An insanely busy week

We are still in town, but since I posted I haven't stopped. Last weekend was spent with our good friends Márti and Laci at their house in Csobánka. Before getting to them Roy and I went geocaching nearby and managed to get a couple of them. One was at the end of a good half hour's hike on a lovely pine wooded hill, the other on a sun drenched plateau, which was getting uncomfortably hot.

En route to my first cache of the day last Saturday

Once we have done that, a lunch place had to be found, which we did in the village of Pomáz. Then we slowly pootled towards their house to arrive there in the early afternoon.  It turns out they had a family crisis in the morning, so just as well we didn't arrive until hours later.  Attila, Laci's younger son, (aged 29), seemed to have disappeared. Laci was getting really stressed when somebody thought he might be next door. It transpired that he walked up a ladder in the little yard behind the kitchen and literally fell into next door's garden.  Then he went to sleep and didn't wake up until his father found him there.  Bit weird, if you ask me, and Roy was immediately thinking that some drugs were involved.  Possible, but not likely in my view, but what do I know?

Árpád the chief of the chieftains

We hung around, first in the garden and then indoors, as it got awfully hot again. Once the temperature was a bit less oppressive, we went on a hike, taking the dog for a walk and also finding a moving cache which was only about 300 yards from their house. We took it about 1200 metres from where it was and hidden it quite well behind a tree. After a cold supper we all fell into bed quite comatose.  The heat and the two hikes I had on that day definitely made me tired.

Froggie in the puddle inside a tree

On Sunday Márti, Laci and me went on a real hike of about 8.5km and picked up three caches, as well as got into a cave where I have already been, but Laci hasn't. After that we climbed right up onto a mountain top and proceeded to find several caches. The views were magnificent and we have even run into one of our mutual orienteering friends on top of one of the cols.

Márti and me in the woods

En route back to the house we found another cave, but as the cache was outside, we didn't do too much exploring there. when we got home we departed to a local restaurant for lunch where we had some good food and there we ran into Bozsa and Árpi, our other Csobánka friends, who have just finished their lunch and said hello. After lunch we dropped Laci and Márti near their house and motored home.

One of Márti's gorgeous orchids

In the evening I packed for my trip to the Balkans and went to bed quite early.  The following morning I had to catch the 7:20 bus to Pécs where I was to stay the first night, so that the three of us could start early enough the following morning. In the afternoon, however, I still had time to pick up 6 town caches, which were in the historic centre and were easy to walk round to.  Some of them were quite exciting and difficult, others easier.

The theatre at Pécs

In the later part of the afternoon Feri, who was our chauffeur took us outside the town for a few more caches, so considering we only cached in the afternoon, I picked up 12 of them in quite quick succession. Once we finished, I had a lovely dinner in a nice restaurant in King Street and went to bed early again.

The once Turkish mosque, now catholic church

Tuesday morning we departed on our Balkan adventure and that was such an amazing experience that I am still trying to work through it in my head.  First we crossed the River Drava and picked a cache up there. Then travelled through Croatia, picking up two caches, one at a chateau, another at a castle. Some motorway travel got us in three hours or so to Belgrade the capital of Serbia.

The Majláth chateau in Croatia

There two caches awaited us, one at an old tower overlooking the river, the other at the massive fort and castle, also overlooking the river Danube, impressing as it was. We also sat in a few traffic jams and had difficulty finding a parking place, but finally all was well, we found the caches and travelled on.

Belgrade fort

The next leg of our journey was very, very long, first boring on motorways, but then when we joined up with the river again, which was amazing, exciting and spectacular.  We followed the lower part of the Danube as it travelled through some impressive gorges, passing castles, amazing cliffs and cliff tops in an ever tighter gorge. The next cache was at an enormous castle right by the water, with some of its towers partly under water, as nearly 50 years ago the gorge was part flooded by a dam at its other end.

Galambóc (Golubac) castle

We went down on the Serbian side, sometimes at water level, at others a lot higher up. No towns on that side, only villages, but the views were to die for. At one place we left the river and went inland and only rejoined it at our Southernmost destination, in the town of Vidin in Bulgaria. By then it was getting dark and we still had the main cache, the raison d'etre of the whole trip to find. It is a travelling cache which follows the Danube from source to delta, but unfortunately we didn't have much luck in finding it.

Vidin at night

After many phone calls and other efforts we had the agreement of both the owner of the cache and the president of the geocaching club that we can replace it with another one and move that on. By the time we gave up looking for it, it was pitch dark and we were all done in.

The hotel was actually better than I expected for 19 Euros a night. It was clean and comfortable and even had very efficient air conditioning. The following morning we had breakfast and then travelled down river a further 23km to place it in a hollow tree quite close to the water. Then came probably the most gruelling drive I have ever had, thankfully only as a passenger. We gave up some of the caches on our list, because we realised that otherwise we wouldn't be able to catch the last train from Szeged, which was my trip home.

En route to the top of the rock wall above the Kazan straights

The one remaining one, however, was the very highlight of the trip. From high up above the Kazan-straights of the Danube we had the most incredible views over the river and the rock faces surrounding it. I have been to impressive places before, like Scotland, Niagara, the Himalaya, but this definitely took the biscuit. Although not recommended for those with vertigo. The walk to the top of the rock face was easy through the forest behind it, but looking down was pretty frightening if you didn't have the head for heights.

Muggins on top of the rocks

The rest of the day was spent dodging dead-ends, daft route choices by the GPS, traffic jams, long queues at borders and other such delights.  Finally, I did make my last train and was indoors by 10.30pm. The total tally of statistics were as follows: 1300km travelled in 5 countries, 23 caches gathered, 2 nights spent in hotels and no cooked food consumed right through. I was really pleased to be home and fell into bed like a felled tree.

The view

Today we had lunch with Ian, who suffered from the heat as much as we did.  This heatwave does not want to shift. In downtown it was well above 30 degrees Celsius again. I hope we can return to the village soon for a bit of peace and quiet, but there are still chores in town to be completed, so it will probably wont be until next Monday.