We got going from Belgrade about 9am, it was to be a short 2.5 hours over the border to Timisoara.  I wasn’t sure what the city had in store for us but I was keen to see Romania anyway. We’d decided against Bucharest as it was just too much driving to the east to then have to double back.
We drove through back road after back road. Lots of agriculture. Lots of tractors. We knew we were in the middle of no where and weren’t surprised when we approached a very non descript border control. We were stamped out of Serbia and drove up to the Romania border control to be stamped in. We gave the border guard all our stuff, 4 passports, car registration and insurance documents. That’s all any country has ever asked for so we were pretty surprised when he asked for BK’s license! But he had his kiwi one so we handed it over. 

And this is where it started to go pear shaped!!

The guard then asks if we have an international drivers license.
Oh. Dear.
We then explain BK did get one before he left NZ but we’d misplaced the physical copy.
The guard checked something and comes back to inform us he could not let us in to Romania without it. He was so apologetic, he could see he’d just turned a kiwi family’s plans upside down. His english started to fail him so he wrote a heartfelt sorry message into google translate for us to read.

We turned around and parked up in ‘no mans land’ …and I pulled apart all our gear! Nope it really wasn’t with us. I knew I’d packed it as soon as it has arrived before we left NZ. I knew I’d put it with our travel insurance documents. All I can think of is that it has fallen out without me seeing earlier in our trip. We hadn’t used it or shown it for the car rental in Amsterdam or Barcelona or to pick up our Peugeot in Italy. 

So back through Serbia border control, they looked at us weirdly and off we went.

Then it was time for logistics, and while I just wanted to fall apart and cry I slowly and methodically worked through each problem.
I found a busy looking border to Hungary – my logic, if we could just be a car in a big long line they wouldn’t have time to trawl our passports and look at our weird stamp collection of out of Serbia then back in with no other country stamp between which screams ‘PROBLEM CHILD!’ 

So we set the nav and BK drove. 

Next was Airbnb, a big sorry we’re not coming to stay today because we can’t get into your country! She was the most lovely host and told me quickly to cancel so I’d get some money back. Which I did. She was so apologetic and so was I!
Next was accommodation for that night, I had a quick looking on booking.com and Airbnb, heaps around but was too nervous about the border crossing back into the EU so decided once we’d cleared the border I’d book.

And then I decided I’d write to the New Zealand embassy in Romania to complain!
Yes I probably could have worded it better or stronger or something but I was doing everything on the fly!

This is what I wrote :

Hi there,

We were denied entry to Romania at a road border crossing from Serbia today. The reason given : we weren’t carrying an international drivers licence to accompany our NZ drivers license. We did get one before we left New Zealand but have since misplaced it, only being here another (X) weeks it’s pointless ordering a new one from NZ and having it shipped over. We rung the AA in Belgrade but they could only do Serbian drivers licenses.
Please could you tell me if this was the correct measure taken by the border guard or were we unfairly treated?
Claire

This is their very unhelpful reply : 

Kia ora Claire,
Thank you for your email. I’m sorry to hear you were unable to enter Romania. Please note that the Romanian immigration authorities, like any country, have the right to refuse entry to their country to anyone that does not meet the criteria they set, in the same way that for example Immigration New Zealand can refuse people entry into New Zealand if they don’t meet our criteria. Entry into any country is never guaranteed, and is always up to the immigration authorities at the border. We cannot interfere in another country’s immigration policies, in the same way that other countries cannot interfere in New Zealand’s immigration policies.
Ngā mihi,

The one positive, that reply email did come back within 70 minutes of me sending mine so I was pretty pleased with their promptness!
The negative, not at all helpful! Didn’t at all answer my question!!

Fortunately we had food in the car so fed the crew and sat feeling extremely anxious as we closed in on our next border crossing, praying we’d get through back into the EU with internal borders and it would be simple. We sat in the queue, I was happy to be ‘yet another vehicle’
We checked out of Serbia very simply – I had all the passports open to the photo page and stacked together, she didn’t even look at the passports just blindly found a page to stamp!
There was 2 guards checking everyone’s luggage so I opened our boot to show ours. They asked if we had anything to declare, I said no, they asked if I was a diplomat, I said no. She took our passports, stamped them and said “goodbye!”  As we drove out, we realised there wasn’t another building to drive up to, that was the EU entry in the same building as the Serbia exit…we’d just very simply got back into the EU and not even realised it! 

Praise God, what a relief! Internal borders from now till we are stamped out to come home. 

Back to the logistics, found a farm stay on Airbnb, messaged them to see if they could receive us in an hour, they came back quickly that they could! So it was a top up of food at our favourite supermarket and we were on our way to a bed for the night. We arrived to a beautiful Airbnb and wonderfully friendly host. We got chatting and found out he’d done 5 caminos! We just finished one we exclaimed!
BK cooked spag bol for dinner and then the kids went to bed. I video called Mum and woke her up “you’ll never believe my day! I’m not where I’m meant to be!”

Yep 40 years old and still worth worrying about Mum! 🤪

So now we have 48 hours to fill before we rejoin the pre made plans. We lost about $100 NZD on Airbnb cancellation, few extra hours of driving and diesel, but in the big picture, that’s nothing at all really. I’m just glad that sago is over!  I’m happy to be back in the EU, I’m very thankful for data on my phone!

Till next time,

Claire