A decade for the Danube

Come rain (lots of it) or shine, cycling through wonderful but strange lands and surviving off even stranger foods is something I feel especially blessed to be doing. A diet of pork gizzards, biscuits that look like they survived Chernobyl and haribo is not what the Tour de France racers would be turning to for nutrition; but it provides you, the reader, an idea of just how marvellously off-piste this trip has gone.

My last blog detailed just how hard going bike touring can be at times, with the body and mind just as fallible as the bike. Hungary, for all its marvel, was a tough experience which I am glad has been surmounted, but it threw a new lens on certain aspects of the trip for me. Namely, 1. don’t be afraid to ask for or accept help, 2. bad days happen in the best of times 3. rough patches are usually intense but short…cycling through thunderstorms is a good metaphor for this. I have tried putting the lessons learned in Hungary into practise since entering Romania, which has been easily enabled by the unbelievable hospitality and pride in their own country that Romanians have.

Crossing the border I celebrated in the first town I could. A new dawn, another country and a chance to sample the local cuisine. Unable to read the menu, google translate ordered me something local and large and within minutes I had a plate of grilled meat (see opening paragraph) and a beer. I had barely touched the food when locals surrounded me and the bike and to my absolute surprise a man with perfect English asks about the trip, how long would I be staying and what my route was through Romania? Here began a 40minute chat about the best cities, bars and quietest roads I could use in order to get me to the Black Sea, with others chipping in with recommendations of their own. It seems to be a traveller through Romania is to be royalty in the UK. Romanians are a people that know what a beautiful country they have and are eager to share it with any would be passersby.

Every town I cycle through I am met with waves, cheers and even a kid getting up and giving me a blast from his saxophone. The vibe can be infectious, with cycling along motorways never being so joyous. The danger is when you stop. For a drink, to check the spokes or otherwise, immediately people want to check if you’re ok and if they can help.

On a particularly hot day I had stopped to get water and immediately a man sensing my needs gestures for me to stop and he would get me a drink (using the universal air glugging sign). Two minutes later out he pops with two very large, ice cold beers. We stand there in the shade semi conversing and as I am about to finish the beer his mate walks by, gets the update from him about me being a cyclist crossing Romania and dives into the shop. Another two minutes later and out the friend comes with three beers and my ambition of making Bulgaria in a few days began to approach zero. Truly, a water break out here can sometimes turn into an afternoon off, and were it not for a sturgeon meeting in Bulgaria I would happily have stayed there all day.

A delayed campsite

Continuing to Bulgaria I stopped one morning in a small town for a coffee, as issues with my roll matt mean sleep is now harder to come by. It was already about 25c, baking hot and barely a tree for shade. The cafe looked out to a roundabout leaving town, where a man with very moth bitten clothing was hunched over tidying the litter that had blown onto the roundabout’s plants. I didn’t think too much of it at the time, other than I hope he knocks off for the day soon, and what internal damage pork gizzards and coffee might be doing; but as the day progressed a gnawing began. See 8 hours a day on the bike with limited connectivity for Dua Lipa fan updates/ Dua Lipa podcasts mean that you have quite a lot of time to think, and I kept playing over the morning in my mind. The man on the roundabout threw into perspective how fortunate I am to even have the opportunity to do this trip; which, for much of the world’s population something like this is just a non-starter. Yes this trip has hardships, yes my back is in seriously bad areas and plans for getting a mortgage before 40 is in tatters; but all of this is something I had the opportunity to sign up to. I am not living out of a tent because I have to, but because I want to and it is a massive difference.

With these thoughts in my mind it reinforced why I am doing the expedition; to do what little I can for a greater cause…which if you are a new reader (how hopeful am I!) is the protection of sturgeon. It may seem trivial in the grand scheme of all the awful things going on right now, but it is motivational knowing you are doing something for a greater cause than just yourself and new personal bests.

Blowing past the sights of southern Romania

Over the next few days I make good progress with a strong tailwind to Belene, Bulgaria and a mecca of sturgeon science along the Danube. Here I met Stoyan, the freshwater lead at WWF Bulgaria and someone who’s passion for conservation and concern for what lays ahead was riveting in equal measure. To give you a sense of what is at stake, this part of the Danube used to host good spawning populations of four sturgeon species: Sterlet, Stellate, Beluga and Russian. Since the creation of the Iron Gates dam upstream, and increased human pressures on the river, only one juvenile Russian sturgeon and a handful of other juveniles from the other species have been found in eight years of sampling! The creation of the mega-dam has disturbed the natural river fluctuations of temperature and sediment which in turn has disrupted the sturgeon’s ability to detect when is the best time to spawn. It is not just the sturgeon that are suffering. The levees created to prevent the river flooding means that the main channel can no longer access its floodplain, connect with adjacent ponds and lakes which are crucial for the life cycle of many insect and fish species. As a result of these impacts, fishing is now no longer a profession in this part of the Danube but an after work activity to try and put a bit more food on the table. And all this occurred in the space of just a few decades.

My conversation with Stoyan ended rather ominously with the sad note that we have a generation left to save the Danube sturgeon. Given the sparsity of juveniles recorded, he expects that without dramatic intervention there will no longer be Russian or Beluga sturgeon left within the next 10 years. That is equally sad and incomprehensible. Species that have called the Danube home for millions of years have been given an outlook of about a decade. For anyone still wondering why it is sturgeon I have chosen to champion, there is your answer.

One of the many hazards facing sturgeon…illegal fishing gear

However, there is hope. Just days before my visit a 554kg Beluga was caught slightly upstream of Belene indicating that there are still mature adults returning to spawn (sadly for this one it was caught in illegal gear). School visits are occurring regularly with a focus on educating about freshwater declines and inspiring the next generation to take up the fight. And finally, an EU funded project is in the works to create a large sturgeon reintroduction programme across Danube nations, with diplomats and local governments beginning to take these declines seriously.

I left Belene feeling a bit dejected but also inspired by all the hard work that WWF Bulgaria and their partners were doing. There’s a saying that ‘while there's life, there's hope’, and this is something I will take from my time on the Danube. It is a decade of struggle for sturgeons here, but with there still being some juveniles hidden away in the murky depths and the EU plan being initiated I am hopeful reversals can be made. It will take time, effort and sadly cost to ensure sturgeon’s continued survival but we must keep fighting the fight; no matter how small the difference is we feel we are making.