Augustus Gloop and the journey counts

Last trip was a dream come true. You have probably all noticed I have a subtil fixation for trains and the first part of our trip was basically a 10-hour train ride from Cluj-Napoca to Bucharest. I did sleep most of the time, but this is precisely the idea in a wagon-lit. And after arriving and spending a quiet day in Bucharest, exploring Cișmigiu park with a boat trip and craft beer tasting (for the parents, I should say), it was time to pick up Augustus Gloop. No, we didn’t travel with the chubby chocolate eater from Charlie’s Chocolate Factory. I just named our house on wheels after him.

Mamãe and papa shared the driving. I stayed in the back bed counting kilometers, listening to story podcasts or asking to go to the toilet. When the time came to drive in or out of somewhere, I became the designated driver, but it was usually a matter of few meters. We had several stops: Pipera/Bucharest – Turnu Măgurele – Maglavit – Eșelnița – Mehadia – something near Herculane – Târgu Cărbunești – Cernavodă – Doi Mai. This added up to about 1800 kilometers and many roads, some bumpier than others.

Our complete route:

When it comes to Romanian waters, I can consider myself an expert. We bathed on the Olt, the Jiu, the Cerna and the Danube rivers, plus lake Maglavit and the Bobot waterfall. Not to forget the Black Sea, of course. The waters ranged from cold to colder, clear to not so clear, not salty at all to salty, clean to not so clean and with or without algae. It never mattered to me and mamãe, though. We jumped right in.

After our daily search for a new spot to park Augustus in the first half of the trip, we decided to look for a place to settle down by the seaside, this we call the second half of our trip. And that’s when I started making some friends. First I met Daria, who was also living in a house on wheels with her grandparents. We had a rainy day and spent a few hours inside Augustus playing some rounds of Uno and Dobble with papa. After the rain, mamãe took us for a bike ride around the cliffs in Costinești.

And after that, we finally settled in Doi Mai, and there I met Ștefan, from Bucharest, who was camping in the beach with his family. I gave him, and everybody else who crossed our way, a tour inside Augustus and offered a cherry tomato, good hosting practices I learn from mamãe. Ștefan left one day before me, and his parents had a bit of a hard time getting him out of Augustus. That’s how it is when kids are on a playing streak.

Having a house on wheels requires some maintanance, I should tell you. Augustus needed to have his water tank refilled and emptied at times. I often took responsability for those tasks. Just by discharging the toilet matter I decided to keep a safe distance and let papa handle that.

Our last days in Doi Mai were spent with the visit of our dear friends from Cluj, Diana and Francesco. We managed to impress them with our bonfire vegetables, but in the end they were really more into the papanași they found in the restaurant around the corner. Me too.

And the next trip idea is a Laufrad tour on papa’s shoulders.