Weather: ☁️🌧️🌧️🌧️🌥️
Lunch: 🥪🥪🥪🥪 (4 out 5, pasta and pizza in Dargau)
Track: 🇷🇴🇹🇩 (2 out of 5, ok roadwalk, hard to find and tough, muddy track)
Hotel: 🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️ (4 out of 5, nice room, good bed and shower, good food and great views)
Name of followed trail: alternative trail, part E8
Special mention: We saw a fire salamander!
We leave Poiana Largului with a roadwalk for a start, and after 5 kilometers we go into the mountains on a gravel track that slowly goes uphill. Just before we get to the track, it starts to rain; time for full rain gear, eventhough we’re going to hike uphill pretty soon.
We pick up E8 again here, and will follow the trail until tomorrow. From there, we will hike along the roads to the Via Transylvanica in a few days. Our chickenrun, we call it…😅
As soon as we pick up E8, the track gets steeper up the hill. After a while it gets harder to follow, because there are side tracks that aren’t on the map, and because the track is overgrown. This specific part is also unmarked, which makes it even harder. We loose the trail a few times, but manage to find it again. At some point, the track stops completely and we need to navigate through the bushes to an open field where we find the trail again. It’s tiring to navigate like this. Yet it also confirms our decision to change trails.
We hike over the mountain range, and follow a steep track down towards the village of Darau. on our way we find a pack of dogs (hang-hang-hang 😂). With some threatening gestures from us, and some help of the sheperd, we get past them safely.
In the village we have lunch at one of the restaurants. Mark gets a pizza, and I get a good plate of pasta, and a tiramisu 😋.
From the village it’s a little over an hour to the hut. The track is easy to follow and clearly marked. The only problem is that it’s really slippery at points because of the weather. It’s really steep up the hill and not the most pretty track, but on our way we find a fire salamander crossing the trail! That’s a really cool animal! Only the second one we ever saw 😍.
Happy with this nice surprise on an otherwise not so interesting track, we continue to the hut.
We have a lovely room, with a nice view (when the clouds lift). For now, we’re just happy to be inside and be able to get dry.
We use the rest of our afternoon for replanning and getting up to date with our blog.
After a good meal, we go to sleep in time, tired after a tough day of hiking.
I do see some tough trail in the pictures, but the landscape and the sky look beautiful in most of them. The two of you surely have got amazing endurance! I also liked the new route summaries by country.
Joas vindt de vuursalamander heel mooi. Maar zei dat jullie wel voorzichtig moesten zijn, hij is giftig. En als je dat gif in je ogen krijgt…. Zoek maar op. Mama moest even controleren of hij gelijk had. Maar het hele verhaal klopte 😄.
Haha die Joas. Die weet ook overal wat van! Die jongens van jou die weten sowieso veel. We zijn inmiddels goed onderweg om Jaels bewering dat de Blauwe Moskee rood tapijt heeft te onderzoeken!