It was an easy start to the day with a full team breakfast. The first task of the day was complete and the second was to get uniorms ready for tonight.

This is when we witnessed one of the highlights of the day which was when the RC became Ironman to save the young people from crushed looking neckies.

Once everyone was sorted we headed in to the heart of Bucharest for some sightseeing and lunch. We visited the old town and the peoples palace. Then nice lunch in an italian then back to the hotel.

Then came the biggest challenge of the day. To get everyone looking representable for the visit to the Ambassador’s Residence. The team arrived and paraded up the street behind Ryan who was playing the pipes. We were warmly welcomed by his Excellency Andrew Noble the British ambassador and some of the young people were interviewed by Digi24 news. Team 2 and Team 4 presented to everyone about their Explorer Belt and the different challenges and acheivements throughout the expedition. We then moved onto the awards ceremony part of the evening. Everyone was presented with their Explorer Belt and there were a number of other special awards to give out.

Zac McNee and Daniel McNeil were awarded with their Queen Scout award. Zac and Daniel were also awarded with their Gold Duke of Edinburgh award.

The next awards were Andrew Baird was awarded with his Chief Scout Diamond and Cameron Hamil was awarded with his Chief Scout Platinum. There were also leader awards to be given with Eddie O’Rourke, Nathan O’Connell and Miles Goldie were awarded with their woodbeads for completing their manager and supporter training.

After the award ceremony we presented the ambassador and his wife with a small gift along with a gift to Oana Ghiocea and Vlad Hodor from the Romainian Scout Association. Oana also had a small presentation where the amabasador and the leader team received the Romanian National neckie. After all the awards and gifts were presented we were rewarded with a great buffet provided by the household staff. Early start tomorrow, 3am… Further images of the young people receiving their awards will be posted shortly.

After our leaders day out yesterday

we spent this morning was spent packing and tidying up in preparation for our departure to Bucharest tomorrow.

Heading down to Max international we met all the teams (in pink polos) for their expedition presentations, which were all amazing. Also great to hear how much everyone achieved in the 10 days.

James was presented with his “gifts” with the exception of Team Takka, they were very close to being failed as they did not comply with one of minor projects set by the leadership team! 😕 {there is still time….}

The boys are back in town…..

Last supper at Max International with scouts from Sibiu and Cristian….

Transylvania its been a blast…. till next time 😊

No real plans for the leader team this morning… Debs & Nathan headed to the gym for an hour leaving James lazing about supervised by Jackie… #I’m so sorry.. and Eddie waited excitedly to be picked up by Team 2 for his long awaited trip to Dino Park… 😁 Cosmo, Wilfred and Parker got to go too….

The rest of the leaders stayed at home and was time to have shift of rooms waiting on the arrival of Miles, so James and Nathan were the chuckle brothers, “me to you”. While Debs and Jackie prepared lunch again! After clearing up the sun decided to make an apperance, so an hour in the sun was called for before getting ready to head to the hotel to welcome back the teams, wow 10 days over already.

As each team arrived back one by one was great to see all still looking happy although a little tired. Missed a pic of Team 5 due to techincal difficulties… 😯

We shuttled the teams back and forth to pick up their additional kit from our house then left them again for some free time, before team dinner and the arrival of Miles, our team is now 6 !

Leaders are off for a day sightseeing tomorrow, while the teams work on their presentations ready for saturday.

Huge thanks for to Alina and Max and their team at Max International for hosting us… its has been amazing

Relaxed start to the day with Nathan joining James & Debs at the gym (the warmest place to be this morning, twas a little chilly!!) It felt like wind chill factor of -12° ❄ but probably about 10°, although having gone with the advice from the inspection trip team [you won’t need a hoodie, its roasting in Romania] none of us had a jumper / hoodie or anything long sleeved !!! 🤤

Sporting our best shorts & tshirts we piled into the red jallopy and headed to visit the Citadel perched high on the hill above Rasnov..

Our tarnsport to the gates of the Citadel was a tractor train which passed Dino Park (twice) much to Tedwards dismay 😟 {Team 2 have agreed to take him with them on Thursday 😊}

Views at the top were stunning….! & still cold…..

Back down the hill to the red jallopy we headed to Bran for a spot of lunch and to catch up with Teams 1 & 5 at Vampire Camping. Great to find them all still smiling and happy…

With teams 1 & 5 happy, it was back into the red jallopy and back to base in Rasnov, with a quick stop for supplies…where James found some new headgear…😂

The sun decided to play ball and appeared from behind the clouds, so that meant one thing, an hour on our new loungers before heading into Brasov to meet teams 2 & 3

It was time for us to grab some dinner, pizza, pasta & salads. On the way back to base we dropped into visit team 3 again who were staying in Cristian for the evening and had met up with some local Romanian Scouts & their leader.

Was great to see that the Romanian Scouts had already completed their Explorer Belt… we left them to it and continued heading home to Rasnov to some duvet cosiness…

Late start to the morning after big day yesterday… & a huge thunder 🌫 and lightning⚡ storm overnight…. although all but Debs slept through it and heard nothing…

James & Debs headed to the gym whilst Jackie & Tedward headed to pick up some food supplies…

After lunch and a reorganisation of upstairs in anticipation of Nathan’s arrival later in the day, we decided to head out for a wander around Rasnov…. James announced his feet hurt after about 5 mins and had to go back to look after the new garden chairs … Tedward decided that James couldn’t be left unattended so went too…. 😁

Jackie and Debs continued on as planned…. meeting Team 1 along the way…

Rasnov is a beautiful town with cobbled lanes and roads lined with some stunning old buildings…..overlooked by the Citadel high above the town

Our walk was cut short when the skies darkened and sounds of thunder with the inevitable downpour…. Happily Tedward came to our rescue in the red jallopy 😀

After an hour or so though the sun reappeared and Grellow got to go outside for the first time….

Eventually the 5th member of the Leader team arrived after a mamouth 4 hour transfer from Bucharest….

Early start for us today, commenced with James’ dulcet tones bellowing “Good Morning!!”. After the initial shock of being wakened and breakfast consumed, we were out the door and into the red jallopy for a 5 hour round trip to catch up with 4 of the teams in Sibiu….

After a fairly uneventful drive on winding roads, through villages and past fields, arriving in a windy Sibiu, still warm though…

1st port of call… refreshments and a donut… would have been rude not too !!

During our snack break we heard from Team 3 that they had left Sibiu as we arrived.. They had other plans and were headed to Sighisoara. Not sure if we should be offended or not 🤔 😄

Team 2 arrived a little afterwards along with Romanian scouts that they had arranged to meet up with and of course Cosmo and Wilfred were there too…. Great to see all looking well and happy…

Team 2 and their new scouting pals headed off to do more exploring and we headed into have a wander around the stunning walled old town…

Eddie finally got to meet a dinosaur 😁

The clouds began to get a little on the dark side, so we decided to take cover and have a spot of lunch. The rain eased a little, so back to the car, gate crashing wedding photos on the way.

Now time to meet up with Team 4 and 5, we headed off to their apartment, with Ted Ted giving the directions, we ended up in a construction site, but we were actually in the right place. Flat for 4 but 8 are crashing for the night! And had done some clothes washing too… They are all in good spirits and were heading off to meet some Romanian Scouts that Team 2 had spent time with earlier…

Time to swap bags with Team 2 and gate crashing the wedding photos again (😄) not once but a further 3 times, so our time in Sibiu was over and time for the 2+ hour drive back to Rasnov. Passing stunning Transylvanian mountains, stork nests and of course a slow moving traffic jam…..

Arriving home, a liitle tired, dinner was served & then a little more planning completed for presentations on saturday… & relax….

Oh… baby dinosaur update…. he has hatched & is growing 😀

Operation garden chairs was the plan for the day. Having only been able to source blow up foot stools yesterday, we smurfed the web to locate a larger hyper market in Brasov & headed off in the little red jallopy….

On arrival we found a huge new shopping mall, including cinema…! Toy Story 4 for us later in the evening !

In the hyper market we found the perfect chairs, with James testing them out for comfiness just to be sure….

Eddie has been desperate all week to visit Dino Park in Rasnov but alas this has yet to happen. So as a consolation we got him a grow your own dinosaur….. and gave it to him at lunch…. Needless to say he is very excited to see his egg hatch….

The dinosaur will become the leaderships new team mascot in 48 hours once the gestation period has passed!🤗🤗🤗

With an afternoon of enjoying the sunshine and looking forward to a wee cinema trip in the evening, it was not long until our plans were on the back burner, with phone calls from different teams about missed trains and hostels cancelling booked accommodation, ‘Super James’, stopped napping and swooped into action.

It wasnt long before we were heading back to Brasov, to meet with teams 4 & 5. We first had a stop in town for a Lemonada and Chocolate Souffle while we waited for the teams. The peace did not last long though, with the Tam Tam Festival intown, successfully drowning out James.

With both teams happy we sent them off on their way in search of food.

We had just over an hour to wait to meet up with team 1 who were inbound on a (slightly later than planned) train from Medias. Once settled in their hostel (not originally planned one as they had cancelled the teams booking earlier in the day) we met them for a chat & to catch up on their plans for next few days..

Most strikingly was Stephen sporting a sparkly bumbag… 😂

Team 1 headed off for food as we headed back to Rasnov in the wee red jallopy for a meeting with Alina @ the hotel to finalise plans for team presentations next Saturday.

Tomorrow is a busy day for the leadership team as we head off on a 5 hour round trip to Sibui to meat teams 2, 3, 4 & 5.

G’night.