Weather: ⛅☀️☀️☀️☀️ (rating 5 out of 5, perfect, quite cold hiking weather…) Picnic: 🥪🥪🥪 (3 out 5, wraps at a nice spot at the Sequoia tree)
Track: 🇷🇴🇹🇩🇹🇩🇹🇩 (4 out of 5, great trail through the autumn on a beautiful but tiring uphill track)
Mountain hut: 🛏️ (1 out of 5, a new level of basic, not so clean hut, that will no doubt be a nice place in the future. Saves packing up a wet tent and sleeping outside in minus temperatures)
Name of followed trail: Via Transilvanica
Special mention: daylight saving time started today, so we wake up an hour early to make most of the light…
Our alarm rings at 5.00 am today instead of 6.00. We stay in the same mode of
leaving at dawn, because with the clock changing, it gets dark earlier. Somehow this was never a thing I thought about our plan…😅.
We walk out of the village, back on the Via Transilvanica. It’s a beautiful sunny day, but on our walk through the valley it takes long before we get out of the shade. We kind of regret our tshirt and shorts, but with a vest, hat and gloves, it’s doable.
We enjoy the amazing autumn weather and it’s colors in the forest. We see every shade of hello, red and orange today!
We also see some evergreens, and even have lunch at one of Romania’s Sequoia trees. And no, I haven’t the slightest idea how it got there, neither do the Romanians, I heard. It’s an impressive large tree, that apparently is a dwarf when compared to the largest one in the world, which is 100m taller.
After our lunch break, we continue to the hut where we booked an overnight stay. The trail gradually goes up the hill, which is fine, but with the constant angle and loose rocks on this old Roman road, it’s also rather tiring.
Since we started early, we arrive at 15.30 at the hut. It’s a cool place, an old building that once belonged to the hydro electric company. The owner is refurbishing it to become a hut for hikers and cyclists. While we see the potential, for now it unlocks a new level of basic. No electricity, little firewood, no saw or axe, and airbeds with sleeping bags for beds. There is a lot of clutter standing around, and some apples for the mice…
The toilet is a small outhouse. We’re happy to support someone with a dream and we like it that our tent stays dry (and we don’t freeze), but for now, it is far from ideal.
We find some wood that we can break into small enough pieces, we get water from the spring and get a fire going. By the time we made dinner, 2 cyclists arrive. They’ll also spend their night here. We help them a bit settling in and go to bed early after a slightly tough day of hiking.