I think I need to start a support group.
Do you think #MyWifeWillNotStopRunning is snappy enough to get things off the ground?
This time she was changed and off before breakfast. Mind you, with the misty morning mountain scenery afoot (pic), I sort of understood this one.
We didn't score any more mammals or new birds at this stopover, but it was a stunner in terms of landscape and ambience.
Today's drive was a ground-coverer and the roads - in terms of traffic and surfaces - not too bad.
Romania, though certainly as manic as described, is kind of growing on us. It's definitely the case that though still deprived and dreadfully unloved in places, the country has palpably cleaned up it's act since we were last here fifteen years ago. It's absolute fair to say that in many parts now, civic pride and general presentation is probably superior to much of the UK.
Prior to arriving this time, I would not have imagined that this was an observation that I'd be articulating.
Of course, it would be only fair to acknowledge that in the same period of time our own country has become increasingly dysfunctional; and social contracts, morality, courtesy, and other norms and general standards have undoubtedly headed metaphorically south.
The drive saw us passing many more typical juxtaposing Romanian scenes - such as gypsy-king mansions being passed by crones in carts - and by late afternoon we'd made it to the starting point of the next intended stage of our trip: the Ukrainian border (again). Unlike last time, though, we'd actually pre-planned this foray into Ukraine. At the trip-planning stage, we'd decided we'd like to try to show some support and spend a bit of cash here, so had always had an eye on traversing north up the western fringes of the country in order to reach a national park we hope to visit in southeastern Poland. (Hope that's not too confusing with the cardinals.)
And so, to the dreaded border formalities... again. It started off well. We flew through the first few stages, but then hit some sort of issue at Ukrainian customs. It was weird. The unsmiling customs officer took our (now-familiar) hand-written white ticket, passports and the truck's V5C, and literally slid his cabin's little window shut leaving us standing there, ostracised, in front of an ever-expanding queue of people behind.
There was neither explanation nor communication. After about 20 minutes, another customs officer appeared and started processing some of the people behind, leaving us totally ignored and simply perplexed. After about another 20 minutes we began to think we may well either: a) be turned around and sent back to Romania, or, b) soon be face down with hands zip-tied behind out backs.
And so the wait went on. About one full hour after first ignoring us, 'our' customs officer reappeared, took photos of the truck inside and out then simply and silently - and without eye-contact or expression - gave us our docs back and waved us on our way.
We'll never know what issue caused the hour-long delay (or even if there was an issue at all), but at least we now had the full set of coveted stamps on our little white ticket, so were able to approach the final heavily-armed staff at the Ukranian side of the compound-of-confusion where we were promptly released into the war zone.
Actually, the region of Ukraine we're now in is called Zakarpattia, and is the only region where martial law is not (currently) fully applicable. The region has apparently been more or less untroubled (directly) and is even accommodating countless natives who have been displaced from the front-line Oblasts.
If our first few hours here are anything to go by, it really does seem like it's business as usual in these parts. The people are just cracking on and we've seen no trace of military or border guard activity at all. Indeed, tonight's stopover is close to a functioning commercial campsite. We stayed in this same general area when we were last here, so already knew of it and concluded it would be a safe and uncontentious place to overnight tonight.
To our surprise, not only is the campsite open, but it's also absolutely rammed full of campers. Though out of direct sight, we can hear laughter, music and people splashing around in the lake. We've also seen people milling around the general vicinity in swimwear.
Ordinarily, there's no way we'd overnight within earshot of such a wretched cacophony but - in the circumstances - it's actually really humbling to be a clandestine party to such normality. I even started nodding along to some of the horrible tannoy-broadcasted music. Only started.
As night fell blissful 'normality' resumed: the campsite fell silent and the cicadas started.
Post composed at 22:35 on Tuesday 12th August from our intended overnighting spot N 48.21189°, E 22.59453° / http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:48.21189%2C22.59453