We had a free day before our next meeting in Elhovo, so decided to take a detour and so we did a loop via Nova Zargora. There was no reasoning behind our route other than there were some place names we’d heard of, and we wanted to have a look along the southern Balkan Mountain range.
After the lush beauty of Northern Bulgaria we found this central region very wide and open, and it seems to be the largest industrial region that we’d passed through. It was definitely a few degrees hotter south of the mountains, and the land seemed dry and parched.
When we got to Nova Zagora we decided we were running a bit short of cash so we would find a bank but it turned out to be a bank holiday and all the banks were closed ( never mind we would manage ). We’d managed to find an English-speaking policeman, who was very helpful and seemed to enjoy the chance to practice his English. We later found out that the government has had a programme of getting all their police officers to go on English courses, which was very lucky for us!
We finally got to Elhovo, which is near the Turkish border, and were now at the furthest south we had been and all though it was September Julie found it far too hot. It was at this point we decided that if we going to move to Bulgaria it would definitely have to be further north.
There were no camp sites around so we opted for the back up of finding a dam and ended up at Malko Sharkovo. We pitched our tent near to some fishermen in the hope that there was safety in numbers. They had a large, fierce dog, who chased off some Roma who came to investigate us. Not sure what was outside that night but there were some strange noises and we both laid awake as something explored the outside of the tent.