emiGrants: Another busy week

Most of this week was spent either by the computer or up some mountain or forest. The day after I last posted I was trying desperately to get on with the second half of Alex's transcription, but always something happened to stop me. Then I had to go for an examination of the back of my eye, which brought up some interesting facts. My eye, as such is fine, but the back of the eye has some strange features which might point to a genetic disorder, so I will have to get that investigated further. When, is anybody's guess as I am totally snowed under presently.

Ian and I just before we turned towards our mountain

Thursday was the day of the hike with Ros and Ian and it was an epic one yet again. We started with picking up the one that got away the last time, this time trying to attack it from the North. The start of the path at the bottom of the mountain was pretty much invisible, but we found it at the end. The climb was pretty steep, but soon we gained the ridge with panoramic views, so we were happy. The cache turned up after a small amount of thrashing about and having logged it we sat down on some rocks to have our sandwiches.

Ian striding along the ridge

After we descended to the bottom, we aimed our compass towards a lake a bit NE from where we were. We were heading for two multi-caches, each having three parts. The first one was fine, however, there seemed to be a total jungle of thorny brush and forest between us and the next bit. The fight through that stuff was uncomfortable and painful, but finally we made it through, minus one water bottle and a pair of glasses. Me losing the former and Ian the latter.

The view towards Piliscsaba

The next couple were not too bad, neither was the one after that, albeit we started looking for it on the wrong side of the path first. Eventually that also turned up, which is more than we can say about the next one. By now we were all tired, hungry, thirsty and thoroughly fed up with the unmaintained caches that were giving us this much hassle. So we decided to head for Piliscsaba railway station and to the Indian Restaurant where Roy was waiting for us.

Lunch

The meal was gorgeous, as usual, and we took home quite a lot of it, as the somozas and pakoras filled us up so much that the main dish had beaten us both. The left-over curry came in handy the following day when I had my left-over marrow for lunch and Roy had the curry. Soon after lunch I departed to the train station and to Veszprém to stay with my friend Edit for the purposes of some more hiking and geocaching.

Some picturesque berries

Treee growing fungus

Saturday's plan was for 7 caches and we have done 6 of those, which was pretty good. They included the porcelain manufacturing town of Herend, then the old castle ruin of Bánd, followed by a pretty steep climb up to the top of a big mountain with a lookout tower on it. En route up we picked up another cache that celebrates the yew forest on one part of that mountain, which was pretty special.

The lookout tower was quite new, but unfortunately just before we got there 8 4-wheel drive vehicles full of people arrived. Amazing how lazy people can be and how noisy with it. Found the cache quickly, took some photos from the top of the tower and scarpered. We had our lunch at a picnic site about half a mile away in beautiful peace.

Once we were off the mountain we went back to the castle ruin, as we couldn't find the cache originally, but on our way up the mountain met a family who told us where it was. We couldn't miss it, so we had to climb up a little bit from the car park to get it. I am positive it was mostly my stubborn stupidity, coupled with Edit's inexperience that stopped us at the first time.

The Herend porcelain lion

After this excitement we motored to a nearby village with yet another large mountain in its backyard and climbed that as well. The cache was at the top, but before that a near vertical climb with loose stones, nothing to hang onto and scary fallen trees awaited us. This was probably the scariest 400 metres I have ever climbed in my life, during which we gained 140 metres of height. The view at the end, however, had definitely made up for the struggle to get up there. Thankfully, on the way down we managed to find a much better route for the descent and while that one wasn't a picnic either, at least there were lots of trees and bushes to hang onto, as well some rock, which is also good enough for hand holds.

The last cache of the day was definitely easier, as it was only about 600 yards from the car. It was a stages of the cross with a cute little chapel at the end. Easy-peasy, we thought, took lots of pictures and headed back to Edit's flat for dinner. She cooked a delicious veg soup and made a broccoli flan, both of which have disappeared fast.

Esseg Castle in Bánd

On Sunday morning we were both a bit worse for wear, so we decided to be conservative in our choices of caches for the day. We had to do the other lookout tower, which I have been looking at from afar all day Saturday, so we started with that. One of the most magical aspects of that climb, other than it being not a patch on the previous day's death march, was the fact that all along the path we saw a shrub, whose name I have no idea of in English, but it turns red in the autumn. Unfortunately not all of them were fully red, as they need a touch of frost for that, but they were already very pretty.

The steps up to the yew forest

The second cache had beaten us yet again, this time for reasons of a dangerous rock climb that neither of us was prepared to risk our necks at. Thankfully, there was an alternative on an other set of not so large rocks and that we did with no bother. After this one we got going towards the main attraction of the day, a beautiful valley lying deep in the forest, with cool air, ancient maple trees and enormous big rock faces. The cache was hidden in a rock wall, which you had to approach from behind after some steep climbing, again. That was just so spectacular that we didn't mind the climb at all.

An old gnarled yew tree

Having got back to the car, we decided to do two more before lunch, but those were drive-in, so nothing too exciting. The second one provided a bit of fun, as we found 3 young people, dressed in commando fatigues with large carbines playing some war game in the forest about 8 metres from our cache. When we explained what we were doing, the young woman in the group immediately pointed to the bird box just a few metres away. Still, they were really nice and polite, so we didn't mind meeting them.

Our first lookout tower of the weekend

Called after this forester, the protector of the yew forest

After a quick lunch at home, Edit took me to the railway station and the train was only a few minutes late. Needless to say that they sent a new, so called "zoning" wagon, which while modern, clean and comfortable, (unlike the one I arrived on), the downside of this one was that it wasn't big enough for the crowds. Thankfully, I managed to get a seat and I was home in 2 hours no bother.

Edit gazing the horizon

Roy made me a veg curry and after dinner I did some stuff on the computer and then fell into a coma just after 11pm. This hectic lifestyle is testing my physical strength, but I enjoy every minute of it. Ler's hope that once October is over I might take it a bit easier!