Given we're in Romania, we'd lowered the bar at last night's stopover. We'd accepted the potentially troublesome dog, the noise from the cowbells and the occasional truck / cow interaction, but we drew the line at some noisy prats* that turned up at fifteen minutes past midnight in a rough old camper van, drove it to about three feet from the truck, and then started gobbing on at full volume whilst going back and forth trying to get the said rough old van level.
Of the thousands of acres around and about they could have used, this was apparently their genius overnighting solution. I swore a lot, Emma swore more, we disorientatedly argued a bit, and then just did what we had to do. We pulled a few clothes on, made as much truck-related noise as possible, and left them to their own devices.
We'd have been a bit more tolerant had they turned up and tried to show even some perfunctory respect by not parking within pissing distance of us: and at least pretended to keep their voices down.
I concede the concept of different cultural norms and expectations, but sincerely hope that the itching cows went at their van all night.
And so, we actually overnighted at the spot we'd originally parked up at to do our earlier run. At least we had a quiet night from that point on.
The day itself has been one of covering ground. The morning's drive was through some very pretty mountainous scenery, the afternoon's on much busier roads that meant threading through many - sometimes large - conurbations. Romania doesn't do by-passes. It's fair to say the natives' driving is often 'assertive' and things like speed limits, unbroken white lines and give way sign are treated with utter contempt. There's no rage though, and it all eventually seems to work itself out. It's best to stay relaxed and just be defensive.
Between the drives we had a longish lunch where Emma-the-Self-flagellating went for a run in searing heat whilst I did some planning. We took the lunching opportunity to take a few snaps of a few bits of sketchy infrastructure, including the very much in-use railway in the pic. I doubt even Network Rail would sign off on this level of maintenance.
Because we had to cover ground we were late-ish finishing today, but do seem to have squirreled away reasonably successfully without much effort. We've only been joined once and that was by a curious young couple driving randomly around in the adjoining fields in a car (as you do), who just wanted to know why we were daft enough to be here.
It's actually been a pretty good lookout and a chair in tree-shade on top of the box has also provided some respite from the sweltering evening conditions. It's a decent spot for insects with several unidentifiable dragonflies, common blue and comma butterflies, and iridescent green beetles the size of bats flying around. They look like rose chafers but are considerably bigger.
New casually-sighted birds today have been common redstart and black redstart, whilst the camp has provided a hoopoe. We've also heard quail and golden oriole here.
Post composed at 22:10 on Tuesday 5th August from our intended overnighting spot N 47.82930°, E 26.91782° / http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:47.82930%2C26.91782
* This - trust me - is most certainly my kindest euphemism.