Next Stop – Sulina and the Danube Delta, Romania

A blessing of having family in various places is that you automatically have access to a network of people. My father is a social bee and a creator of webs between people as such his childhood friend of 55 years was our host in the Danube Delta. He has a type of a B&B which I would recommend in a heart-beat. Calin, the host is reason enough to visit if not the spectacular scenery and delicious fish dishes.

Romania has the great fortune to be contoured in the South by the Danube River and as it travels East it splits into three branches before it meets with the Black Sea. We spent a great three days on the Sulina branch in a village called Gorgova where the houses look like this:

We went pelican watching in Lake Fortuna and Lake Baclanesti. There were rumours of an army of pelicans on these lakes and I had my camera bag ready for this. We missed the big army this time but we did get a stare down with a random pelican here and there. They did not trust me to take a proper close-up but even from far they are fun to watch.

There is also a variety of boats and ships. Here are some of my favourite ones with a special mention for the impressive ship called ‘Bricul Mircea’ as it is a beautiful classic ship where they do training for the marines. They sailed by us as we were strolling along the river bank and they were all ready to sail, climbed all over the sails.  It gave me a flash back to years passed when these types of ships would have been common place. I was frantically waving while maneuvering the camera and they were sweet enough to reply, well to me or the army of kids just as excited as I was.

A great few days with sweet people who had the patience to show us around and not push me of the boat while I was asking them to stop at every other bird. While in Australia, in Leura I hugged a gum tree and was in awe at how beautiful and majestic it was, here I was a happy bird watcher.