Dinner party/weekend O/geocaching

The dinner party with our Dutch neighbours went really well. As we have been mostly based in the village lately, the food was running out. Roy started digging in the freezer and realised that somewhere in the back there was a big chunk from a leg of pork, which would roast well. So we ended up with a beautiful roast dinner of pork, potatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, carrots and Brussels sprouts. The latter went down especially well with Noud, who seemed to gobble it up like there was no tomorrow. He obviously liked it and I feel, probably, did not get enough of it at home! :-) Brussels sprouts that is. I ate everything except the meat and was so stuffed by the end that I couldn't move. They brought us a nice plum pie and we fixed up a fruit salad out of our own bottled peaches and pears, plus some fresh apples and red currants which were a present from Nelly. Roy put a little palinka in the fruit salad, I threw in a handful of our own walnuts and squeezed a large heap of whipped cream on top for those that wanted it. I even tasted both sweet courses, which was naughty of me, but they were delicious. All of this was washed down with a couple of bottles of good quality red wine, so the guests didn't want to go home, even though they were leaving the following morning.

On Thursday evening we left for town, followed by a leisurely pootle down to Bakonybel for the first event of the Pannon O-days in the Bakony mountains. I have looked up the details of several geocaches en route and even the weather was kind to us. We started with a long forgotten, small ruin of a wayside watch tower from the Turkish days (16th-17th centuries) which was very easy, but it amazed me that how many times I have driven right past it without noticing it. The raison d'etre of geocaching was definitely realised in walking the 200 yeards to discover it en route to the cache.

The next one was also not too far from the road amongst some gentle bare hills where people have been placing names and messages formed from white stones on the ground. We couldn't park near the cache, so I had a bit of a walk, but the view was very pretty and the weather pleasant. Even Roy got out of the car and followed me with the Tom Tom in his hand, although I met him on my way back.

The third cache took us up a steep hill along the stages of the cross and the view from there was pretty nice too. The actual cache was down a cliff face amongst the vegetation and for once I chickened out and read the password on the back of one of the big crosses at the top. The time was getting on and we thought that we would do probably only another 2 or three before heading to our rented little village house and then to the event. As it happened the God of geocaching decided otherwise.

It was a three part cache in memory of three miners who were taken to their deaths for their beliefs in WW2. We found the first one not far from the car park on an electricity pole. To be actually correct, Roy found it. The second one was about half a mile away in a tree, just behind the statue of a martyred miner. That was great too. In that we were given a set of co-ordinates where the actual box was to be found further up the valley in the forest. The walk was really beautiful, along the route the miners must have tread all those years ago. We walked past a sylvan chapel with a big cross, but then trouble struck. The canopy was too thick, my old GPS started cutting out. Finally it gave up due to insufficient signal strength. The Tom Tom, that thankfully we brought with us from the car, still had a signal and with the help of that we found the quoted beech tree, but no cache. Like two truffling pigs we were practically on all fours, digging up the forest floor to no avail. We had to give it up, thinking that either it was gone or we were in the wrong place. Since then I looked on the web site and somebody found it the day after we were there, so it is likely to be the latter. :-(

So we finally arrived at the event with only a short time to go due to the delay at the last cache, so I had to change quickly and tear off to the start. The first day was on a weird little hillside, full of tussocks, long grass, humps and hollows plus rather thorny bushes and undergrowth. The map was 1:4000 scale, which caused me some befuddlement at first, but it was an excellent and very accurate map, so I got used to it quickly. This, of course, did not stop me doing lots of very weird route choices, but I did manage to beat everyone, albeit the French lady in second place was less than 2 minutes behind me. Day 2 and 3 were up a mountain forest half an hour away, but before that we had to take possession of our renovated little peasant house. We loved it. It was stylish, quite modern and comfortable, but with respect for its age and country style. Excellent wood work, lovely brick flooring, barn doors and lots of things that Roy enjoyed too. In the meantime Roy made friends with a New Zealander and that definitely made the weekend for him. He is the nicest, most patient guy on the planet, but too much foreign yacking will either put him to sleep or get him fed up after a while. With Michael from NZ he had someone he enjoyed chatting with and so did I. He is over for the Mountainbike World Champs next month and doing a few multi day events in the meantime. At the end of the weekend we invited him to visit us in the village, I hope he can make it, as he seems lovely company.

Days 2 and 3 were fascinating. I am not fit enough for so much climb and such rough terrain under foot, but the good planning and technical nature of the courses (especially on Day 3) really made up for the huffing and puffing up hillsides and the head high stinging nettles and brashings in places. I loved it. I managed to be first every day and kept the field behind me in the chasing start on Day 3 too. There was, unfortunately one bit of the forest that seemed to have had a bad effect on me. See if you can work it out which bit! Not difficult, I made a big boo-boo on both Saturday and Sunday on it. Thankfully I had 6.45 minutes in hand on Sunday, so it didn't make any difference. I am now the proud owner of yet another gold medal, a lovely bottle of red wine and a book about the village where we were.

Now we're home, the garden is still lovely, the fruit on the trees is ripening, so much so that Roy had filled about a third of the first cefre barrel with yellow plums. If all goes well and our plans do not have to be changed we will be in the country for the next 5-6 weeks. Obviously there will be some orienteering in that and the occasional trip to Tesco's and to market, but I intend to enjoy the summer in peace for the next few weeks.