The hundred and sixtyninth week of the pandemic

The day after my last post we had an interesting day out. I have a moving cache, which basically means that it has to be moved from place to place by the cachers. Some have a theme, like stages of the cross, or springs, or mills or ancient churches and church ruins, and that means that once you found it you have to take it to another one. The other type of moving cache is one that moves along a set route. These could be along a particular paths with the same markers, or a pilgrimage route. Mine is the latter one.

Maria route symbol

Suddenly, I found out that it is coming to its Danube crossing, but the ferry, that has run there for decades has packed up and is no longer there to cross the river on. There were a few alternatives: either to go down river with it to the next ferry and cross there, or go up river, into Slovakia and use the bridge there, which is definitely the cheapest solution. So we went for that. I found the box in a bit of roadside jungle and then we crossed into Slovakia, then placed the cache further along its route on the Western side of the Danube, and then travelled back the same way.

The we crossed in Slovakia

Roy was a bit grumpy, so I asked if he wanted to visit a restaurant we haven't been in for ages for lunch? Of course he did, and we had a very pleasant lunch in their new extension, which was all glass. He had a beer with his meal and I drove home from there. We did a bit of food shopping en route and the day was really pleasant and successful.

Roy's happy with his pork and chips

Another interesting development concerned the mystery fault on my new mobile phone, which has still not been properly fixed. To help you catch up, here's the prehistory: a short while after purchase, but very soon after coming down to the village, I discovered that I couldn't make or receive phone calls on it. In the following weeks I tried anything and everything I could think of: personal visits to Yettel shops, (one in Hatvan, the other in BP), telephone calls to customer service, but nothing they tried or suggested worked. I even wanted to exchanage it for a new one, but failed to return the box when I tried, and everything that came with it, so that was out. I was running out of time, as you can only do that in the first month.

My infamous A34 phone

So, the only realistic option was to persevere and try to work out what the trouble was. The mystery thickened, when having come back to the village from Budapest, we found that the phone worked in Bér again. Yippee, I said, it obviously corrected its fault all by itself. Come the following day, however, it wouldn't make phone calls all over again. Roy, with his analytical brain, sat down and tried to work out what has changed between the day before and then? The only thing he could think of was that I turned it off for the night. So when we went out to move the cache to the other side of the Danube, and out of the village the phone worked fine, he suggested that I leave it on, and see what happens on the following day, and YIPPEEEE!! it worked. So the trouble must have been with the connection to the local tower, but once connected elsewhere it carried on working.

A pretty forest flower on my hike

We were both very happy, and I was trying to remember every evening not to turn it off. It worked for several days, when one day, I have just woken up and my phone offered me an update. Automatically, and still half asleep, I clicked OK and it started the update. Suddenly, a feeling of horror hit me, I forgot that a telephone always turns off and reboots after an update, so my telephone connection was in danger of disappearing again. BUT!! I thought, what if the fault was a software fault all the time and the update might fix it? And Hooray!! I was right. To be quite honest, I blamed myself of not thinking of something as obvious as that, but the shame is still with all the Yettel personnel, who either in person or on the phone, never mentioned that option. Having got used to not turning it off for the night, I am now carrying on with it.

The next really marvellous event of the last week was on Thursday. I have been in touch, on and off for the last 4 or 5 years or so, with some left wing students, who had some contact with my comrades in Austria and England. They were always against the current regime in Hungary, and considered themselves Marxists, but didn't seem to be able to put together a group to organise themselves. Then, this week I picked up an advertisement on FB, about a meeting being addressed by a British comrade and inviting all and sundry to it.

Jack leading off at the meeting

So I went and it was probably the best decision so far this year that I made. In the last few years, while I kept an eye on them, but did not get the chance to have face to face meetings with them, they have come a very long way. One of them has spent a few months in England, attended branch meetings there and learned the basics of how to organise a Marxist group from scratch. Unfortunately, his stay in the UK got cut short by the pandemic, but it looks that even so, he learnt enough to put it into practice back here.

The audience at the meeting

They invited me to attend their meetings: they have weekly ones - every other week organisational matters, in between reading groups. It will not be easy travelling in every week form Bér, but hopefully I should be able to organise myself to be in BP on the odd Wednesday, so I don't lose touch with them. The atmosphere was great, the enthusiasm infectious and I am really happy that my homeland now has the embryo of a truly great Marxist group, which can only develop to have more of a voice in current affairs.

Apc quarry lake, Heino and Manet's hike

On Friday, we had Heino and Manet for lunch, which was, as it always is, a lovely affair. The weather turned really warm, so we had it out in the pavilion, with Roy cooking a curry, both chicken and veg, and me making Somlói Galuska. They are going home tomorrow, so this was a short visit, but I hope they will be back later on in the summer. Let us hope it will be a longer visit and not at a time when we are not around.

Gathering of the Hash on Sunday

On Sunday, I was due to go to the Hash, as it was the 40th Anniversary special weekend, but didn't feel up to it. I was trying to stay strong for a day of caching in the Mátra with Roy on the Monday, and that is what we finally did. You may recall that I had a bit of a disaster last October, when I had a funny turn right at the beginning of a big hike, which I especially organised to pick up some difficult caches in the Mátra. Thus missed most of them.

Sandstone rocks by the path in the Mátra

So, yesterday we went to the Mátra, where Roy discovered, much to his dismay, that I was expecting him to go round the mountain range to the Northern side to pick me up. My hike was a mostly downhill trip, starting in Galyatető at the top and finishing in a small village at the bottom on the Northern side. The other reason why I was very keen to do it this Monday, as the long range weather forecast predicted at least a full week of rain in the region starting today. And it did, it's pouring outside as I write this.

Table and benches by the first spring

So, Roy dropped me at the trail head, and I started my very steep descent, occasionally peppered with a short bit of steep uphill, that was not too bad. Overall, I did more than 400 metres of descent, which on this amount of gradient, with scattered rocks, boulders and swampy bits, was quite testing. I am half dead today, with every joint in my body complaining, but I must admit, having a hard hike, after not much exercise in the last 6 months, was most satisfying.

A lovely view to the North from the forestry road

First I went to a spring, along glorious oak and beech forest, then to a couple of old remnants of forts/castles, trace of either long gone, and one of them was in a real jungle with no paths at all. Nowadays, nobody hikes off marked paths, therefore those which are unmarked disappear and get overgrown with time. Still, while physically hard, emotionally I was in seventh heaven. Forests and mountains are my true element, and I had a fantastic time. 

Mátraalmás footie pitch in the forest

After those two came another spring, followed by a 4km boring traipse on a forestry road, where the only break in the monotony was bird song and the occasional lookout point, offering fantastic views all the way to Slovakia. At the end of this forestry road awaited Roy, my kind chauffeur, in the village of Mátraalmás. The village is getting really pretty, which is good and bad at the same time. Good, because tatty and almost ruinous old peasant houses have come back to life, by being beautifully renovated and therefore saved. But bad, because all those houses now belong to incomers from the neighbouring and even further towns and are used as weekend and holiday homes only. Still, I found the cache there easily and we moved onto my last cache of the day.

Forest path in the Mátra

The road to it, well, the last 2km of it, was on another forest road, which as far as I knew, was strictly off limits. However, I couldn't see any signs forbidding entry, so I was hoping Roy would save me 2km x 2 of walk on hard gravel, which did nothing for my joints. We were very unlucky, while we were pondering the question, there were no vehicles going in or out of this road, proving that you can drive on it, so finally, I offered that I would walk in.

Shelter and BBQ pit next to the footie pitch

Needless to say, there were no restrictions and later on we saw several vehicles, cars, motorbikes and large lorries travelling on it. Still, while my joints were seriously suffering, I had a beautiful walk, in thick broadleaf forest, saw a little holiday village with pretty houses, a lake and even met some dogwalkers, who helped me find the spring, where my last cache was. It was quite overgrown, and the enormous beech tree from underneath of which the water used to come, had dried out and had to be cut down. There was no water there either, but at least I found the cache box, and walked back to Roy happy.

En route to my last cache

The plan for the rest of the week is also a bit too full of stuff, but I can't complain, at least neither of us is bored. We are off to BP tomorrow, I have a dental apointment on Thursday, a day out caching with Viktor on Saturday and another day out caching with Edit on Kab-hegy on Sunday. This latter one is to find the two missing caches on Kab-hegy that we couldn't get to a few weeks ago, as the foresters blocked it for through travel on the day of the Geocaching Festival/Competition. Let's hope that my joints last and I can do both days justice.

The planned route on the Kab-hegy

 

Next post, hopefully, next Wednesday. 😊