emiGrants: 6 caches and 5 graves

Before I get to unravel the mystery of the title, let us start at the beginning. The day after I last posted Brexit happened. There is no way I am prepared to revisit any of it here, so if you are interested in my opinion or Roy's for that matter, visit FB!

Ros and Ian by the basalt columns

And then on Friday Ros and Ian arrived. We had some problem connecting up at Hatvan Railway Station as it seemed to have a large number of exits, but finally Roy came across them while I was in the loo. A quick sprint up Route 21 got us to the start of our hike by Somoskő Castle. That walk was really spectacular and everybody seemed to enjoy themselves. We started steeply down to the stream on a rocky path, passing by a "stone sea", which was basically a scree slope with medium size rocks. The path flattened out down by the stream, then we crossed on a cute little bridge and started climbing up on the other side.

The forest in the valley en route to the quarry

Large old trees, mostly beech, but there were some oaks and maple as well, delighted us and many a photograph was clicked. We read all the information boards along the study trail, mostly about the forest and the industrial past of the area. The route more or less followed the now non-existent tracks of the narrow gauge railway that took away the quarried basalt from the quarry we were aiming at.

The wall of the quarry from below

En route we found an interesting looking lookout tower, but we left that for the return trip. Finally we arrived at the end of the study trail at the bottom of one of the 35m high quarry faces, showing clearly the columns and benches of the sedimentary rock they quarried in the past. Roy decided to have a rest there and while he was doing that Ros, Ian and I climbed to the top of the quarry for the view and to place my 9th geocache.

Sheer drops on either side hidden by vegetation

The views were spectacular, if somewhat worrying for Ian, who was petrified of losing Ros down the sheer drops. Our sole male stayed long way back from the edge, but the two girls bravely hopped onto a bit of a promontory where the views were out of this world.

On the lookout tower with the castles in the background

The cache was securely placed, with the assistance of Ros and Ian and then we returned to Roy and our way back to the car. As agreed, we climbed up to the top of the lookout tower, which also provided some spectacular views towards both castles on the horizon.

As the weather was pretty hot, we got the shopping done in Lidl quickly and retired to the Wild Flowers Restaurant in Kozárd. The food, the service and the prices were excellent and we departed with full tummies and very happy indeed.

The view from the lookout tower

On our return 75% of our party had a siesta and I went on the computer to deal with photos and other matters. Unfortunately, this week the proofreading was put on the back burner, so I don't think I will be able to finish everything, but I am doing my best before the deadline of 1st July.

As our trip to the quarry was quite gruelling in the high heat, we chose some more sedentary pursuits on the Saturday. We all had a lie-in of sorts and then proceeded to harvest our Morello cherry crop. We have had better, but also worse, so we ended up with about between 6 and 7 kilos of fruit after stoning. Ros and I did the stoning and the men were in charge of cooking and bottling. It all added up to nearly 10kg of jam, now safely packed away in many bottles.

Harvesting

On the ladder, getting to the high ones

Lunch was taken at Mill Court in the village, where we all had a mixture of Phillipino and Hungarian cuisine and admired the development of the mill complex since our last visit. They still have three buildings to renovate/rebuild, but that will take a bit of time, now that the restaurant and guesthouses are fully operational, albeit only at weekends.

I had a long chat with the owner who promised me some old, pre-renovation photos (yet to arrive) and he showed me an interesting looking cave where I could hide my box for the cache I am planning to place there sometime this summer.

The merry band has assembled

And then on Sunday we returned to town, giving Ros and Ian a lift, as they were invited to a birthday party and I went to attend the Hash. There was a jolly good crowd there, numbering aroung 9 or 10, which was pretty good compared with recent attendences. Other than Rabies, Baldrick, Tittitata and Stiff Nipples, I didn't know the rest. The novice, nobody other than Tittitata knew, was called Pankaj and he seemed a happy and nice fellow. The rest of them have recently joined the group since I haven't been due to my rib injury. The nationalities of the other three were 1 English, 1 Canadian and 1 American. The English guy was an old Brightonian, so when Roy joined us after the run in the pub, he had a partner for reminiscing about the old days for hours. The Canadian guy was also our hare who was scheduled for a naming after the run and the American guy was a temporary resident and an old hasher in his own country.

Awaiting the start of the hash

We all got on the Metro first and then bus no. 21A to get to the end and then the fun started. As our virgin Canadian hare, ably (or otherwise) assisted by Stiff Nipples asked for at least a half hour to get ahead, we had to go to the nearby pub to put away a few beers. Needless to say I didn't, but the rest seemed to imbibe profusely. Finally we got going and while I wasn't really running, more like fast walking, I managed to keep up with the front pack for a good while. Mostly because they could be heard all round the forest shouting and also because they got stuck quite a few times, and while hunting for the route forward we caught them up. I say we, because Bankrupt, who is also a walker, not a runner, teamed up with me bringing up the rear. I actually found a lovely new friend. We enjoyed each other's company and keeping up the banter we hardly noticed the privations of the route, which were many.

Bankrupt

First of all it was nearing 40 degree Celsius. Secondly, there were quite a few very steep uphill climbs, sometimes at 45 degree gradient and finally, some of the route led us through complete jungle full of mosquitoes and other nasties. The final stab in the back, however, was the closure of the planned beer stop near the top, due to storm damage the previous night. This misfortune affected Bankrupt more than me, but I was also looking forward to replenish my water bottle, which was pretty empty by then.

Finally, the exertions of the route included a small cave, which the two of us wisely avoided crawling through, such are the advantages of lagging behind: you don't get bullied into doing silly things, as the rest of them were ahead by miles at that stage. Finally, we caught them up at the very top, as they were descending from the top of the lookout tower, where they spent about as much time as it had taken for us to catch up. The trail, in the meantime, went cold. Baldrick and his merry band had serious problems finding it. In the meantime Rabies had departed, due to a choir performance he was appearing in, but nobody was none the wiser about which direction the trail went. Baldrick was just telling us that there was no sign of any markings, when I spotted one about 6 inches from his head on a tree. He was not happy having a mere woman being more observant than him, but quickly disappeared ahead to lead the trail.

The lookout tower ahead

Then followed a steep 2km descent all the way to a pub/cafe in the next valley Northwards. Where both hares were awaiting the group with big grins on their faces. The cheeky buggers were welcoming us with "We thought you would be another 45 minutes!" Huh, no such thing, We are not that bad, we said and all attacked several pints at once. With practically all food having been already consumed by others, and even if there was anything left I couldn't have eaten any of it anyway, I ended up with 3 strudels (2 with cottage cheese and 1 with cherries for filling) which kept the wolf from the door until we got to the restaurant a lot later. Bankrupt thanked me for my company, a compliment that I have returned at once. He is a fun guy with a brilliant sense of humour and he didn't seem to mind my politics which converged from his quite a way to the left.

The circle was hilarious, as usual, or perhaps even a bit more funny due to the presence of our colonial friends, who entertained us and anyone around with a rudimentary understanding of American English, with very rude yankee hash songs. Our Canadian young man had his naming ceremony with flour and beer on his head and is henceforth called Roger the Bus Boy. That being an allusion to Roger the Cabin Boy in Captain Pugwash, with the word "Bus" relating to his drunken adventures one night taking several buses in a variety of wrong directions and ending up at 3am about 10 miles from home.

The circle

I rang Roy to let him know where we were going for a very late lunch and he joined us there promptly. Him and Bankrupt then proceeded to ignore everybody else, as well as the footie on the telly, to reminisce about the 1950's, 60's and 70's in Brighton.

Stiff Nipples up side down

I had to leave before the rest of them as my wall had just hit me, considering I have been up since 4am that day, that was not surprising. It was a fantastic day and I am looking forward to more like this when we are in town during the summer. Which, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your viewpoint) is not often.

Monday was spent mostly getting over the weekend, although we managed to fit in a little outing to do some shopping and a lovely lunch at the Jelen. Tuesday dawned yet again a hot and this time also humid day, but we were off on two adventures, which finally might explain the caches and graves mentioned in the title.

Roy promised to one of his Australian family history contacts that given the opportunity, he would go to the Jewish Cemetery and photograph the graves of his ancestors. You need to know that the Jewish Cemetery in these parts suffered neglect for about 60-70 years and they have only recently started on clearing out the jungle vegetation that had grown up in the meantime. Needless to say, more than half of the graves we were looking for were either missing or were in plots that were totally inaccessible due to thick, thorny vegetation plus millions of mosquitoes and other insects.

Two graves in a tidy plot

We have spent about 3 or possibly nearer 4 hours there, fighting the jungle and trying to identify old, overgrown graves. The final tally of 5 clearly identifiable graves was a miniscule percentage on the list, but we were glad we managed that many. In one case, we actually struggled to grave 10, only to find out at home on the computer, that the reason for not finding any name even remotely similar to the one we were lookng for was that in that plot they have probably started numbering the graves from the other end, not the one we have encountered on every other plot before. Still, we usually like these jaunts of a practical nature, as it makes such change from doing family history research sitting in front of and staring into a computer screen.

And another one in one no so much

After this we then proceeded to try and find some of the town caches I still haven't got. The final tally of those was 1 better than the graves and they included the national memorial place for the martyrs of the 1956 revolution, an old and recently beautifully restored chateau, the little hill at the end of the old runway at the airport, from which you can see planes taking off and landing and another 3 showing us interesting places in the XVIIth and VIIIth districts of the city. These included an old water tower, a church, a chapel, a local wood and the outer marker radar dish by the airport. All in all, we had a good, if somewhat hot, mosquito laden and exhausting day. Falling into bed last night was rather early for both of us.

Today is a resting day, catching up on blog, FB, cache pages, and a few assorted things, like sleep. Unfortunately, our plans for tomorrow have fallen through due to Ros and Ian's schedule changing, but we might go to the Börzsöny instead to do some geocaching and see the Miksa Róth Memorial House with them later, possibly in September, when they will be back again.