The first mountain

We started the day with a trolley dash around Lidl and Penny Market to get some breakfast. We had a very bumpy bus journey where I noticed some themes that continued throughout our trip. Posters saying 'Minden Magyar Szamit' which means every Hungarian counts even though we were in Romania this region remains very Hungarian with most people speaking Hungarian. Most of the land that isn't forest is full of wild flower meadows, I tried to count the different types but I lost count. It's odd that they don't seem to be used for crops only small patches sometimes in the middle of huge plains being tended with horse drawn ploughs. Most people tended to have a horse and we saw lots of horse and carts.

We arrived at the Puturosu(means smelly) Mountain where after a short hike during which after I commented on the bad smell a student joked "Sorry, it was me!" we visited a sulphurous cave. It was a strange sensation as when you go inside your legs get very hot and when I bent down to look at a bug (turned out it was a leaf), I got a serious head rush. You have to breath very gently when you're inside.

We then proceeded to the Apor bath which is a rare kind of spring, the only one in Europe where the water contains a small amount of sulphuric acid. On this short hike were were joined by 2 puppies and their Mum, this again is a theme that continued for the rest of the trip. Romania seems to have an incredible number of homeless dogs.

We had a short break to take photos of the beautiful mist covered mountains.

After another bus journey we arrived in a small village at the foot of some mountains. We saw some bins in a big cage and a sign telling us to beware of bears, we were a bit excited. The hike up the mountain was hard work as the path steeply snaked its way up we often had to climb over fallen trees and scramble up parts. We were accompanied by two dogs, a german shepherd and a mongrel who kept partaking in a recreational activity in an odd variety of positions often in the middle of the path! I have no idea how they had the energy, I was exhausted. The final stretch seemed to be the hardest. The walk was beautiful though. At the top we had a break, snack and shared a beer with my colleagues. Then we made our way down.

We exited the forest onto a huge wild flower meadow full of butterflies. I managed to get a great photo of two red and black butterflies sitting nicely together after a lot of patience.

We went down to a small group of huts where we had lunch consisting of another beer, delicious homemade bread and mics. This is a delicious barbecued sausage made of lamb, beef and pork. I could have eaten 20 and they were so good.

After a short walk across the meadow we had a guided tour through the Mohos peat bog. While the students had a short introduction I busied myself with taking photos of flowers and bugs. We walked along a wooden walkway looking at the different species of plants and flowers as it contains many rare species. One of these was a fantastic pinky red flower that eats insects. It was here that I took this photo after being tipped off by a student. I have chosen it because this was a student I hadn't had much contact with before but turns out he's very funny, kind and a keen photographer so we pointed lots of things out to each other during the trip.

On exiting we found some puddles on a track full of little frogs. We then laughed at the previous mentioned student skipping through the flowers with arms out stretched off to have a nature pee.

After a couple of minutes on the bus we stopped at a carbon dioxide wall, when you put your head in the holes and breath you get breath of CO2. It's a bit like when the bubbles from some pop go up your nose. We then went up to a viewpoint to get our first sight of Lake St. Anna, the only volcanic structure in Csomad which is still intact. We walked down to the lake and I had a swim. Most people said it was really cold in fact the only boys to swim ran straight in and out but I guess after years of swimming back at home it was fine for me, very pleasant. While I was swimming one of the students managed to take about 150 random photos which made for interesting viewing when I got out.

Back on the bus the teacher in charge told the students a story about the lake which they seemed to enjoy, I just listened to more Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

We stopped at a huge Catholic church but unforunately I don't know the name of the town. It seemed to glitter in the sunlight and was the busiest church I have ever seen. Even while a service was being conducted people were walking in with their own chairs/stools and sitting down in any available space. The service was also being broadcast through loud speakers outside.

We had another stop at Siculeni where we visited a memorial of the Siculicidium which was a massacre that took place here on January 7 1764.

Arriving at our hostel in Gyergyoszentmiklos we were greeted/harassed by children begging for money. Two of us decided as we walked the short distance between the bus and entrance gate to just sing Red Red Wine at them, which made us laugh and confused them.

The hostel which is owned by the church was really nice and had 2 big tables out doors, one round one on the outside gallery which were great in the evenings. After dinner we got our rooms then went to the shop. We had a nice evening of cards, bos (which one girl was too nice to play but turned out to be pretty evil under her angelic face) and some time working out the ice hole, eskimo and polar bear dice puzzle. This was great and had us all staring at 5 dice for some time. There was also a bit of confusion as the word for ice hole in Hungarian sounds like lake so I thought I was saying lake not ice hole. It was very funny at the time.

It was a late night and we eventually went to bed at about 2 am.