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| My beloved Red 44 |
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| Vettel, Mercedes official, Lewis and Kimi |
Lewis took the lead over again (for the 5th time this season) and we were celebrating. What was the most amazing thing was that Lewis started from almost the back and managed to win from there. He often made up lots of places and ended up on the podium after starting from the back, but never won from the back. Yippeeee!!!
I had my dental CT on Monday and a few days later I also had a phone call from Vivien, my dentist to tell me that my upper back molar on the left will have to go. The inflammation in the bone is too extensive, making it not worthwhile to try to save it. My appointment with the dental surgeon is in the morning after we arrive back from Hassocks, so that should be fun!
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| Thatched cvircular rain shelter by a lake |
And then on Tuesday we departed Southwards. We took in a few geocaches en route, including a couple in Kecskemét and arrived in Szeged so early that we did a couple of the ones listed for the day after. On the next day we actually geocached from about 8am to 9pm. In between we did have the occasional rest, time for eating our sandwiches and to go out to dinner in the evening. We were still caching when it got so dark that we had to stop.
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| A collection of Transylvanian gates in Szeged |
In these three days the locations of our caches showed an unusually diverse character. They included|: locations to commemorate battles, revolutions, writers, poets, playwrights, internationally famous scientists, old abbeys, lakes and parks, walks round small and big towns, waterbird habitats, remnants of old transport over land, on rail, in the air and on foot, sporting facilities along a river, a massive big tree, oxbow lakes, a study route, an oil field, several Zoos, flood barriers and water control facilities, a beautiful new footbridge looking like a mayfly, lots of churches and a synagogue, a river port with old hulks of barges, a walk commemorating the large flood of the Tisza river in 1879, remnants of old castles, a lovely park built in memory of a homeopathic doctor, a massive air raid shelter, and many besides.
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| Muggins with a cache in Kecskemét |
En route home we called in to the town of Szolnok, which I never thought it was that pretty. Admittedly, they have renovated a lot of it lately, but the walk in the 35 degree Celsius heat was at least 8km around its streets and even Roy came with me, which was brilliant. The final tally for the three days was 32, which is more than 10 per day on average and considering how hot it was and how we don't like to rush it, that was very good.
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| The Turkish well that will form the concluding part of my series of spring caches |
An unexpected event happened on Friday evening. I had a phone call from István Rottenhoffer, whom I have been pursuing for months to get him to show me a spring that could be the final cache of my spring series. Finally he rang and suggested that we went on Saturday morning. I got up really early and finally met up with the spring that eluded me for this long. It is in a bit of a jungle at the moment, as the vegetation round it is fierce. But it does look good and has plenty of lovely cold spring water. I took some photos and placed the geocache, so I could finish my series.
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| Bozsa in the forest |
On Sunday, I went on a hike with my friends Bozsa and Árpi in the Pilis. Needless to say we went caching as well as hiking and found 3 geocaches together. The occasion for the hike was my birthday, as they couldn't come to my hike then, we did a small one (about 7km) together this time. The three caches were on the top of the mountain near the hikers' hostel, by a spring and in the middle of a big rocky ravine.
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| The hostel's tame raven |
The hikers' hostel was a real revelation, as I never thought that there were any like this left. Apparently they are the only ones in the country that work like a mountain shelter, i.e. if someone falls through the door in bad weather, they will feed, water and offer shelter to him/her regardless of ability to pay. Marvellous young couple runs it and we even met a tame raven.
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| Some of the rocks on Kőhegy |
Finally we came back to the village to catch up on things and then lock it up for about 4 weeks while we go travelling again. We are having a big family get-together in the UK where Alex and family will join Roy, me, Stephen and the boys for a few weeks, including also Sheila, Chris and Jo. While we are away Anna will have some guests at both the Bunkhouse and the Kotege, so let's hope everything will be fine.
This week we have to pack for the trip, see to the garden (mow the grass, deadhead and prune the roses, harvest remaining edible fruit etc). I also have a duty to do a translation for some friends. En route home we also mended a recently adopted cache of mine and then I finished the cache page for the final spring. That was rather hard as there had to be some extra data entered for it to be the bonus cache after the previous 10 spring caches in the hills of the Cserhát.
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| Árpi and Bozsa at the edge of the ravine |
I also had to extend the logs of those 32 caches I found down South with the extra stories of the trip and photographs. I love doing that, especially as that recalls the trip, which was really nice. The highlight in my book was the fact that Roy walked round Szolnok with me in that heat. He was flagging at one point, but we found a pub where he put away some Coke and looked revived after that. Men are so bad at hydrating themselves, he really doesn't drink half as much as he should.
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| A gorgeous view across the valley to the next range |
I have to stop here now. Next post will probably come from an Oxfordshire canal or a B&B with WiFi somewhere along a canal.
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