Day 5 ‘Rest’ day

Well, no riding ...

I am up early and successfully watch the sun rise - in fact, I am TOO early but I pass the time watching the sky starting to turn. The frogs are making a cacophony of sound (in fact they seem to have been going all night!) and the bird life is wonderful in the early morning light.

After breakfast we have a 3-hour (it turns out to be 4 hours) boat ride through a labyrinth of narrow waterways. Lined with trees, reeds and waterlily pads. The Delta is home to the world's largest reed bed expanse – 625, 000 acres / 240,000 ha.

We pass by small fishing villages: about 15,000 people inhabit the Delta area, living in 28 villages and one city (Sulina).

The Danube Delta is home to over 60% of the world's population of pygmy cormorants (phalacrocorax pygmeus), 50% of red-breasted geese (branta rucollis) and the largest number of white pelicans (pelecanus onocrotalus) and Dalmatian pelicans (pelecanus crispus) in Europe. We see frogs, water snakes and birds! Marsh harriers, rollers, a huge white-tailed eagle up in his nest, red-footed falcons, hoopoe, kingfishers, bee-eaters, bronze heron, night heron, golden oriole, black head crow, small egrets, purple heron, swans, storks, black-necked grebe, pygmy cormorants, shelducks, pheasants, a moorhen hiding mostly out of sight behind the reeds, lapwings, cuckoos, yellow wagtail, hooded crows (everywhere!) and the very pretty rollers.

I take a ridiculous number of photos.

In the afternoon we return to town life back at Tulcea where we started 5 days ago.