Transfăgărășan

Day 4 of Roadtrip: The Transfăgărășan Highway.

So the big one. The road that set off the thought process to travel all this way to Romania. We spent 30 hours continuously driving through the night to get here, for this. Topgear named it the greatest driving road in the world. It'd better be good...

Beforehand, though there was some admin to get through. Namely some blue wheels were required on the Saab, in honour of the newly returning and fixed just-in-time A4. Two-tone, of course. Because of the waiting for this to arrive we did set off late (and even then with the plan of meeting up later).

The trip to the highway wasn't too long. Its just a long road; and the famous section pictured is actually not a valley but a valley on top of the mountain. The temperature dropped from about 28 to 14 on the way up - just about good enough to keep the roof off.

On the way up however the road was truly excellent. Through the forests the swoopies were far better than the twisties once you break out into the open up here. Partly because swoopies are better, but also because of the road surface, which again has cropped up as a problem here in Romania. Nevertheless the road as a whole was amazing. Worth the trip to Romania? Maybe wait until tomorrow for that.
Not as bad as yesterday's roads anyway, but still pretty bad. Especially when you're trying to have a bit of fun and the car is skittering around a lot. The locals were on hand to slow you down by driving up it at a steady 20kph though. But on the way up the strange sight of a fleet of muddy British offroaders was a welcome sight - someone else has been mad enough to come all this way too.

At the top we met up with the others for some lunch (in the pouring rain as it turned out), and the Saab, 850, Peugeot and Suzuki had an impromptu photoshoot. Why not eh - we've come all this way for this moment.

Continuing down the other side through the tunnel however was a very different road. Maybe not so bad on the way down but on the way up I had a bit too much fun and on properly bad roads managed to bottom out the car while overtaking someone. That kind of thing hurts, mostly because I was the one who chose to lower this car... Wet roads and the skittery conditions meant it really was a struggle. Maybe I do push things a bit far sometimes. At least the dam was a nice place to stop and admire the view on the way down/up.

Once back through the tunnel we attempted some moving shots. I'm not sure how well they came out but it meant a bit more driving here and there which is always great fun. One hell of a day for sure; an incredible road (if in dire need of a resurface) and no breakdowns or crashes.

The meal in Sibiu at the same place as the first night was a welcome feed hole before everyone going straight to bed. Lots to do tomorrow...

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