Balaton, Keszthelyi-hegység and a weekend with Laci and Márti

Zsolt the first mate

Peter, Adele and Zsolt at work

Peter, the skipper

Roy enjoying his Gypsy Roast

Muggins has just managed to get aboard the craft

Another 10 days are gone and I must post now, otherwise I won't remember half of what has happened. Saturday before last we came into town to prepare for the Balaton trip. This trip was about my friend Marianne organising a sailing trip to a geocache in the middle of the Balaton. Then I talked another two caching friends into a pedalo adventure to another cache, also surrounded by water, but at least on a spit and then we also added another couple of days into it caching on land. Add to that a permanent heatwave and temperatures of 30 to 35 Celsius and a holiday of sheer exhaustion followed.

It was absolutely fantastic, but my age has not only caught up with me, but overtook me at a great rate of knots. Talking of knots, our skipper, who is also a geocacher, taught us many aspects of the principles and rules of sailing. It was superb, especially when we were sailing into the wind and finally I understood why you sail faster INTO the wind, than you would in following wind. 

Karesz and Feri paddling back after I got off en route

The sailing trip itself was a tremendous adventure. I have never been on such a large yacht and as there was a stiff breeze, all of us novices had a really frightening introduction to sailing. Most of us were asked to crew and those that did the bulk of the work were really efficient and good at it by the time we returned to port.
 

View of the Balaton from above

Adrian's party + the curry

The day after the sailing trip, I had my other two friends turn up by train and we started with the pedalo adventure to the spit to get the cache. It was a tremendous bit of fun and I have managed to stay completely dry. We could all say that if it wasn't for the others we would have never made it. Roy played photographer from the shore and all was well.

After this we went to get three nearby caches by car, followed by a 5 mile hike with 350 metres of climb in the nearby mountains, netting another 3 caches and a hike in good company. Originally we were doing 4 caches, but the heat had definitely got to the two oldies (Karesz and me) so we shortened it to 3.

The only bit of stress of the day came when on our return to the car, Roy told us that he had lost the bedroom key from the B&B we were staying in. As the miserable old hostess slapped a £30 caution deposit on it, he was quite distressed. I tried to calm him that £30 is not big enough a sum for him to distress himself over, but he only cheered up when Feri, one of my friends, suggested that we go back to the lake where we started the pedalo trip from, and if he dropped it there, somebody might have handed it in. And would you believe it, that is exactly what has happened. So finally all was well in the world.

We put the guys on their train after that and went back to the B&B. We left early the following morning, visited the town of Tapolca and ended up with just 4 caches for the day en route home. This was a fantastic and memorable holiday, which we will remember for a long time. The heat, however, made a bit exhausting, so on Thursday and Friday we spent mostly indoors having a rest, preparing for another jaunt, this time to Kaposvár next week.

Adrian with friends, including Roy

In the meantime we had another program which we were tremendously looking forward to for ages. We were to spend the weekend with our good friends Márti and Laci, which was quite overdue. We haven't seen them for ages, mostly because all of us are busy people, but also because I was trying to convince them to come to us and they never quite managed it.  So this time, we went to Csob'nka again, which I love, as it is really beautiful and they are lovely people.

Trek of our 22km with 648m climb hike in the Pilis Mts

Adrian, our hashing friend, was having a housewarming party on the Friday night, so we couldn't go on Friday, but arrived really early on Saturday morning to beat the heat. By the way, the party was great fun, lots of interesting people, fantastic curry, lots of booze and a good atmosphere. Many of Adrian's friends I have never met before, including his new girlfriend who was delightful.

On Saturday we were on time, but the other two were just fixing their sandwiches etc., so we left a bit late. However, as Roy offered all 4 of us a lift to our starting point on our hike, we managed to start walking bang on 9am. Roy was going to spend the day in Esztergom, where we were finishing our hike.  Foolishly I told him that we should arrive by 3pm in the afternoon, but more about this later.

Márti and Laci at the start of the hike

5 caches and one part of  a 5 parter multi were on the program, but I told my friends that should we be too tired to do all of them there is one that can be left out. They said no to this and were determined to do all of them. The beginning of the hike contained a big climb up to the ridge of about 140 metres. Huffing and puffing, we all managed that one quite easily. The first cache was by some impressive limestone cliffs and we found it easily.

The next one was a missing cache that I promised my good friend Gabi that I will replace and find a new hide if necessary.  Well, it was, because the old root stock it was in, and from which it disappeared, rotted into several pieces. We found an even better one on the other side of the path and put it under it. Hopefully, it should have a longer life there, as it was a lot further from the memorial cross that the topic of the cache related to.

Admiring the view with Márti

The third cache was the one that I offered my friends to miss out, if the hike seemed too long, and I was very pleased they didn't take me up on my offer. We approached it from above on an extremely steep forested mountainside.  The map showed that path and occasionally it disappeared. I thought, that it was so steep and slippery, than perhaps the three of us will disappear down the rock face as well.  Finally we found it and then we were faced with having to climb back up to the top path, turn right or left and then descend.  Laci said that that was a very stupid idea and that we should just carry on descending on an old path that was more visible than the one we came on. And that is what we did. Fantastic adventure, hanging onto trees to stop yourself taking off down the rocks and I was really excited to have done this without injury.

Wild country in the Pilis Mountains

The last two caches were nowhere near as impressive as the first three, as they were on the outskirts of Esztergom, but finally we found all five and the partial one very successfully and took lots and lots of photos.

The Danube at a distance

It is at this stage that I have to admit several cock-ups that I have made. Cock-up no.1: mis-measuring the distance AND the climb. I thought it was between 17 and 18 kilometres with about 300 to 400 metres of climb. The final tally was a horrendous 22km and 684m of climb. Never mind, we survived it and even enjoyed it in most places.  However, cock-up no.2 was of a much more serious nature, for which the vast majority of blame lies on me.

Roy was expecting us around 3pm, and while I did warn him that we will probably be late, none of us suspected being nearly 3 hours late. He steadfastly refuses to have a mobile, so I couldn't ring him, but he did have my mobile number, so I thought, should there be any problem, he can ring me from a public phone or from somebody else's phone. However, unbeknown to me, I forgot to turn my phone on in the morning, so he tried and tried my phone for hours without success. Now, this is very unlike Roy, who is the epitome of calm and laid back normalcy, but this time pictures of all of us at the bottom of a ravine, my having had a heart attack and I am in the hospital, possibly dead and a few other frightening pictures were racing through his head.

Pretty flowers

Pretty flowers

So, as we turned up at the agreed place at 5.45pm, instead of the expected 3pm or thereabouts, even he, the nicest and loveliest of blokes was justifiably angry. Mind you, he is not into recriminations (fortunately) so I got away with it lightly, but kept apologising for the rest of the day.  One added crime, I thought, on my part was that I didn't think of checking my phone, as I offered it to him that he can ring me, so I should have been careful to have it on. Unfortunately, I am getting rather light minded in my old age, but he forgave me. :)

Laci on a big boulder

 
After all this trauma, we went to a really fantastic restaurant that Roy chose during the day when he was walking all over the place in Esztergom. We had the most beautiful food and chomped away on it happily. Roy needed a few beers to settle his nerves after his trauma and I offered to drive back to our friends' place, so that he could have them. Nobody had to rock any of us to sleep that night, Laci, Márti and I were totally exhausted, while Roy was very tired due to the stress he went through.

The small cottage on the plot where their new house will be built

On Sunday none of us felt like going anywhere, although eventually Laci and I went out by car to pick up one more cache which was only 80 metres from the car park at the other end. I think the list of me that didn't hurt would have been great deal shorter that hose bits that did, but I was really happy and managed to forget about my aches and pains.

The lunch that awaited us on our return was absolutely delicious. She made a cream of broccoli soup, trout for the three of us and chicken for Roy. Yum, yum, I could hardly move at the end. They also walked us up to their new house, which they only recently bought and will have to have a great deal of building works done before it will be habitable. However, even in its present state Roy and I could see the potential and we both await with excitement how it will look at the end. It should be great, as we saw the architect's plans and it seems totally in style and proportional to the plot.

The garage and cellar will be the base for the new house

Márti's phenomenal pink lilies in her current garden

Today we were resting and doing paperwork, although I started the day by watching yesterday's Grand Prix from Spielberg, Austria on All4. This was probably the most exciting, most enjoyable race I have seen in years.  Possibly ever. Qualifying was all over the place, so was the starting grid on the Sunday. This usually makes for a good race and was it just? Unfortunately Lewis was only 5th, but young Max Verstappen was the star this weekend. He had some trouble with the anti-stall gadget at the start, so dropped from 2nd to 7th, from which position then he proceeded to charge through the field to victory, Nigel Manson style.

That was an awesome charge, not only because he had to overtake some quality opposition, but because he even had some engine trouble on the way, but on advice from his engineer managed to fix it. Then, there was an over 3 hour wait to see if the stewards approve or otherwise his bold move on Charles Leclerc 3 laps from the end. Thankfully, they deemed it as a racing incident, so all was well. I ought to mention Leclerc too, both of them are only 21, but showed incredible levels of maturity, especially Charles, who in spite of losing the lead only 3 laps from the end, managed to be totally measured, calm and non-hysterical in answering questions about his bump with Verstappen. All in all, a superb Grand Prix, with tremendous action, lots of overtaking and real, old fashioned wheel to wheel racing. 

Max Verstappen, winner of the Austrian Grand Prix 2019

I must go now as my stomach thinks my throat has been cut. Tomorrow we are off to Kaposvár and I ought to start packing after lunch.