the Danube which connects Serbia and Romania. The Serbians checked the passport and waved us through with a smile and a goodbye. I rode the kilometre across the barrage with the fierce crosswind buffeting me and the Danube water pounding beneath me. We were unprepared for the minor formalities required to enter Romania, fumbling foolishly to find the car’s “permis de circulation” whilst at the same time hunting for my passport in my soggy rucksack. Suddenly, everything seemed hectic. We had been led to believe to expect more horses and carts in Romania than cars yet on the main artery outside the customs compound, there was what seemed to be an endless stream of heavy traffic on a road where there was no sign of a bicycle track.  Dobreta-Severin was clearly a bigger town than we had envisaged and so, fearful of losing each other in the search for accommodation we put the bike in the car for the last 13 kilometres into the city.  I can always do that stretch tomorrow morning when, according to the weather forecast, the sun will be shining again.

And so we arrived in Romania, our tenth and final country, in wild autumn weather and maybe equally autumnal spirits.

53 kms Total from Schaffhausen 1988 kms  Total from Galway  3898 kms