The most intense day of the rally so far. We wake up early to find the post office to pay our parking fine (and almost get stuck in a steep underground car park in the process) then hit the road to get out of Hungary and into Romania.
We knew it would be a long slog getting from Budapest to Bucharest but nothing could prepare us for what turned out to be a 30 hour marathon drive after some hairy moments in Romania. We approached the border and the fun and games started - after getting through passport control we had to buy a permit to drive on the roads and we soon realised that the taxi was attracting a lot more attention than we hoped as a group of gypsies stop us and demand money as we're paying for our permit. The Romanian Police seemed to turn a blind eye as we slammed the doors and hit the gas all looking a bit scared to say the least.
As we ventured further into Romania we realised the truly attrocious road conditions that people had warned us about. We were in a desolate area with only wooden shacks and horse and carts for company - if we were to break down here there would be serious trouble and we had given up on the Sat Nav and so were navigating from the road signs. It didn't take long for us to decide that we should drive into the night taking it in turns to drive Betty out of Romania for our own safety and pray that we didn't experience any difficulties.
However, as Paul was driving along one of the awful roads, a huge pothole made the bonnet pop up in front of the windscreen so we couldn't see a thing!! Paul thought quickly and stuck his head out of the window before guiding Betty onto the hard shoulder (which is also used for overtaking in Romania). This happened 3 times before we eventually had to tie it down with some gaffer tape, string from our Dare 2 B hoodies and some tow rope!! The nightmare of Romania continued as we drove up steep mountains into the night with the road conditions deteriorating we realised this journey would take some time and we were running out of Diesel.
We knew it would be a long slog getting from Budapest to Bucharest but nothing could prepare us for what turned out to be a 30 hour marathon drive after some hairy moments in Romania. We approached the border and the fun and games started - after getting through passport control we had to buy a permit to drive on the roads and we soon realised that the taxi was attracting a lot more attention than we hoped as a group of gypsies stop us and demand money as we're paying for our permit. The Romanian Police seemed to turn a blind eye as we slammed the doors and hit the gas all looking a bit scared to say the least.
As we ventured further into Romania we realised the truly attrocious road conditions that people had warned us about. We were in a desolate area with only wooden shacks and horse and carts for company - if we were to break down here there would be serious trouble and we had given up on the Sat Nav and so were navigating from the road signs. It didn't take long for us to decide that we should drive into the night taking it in turns to drive Betty out of Romania for our own safety and pray that we didn't experience any difficulties.
However, as Paul was driving along one of the awful roads, a huge pothole made the bonnet pop up in front of the windscreen so we couldn't see a thing!! Paul thought quickly and stuck his head out of the window before guiding Betty onto the hard shoulder (which is also used for overtaking in Romania). This happened 3 times before we eventually had to tie it down with some gaffer tape, string from our Dare 2 B hoodies and some tow rope!! The nightmare of Romania continued as we drove up steep mountains into the night with the road conditions deteriorating we realised this journey would take some time and we were running out of Diesel.
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