Top of the World

Alright, not strictly true, but it feels like it. What an amazing place to be staying tonight and to be blogging from. What an astounding day. If you have any interest at all in driving, I would thoroughly recommend coming to this place.

I am lying in the van. It is now raining hard but it's been dry and not really that cold all evening. There is snow on the ground in patches, despite it being late June. There was until recently some spectacular lightning down in the valley, but it is now up here. It's like a topical storm. Spectacular. No. Beyond that. I've never seen lightning quite like this. 

We are at the top of the Transfagarasan Highway in Romania. Top Gear voted this the best road in existence. It is a winding, twisting, snake of a road. The view down the valley just looks like a long string of spaghetti.

The Transfagarasan Highway

The drive up here took a while for us in Jezebel. Some teams took less time. Team Lotus for a start. They had apparently been up and down 3 times by the time I summited. John, by the time we got up, had a broad cheesy grin on his face. He had told me before that ever since he got his first Lotus as a teenager he had dreamed of driving one around Europe, especially to experience roads like this. All 3 of them had taken their turn to hoof it up and down the mountain. They had boiled it twice in the process. 

Mark of Team Chameleon had a similar silly grin. He said he had been dreaming about this road for some time. 

After admiring the view for a while and awaiting a few stragglers ( Team Trauma were fairly easy to spot in their bright yellow ambulance snaking up the hill)

we dropped a few hundred metres from the summit to a relatively flat bit of grass. Marc took Jezebel for a quick trip down and up the mountain and Craig took Olly down again.

Team Milly had experienced a snapped fan belt in Brasov and despite having a new one to hand, had struggled to get much assistance from the AA. Due to garages being shut over the three day weekend, they were informed that it might be Tuesday before they were fixed again. A nice chap from the RAC came to the rescue though and fixed it. They finally summited at about 8pm. By then the party was in full swing. Barbeques were going, snow had been gathered to chill beer and wine.

 As darkness fell, clouds rolled in and the wind picked up. This was when we were sat around a fire, watching the lightning below us.

Suddenly, at around 11pm, the weather called last orders and everyone scurried off to their accommodation.

Well, since having seen this road featured on Top Gear several years back, it's been an ambition to come here and drive it. But, to bring a group of 30+ to this road and to see them scale it in such a variety of weird and wonderful vehicles is just mind blowing. This experience has definitely been a highlight of the trip so far despite a number of fantastic sights as competition. 

So, in the morning, should I subject the poor old, long suffering Jezebel to yet another punishing hill climb from the bottom or do I just admire the stunning view in the early morning sunshine ?