Weather: ☁️⛅⛅⛅⛅
Picnic: 🥪🥪🥪🥪 (4 out 5, bread in the forest)
Track: 🇷🇴🇹🇩🇹🇩🇹🇩 (4 out of 5, very nice trail through beautiful autumn forest)
Milestone: 5000 km
Campsite: ⛺⛺⛺ (3 out of 5, flat spot next to a gravel road close to the village of Magureni)
Name of followed trail: Via Transilvanica
I get fresh bread from the nearby bakery for breakfast and after that we leave the uninspiring town of Cugir. We start our day with climbing the hill outside the village. From there, we continue our ascent through a cloudy and thereby mysterious looking landscape of forest and fields.
When the clouds lift, we have beautiful vies over the forested mountains. We have lunch at the top of our trail and continue into the farmers hamlet of Cingu Mare.
From here, it’s 10 more kilometers to our planned campsite, but we do have to fill water here already, because there us nothing in between. We find a farmer where we can get water and then walk on, slowly descending on a gravel road through the forest into a gorge.
Our campspot is a picnic table next to the road on a narrow spot. It’s 16.00, so we still have plenty of time. We decide to o continue for a better spot. A dog that passed us decides to come along. We call him Henk and warn him that he’s better off by waiting for someone else, or going home, but I don’t think he speaks Dutch…
After a few kilometers we reach our long awaited milestone of 5000 km. Mark has even brought fireworks for the occasion 😁😁😁
From here, we try to find a nice flat and open spot to pitch. Not easy in a gorge… We get to the border of Magureni village and find a suitable spot. Henk is still with us and refuses to leave. I feel sorry for him, because it’ll be cold tonight. But letting him into the vestibule of the tent or even petting or feeding him will mean that he’s going to stay. And we’re not looking forward to having a dog…
So we ignore Henk and make our meal, before we get into the tent. 36 km and 1360m of elevation. Job well done today!