Saturday 8 September 2007

Mark in....and on Romania

Originally posted on 21st August 2007...

Mark has now cycled 1700 miles and has arrived in Romania which, for those of you whose mental map of eastern Europe is a bit ropey, is here . .....The centre and west of the country are largely occupied by the Carpathian mountains. Mark is keeping to the east of the mountains in the part of Romania called Moldavia. This is mainly made up of the large flat floodplain of the River Siretul (a tributary of the Danube). You don't have to be too impressed that I know a lot about Romanian geography - I looked it up in an atlas!
The GPS tracker gives a little hint of the landscape Mark has been cycling through today ...
It is evidently a very fertile area with much arable farming. It was, however, the features of the river which really caught my attention. Those of you in Form 3 upwards should know exactly how the inverted 'C' shaped feature was formed and should be able to find other evidence of the same processes elsewhere on the aerial photo. The rest of you can read all about it here.

I look at a photo like this and find myself wondering what the view on the ground is like. As with Lviv in the Ukraine, I put Siretul into Flickr and came up with this....

It's good to be able to see one of those meanders in close-up (with all that deposition on the inside of the bend. Why?)

It is even better to be able to hear Mark describe his experiences in Poland, the Ukraine and Romania. Over on the BBC website which is following Mark's journey you can hear an interview which was recorded today. You can also listen here if you like.

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