I awoke to thunder and rain. The storm came over from Serbia as I was eating my dinner last night and hadn't wanted to move on. I was eating my dinner outside by the river when all of a sudden such a wind blew up and blew everything off the table. So waking up to rain, after the heat of yesterday, was quite a nice change, although one I would change my mind about soon into the start of the morning. 

I ate my breakfast outside even though it was raining, I sheltered under a roof and was joined by the owners two lovely dogs. I sat there waiting for the rain to subside but it wasn't to happen. I had to get going otherwise I would be there all day. With water booties and biking cape on headed off towards the narrowest part of the Danube river. Apparently it's only 150m wide and if I remember correctly 85m deep which makes it the deepest river in Europe. I'm sure that it would have been a spectacular sight if only the morning fog wasn't shrouding it's existence, therefore I didn't hang around to admire the sight. I had quite a bit of a climb unbeknownst to me cos my route book didn't show this. The rain just wasn't letting up, in fact it was just getting worse. I was soaked through and I had only done about 20km. There was nowhere to take cover. No trees to shelter under plus the fact that with the lightening I shouldn't be sheltering under any trees. Slowly I approached Elsinita, a small village which had a few bars and a bus stop, so I stopped there for a while and waited patiently for the rain to let up. As soon as it subsided I jumped back on the bike only to go a 1km and then have all hell break loose. Thunder, lightening, torrential rain and now no shelter. Did I stop or did I keep going? I mean I was soaked anyway but it was more the danger of the cars passing that worried me more. I kept going and sneakily took cover in someone's garage which was open. I could see that I wasn't going to get very far but I at least had to get somewhere where there was a pension and I had to do more than 20km. I knew that in the next town that there was a railway station and at this point, soaked to the bone, I thought it a good idea to hop on a train and head to the next main town. HA! What a joke. When I arrived at the station it was empty, run down, broken windows, nobody working and there was one train waiting at the station. The town I was in was called Orsova, it seems that it once was a bustling port but since they built the dam the port is bustling no more. I shook my head and just sat down and gathered my thoughts. There was no one to ask where the train at the station was heading so I just sat, ate and sheltered myself from the ever increasing rain. 

When I saw that there really was just no other option than to get on my bike and continue pedaling the next 26km, I put on my waterproof pants, and headed off towards Drobeta. The road was getting busy now as it was right next to the Iron Gates, where the trucks cross from Serbia. However, thanks to road works I was able to pass when the lights were red and had the road to myself some of the time.

Finally, of course, as I was entering my destination for the day, the rain began to let up. Sod's Law. I met a French guy and a German guy both with bikes in tow. We stood and chatted a while about our routes and then said goodbye. I really was done for the day and all I wanted to do was find somewhere to sleep and dry out. Eventually I found somewhere and then immediately felt guilty that I had only done about 60km especially when the sun was now shining so brightly.

Once relaxed, i decided to head down to the railway station to see if there was the chance of skipping a few hundred kilometers. I had read on a blog that Romanian Railways are very good and that they pretty much service every town in Romania. Like hell they do. Nobody seems to speak English in this part of Europe and even playing Pictionary with the miserable, unhelpful ticket woman I was unable to ascertain if I could get to where I wanted to go to. Every time we did make some progress I was battered by the fact that I was not able to take my bike with me. I went outside, sat on a rock and cried. Too tired and too hot, I couldn't hold the tears in any more. When I had calmed myself down and resigned myself to the fact that nothing was going to be straight forward here, I went back inside the station to find out if I could take my bike on the train to Bucharest. Yes, but only at 14.32 the next day.

I left and went and collected my thoughts by having a pizza. Now I had to decide if I was going to get off the Danube Bike route, which was about to move away from the river anyway, and head in to Bucharest and decide what to do from there.

I slept on the decision.