We decided there was no need to rush away from Budapest: We had a 6 hour drive, less than 500kms. We had a lie in at a lovely hotel, high five Intercontinental for looking after our camper van without batting an eyelid, said goodbye to Pete who was getting a flight home, and set off.
First issue was the border post. Schengen area? Mile after mile of hgv’s queued for border checks, cars etc waved through. Not us! Pulled over and told to wait by border control, hand over passports and vehicle docs, made to wait by the post by a guard Hooner thought was surly enough to qualify as French. Then, without any explanation, stuff was handed back and off we go into Romania.
The road was terrific, a nearly new motorway paid for by EU cash. We ate up the miles, dreaming of and early finish and leisurely stop at the campsite we had selected. What do you do at the end of a motorway? It just stops and all traffic goes off into a single lane road. There was a bit of a tailback- made worse that one lane of that road had fallen into the river so traffic was stop start at traffic lights, one direction at a time. So finally we ended up at the selected camp site at 2130, in the dark, not sure if it was open. Result! We got Drogas the owner and his wife. What lovely people, They welcomed us, served us some grilled food, hooked up the camper van to shore power- luxury. Thank you Burlusi, it’s a nice place.
That doesn’t last long in my world! We decided to turn in. Firstly we had a warning sent to our phones to warn that a bear was loose in the area and we had to be careful. Now, we all know that prior planning prevents mistakes, so maybe we should have tried the van out before. We couldn’t get my electric bed to work- it was stuff retracted to the ceiling. Eventually we freed in and in went down and back up. Great- until I tried to lower it and get in. It wouldn’t budge. We even resorted to reading the manual! After much full we found a manual handle and wound it down – time to turn in. All was well until I needed to use the facilities on site. It is a long was up to that bunk and in the dark I fell off striking several items on my descent. In the morning it looked like the scene from the chain saw massacre.
Never mind we will get going.no amount of fixing would mend the bed motor, we will wind it up with the handle and get it fixed on site by someone who knows what they are doing- probably operator error anyway. Good plan- but the French had been involved, it is a French conversion, so the flimsy winder handle snapped! We had to complete the journey with the retractable bed half down so we had to crawl in and out of the cabin.
Never mind, it’s not far to Constanta. There is a great campsite in the book a 40 minute drive from the off point in the morning, we headed there. It took a lot longer than we planned but we were still in good time hoping to get the bed fixed. No plan survives first contact- the campsite (and all the others nearby) was shut. Sometimes you just have to accept fate. We are now sitting in a 4 star hotel yards from the off having a beer.👍😂. Not only that but we have contacted the van dealer and owners club and Hooner has replaced the blown fuse so the bed now works- just as well as there are few hotels along the next hundreds of kilometres.
Just time for beer, food, rest and get ready for the morning. We are at the start,
Lennytranseurope 
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