E3: Sohodol to Șuncuiuș: Day 86

Tree covered hills, valleys and grassland again.

A simple fence made of branches, wooded hills and a steep sided valley, typical of the area.

I walked down to the village of Sohodol, my boots gaining galoshes of sticky mud from the track. There was a shop in the village with a notice on the door which stated it would open at 8 am. Being a few minutes early I sat down to wait. A man came up trying to tell me something, maybe that the shop was not going to open.

The shop that did not open.

8 am came and went with no sign of activity so I climbed over the hill to the next village of Lazuri. There I noticed a building with a bench outside and a few men drinking coffee. There was no sign but thinking it might be a shop I peeped inside. I was rewarded with a coffee and a bar of chocolate which I enjoyed sitting on a bench. The coffee was of the expresso type and was served from a large thermos flask into small paper cups. Unusually the other men were quiet. As I walked through the houses loose horses were grazing on patches of grass around the village. A cow climbed down the bank of a brook that ran between parallel roads to drink. Hens pranced around on the verges. Climbing into the surrounding countryside I found signs referring to various outdoor activities. On trees there were small notices indicating routes for trail running, graded by colour, and others for cyclists. A larger sign described a "via ferrata" route, later I would pass the base of one. There were also caves, this being limestone country, and hiking routes waymarked with circles, stripes and triangles of different colours. Despite all these opportunities I was the only one today I saw enjoying my leisure time in the countryside. Maybe as I was later in the summer season.

I had a long day planned today to reach the accommodation I had booked in Șuncuiuș. On forest tracks I crossed many hills covered in beech and hornbeam, hills rather than the high mountains of earlier days, but there was still plenty of climbing up and down over the landscape. There were also areas of grass and bracken, the leaves of the latter beginning to yellow. Many trees were beginning to show a little colour with the approach of autumn. Tall summer flowers were now damp, black stems sticking up above the grass. At the end of a length of road, on a plain of grass, after a few obvious sinkholes, I found a shop at the edge of Damis where I bought a Coke and a croissant preserved in a plastic bag for lunch. A lady was cleaning boletus mushrooms outside while a man tried hard to engage me in conversation. He was unsuccessful as no matter how many times he repeated the Romanian words I still did not understand. I could have used Google Translate but I still had many miles to walk. The last part of my hike was along the base of a narrow wooded valley. This took me by one of the many caves in the area, Pestera Moanei. I climbed up to see the entrance and took a few steps inside. A sign suggested that bats lived there so I took care not to disturb them.

Cave entrance

After many crossings of the stream at the valley base using stepping stones I reached its end where a bridge crossed a milky green river. The bridge was supported by two thick metal cables below which the walkway was hung. It swayed precariously and the metal grating that I walked upon had been repaired many times, however the inch thick cables were stout enough. After a short walk on a gravel road down the wide gorge my route took me back across the river on a similar bridge. By this time I was close to Șuncuiuș and thought little more effort would be required. I was wrong. The route now led me up a steep, slippery slope out of the gorge between slabs of rock that formed the cliffs each side of this narrow valley. There was then a gentle slope down into town. However my efforts were not over. Booking.com showed my "Pensuinea" as being in the centre of town, in reality it was 30 minutes walk away not far from where I had recently crossed the river on a a wobbly bridge! On walking there I noticed a scallop shell symbol indicating I was touching on part of the "Way of Saint James" or the Camino de Santiago, I would be rejoining this route in France for the last part of my walk on the E3.

Wobbly bridge over river.