Fully working stove, a great hike and Stephen's visit

The stove is now in normal mode and two big fires are lit in it daily. One sometime during the day, and the other in the evening. I have been experimenting with how to light it and how to keep it ticking over. This stove is definitely very different from the previous one. Also, the wood currently in it has less calorific value as against our old fuel. Finally, I decided that the best thing to do is light it with lots of logs that blaze beautifully large flames, then close up the lower door, but open up the two round spots that have an open or closed position. This results in a small glow, which means that it is still burning, but extremely slowly. That is what makes it give out its heat slowly and on all sides of the stove.

One of the carriages on the narrow gauge train

The main event of the week was the geocaching hike I have organised in the Börzsöny Mountains with an initial small ride on a narrow gauge railway, so the start of it was at its terminus 2 and half miles up the valley. The turnout was reasonably, I counted 20 bodies in the group photo after we got off the little railway

The group photo at the start of the hike

 

Talking of which, that turned out to be a less than brilliant idea on my part and don't think I will ever to anything like that again. The ride was about 20-25 minutes, but due to that Saturday being the national "Hiking the national blue trail!" day, as well as a good sunny day, there were enormous numbers turning up for the ride, even though we were on the first ride. The guys coped well with the extra bodies, but it cause a delay of half an hour, which in mid-October makes it risky to end up in the dark at the end of the day.

Stream crossing up the valley

Once we were on the way, the valley provided some interesting stream hopping exercises. Once upon a time the train went a lot further up the valley, until some time ago a flash flood ruined the entire track. Later, about 3 miles of it was restored, but the rest, with all the rails, ruined bridges and other debris was just left there to rot. It was a sorry sight, but at least we had a fun little ride on the existing 3 miles.

Massive forests and beautiful skies

At the start everybody could log the event cache, and we all looked for the first part of the train's geocache as well. Once walking up the valley, we came upon the first cache by a spring, and then further up, in a side valley, the second part of the train cache. So we all had three logged caches before the big climb started. The entire length and height of the hike was about 10 and half miles with about 700 metres of height climb. We did about 200 metres of it to the next cache, also by a spring about half way up the first mountain side.

Little forest hut en route

Once that was found, we turned back and then turned left and carried on climbing to a cache called K2. Thankfully, its height, while considerable by Börzsöny standards, was nowhere near its namesake in the Karakorum. That bit of extra climb up an extremely steep hillside strewn with fallen timber I gave a miss and had rest at its bottom instead. My worries about my fitness for this climb earlier in the week, thankfully were without reason, as I managed the climb quite well. Still, my age and arthritis slowed me down considerably in the last few years, so I had to be busy, trying to keep up with the rest of them, so I had no lengthy rests, like I normally do, when I am alone, or just with friends. This little rest at the bottom of K2 gave me a chance to eat one of my sandwiches and have a good drink of water.

The natural rock within the castle ruin

The next cache was very near, only about 15-20 minutes away, on top of a medieval castle ruin. There was very little of it left, but the natural rock was magnificent and the top of it provided beautiful panoramic views. After all this climb we were up on the ridge, so no more hard climbs, but as everybody was getting tired, even the small amounts of climbs down and up several peaks tested most people's endurance. My absolute favourite of these peaks was called Raven Crag. It was in fact a series of enormous crags, from where you had amazing panoramic views again, very photogenic and thankfully the sun shone and enable us to take some breathtaking shots.

On the top of the castle ruin with views behind

After all this, the next hard task was the descent, which was extremely steep and rocky. I ended up with bruised toes, as the gradient pushed all of them into the front end of my boots and made them really squashed together. Several other caches were looked for and found during this stage and we had to pick up the speed, if we didn't want to become benighted. By this time the group fractured into several groups, needless to say I was in the last one. We got down off the dangerous rocky hillside to the edge of the village where our cars were just as it got dark. We spent 8 hours on the hills and in the woods, no wonder everyone, including the youngsters were pretty done it.

Glorious views from Raven Crag

The beautiful sensuous hills of the Börzsöny

 

At this stage our geocache hoard stood at 11. 8 permanent caches, 1 event cache and the two moving caches that we put out together. Everybody could log these, as we put them out as a group. One was put at the top of the castle ruin, as its theme was to take panoramic photos, the other one was put out at the edge of the forest near Raven Crag, as it had to go to a pretty meadow. We got into our cars, and some of us, having had enough drove home. However, some of us carried on caching, in the pitch dark, as some nice geocachers have brought and hid another four moving caches in the neighbourhood, as we thought it would be a shame to leave them out.

Ági, wife of Jankó, both great friends

Zsolt and Soma, 2 great friends

 

During the hike I made some lovely new friends and one of those promised me that should I want to go for those 4 extra caches, he would come with me to keep me company. To be honest, I would not have gone on my own, after such an exhausting day anyway. We found all 4 and then said good bye and drove home at the end of a fantastic, successful and enjoyable day, spent in good company, over a spectacular mountain range, finally totalling a hoard of 15 caches. Zsolt, the guy that came with me to the extra 4 caches told me later that he got home almost to the minute at the same time as I did, at 10 pm. He drove to BP and I drove to Bér. I did ring Roy, to stop him being worried, and I was so done in, that I went to sleep sitting in a chair by the dinner table, so food was out of the question.

More Börzsöny hills, this time with rocks

The following morning I was in serious pain with my usual bad joints, (lower back, shoulders, knees etc.), as well as some new ones I didn't know I had. The worst was the arthritic pain, but I had sore muscles as well. It took until today (4 days) to get reasonably mobile again, even though that I rested a lot in the meantime. Still, it was a tremendous adventure and I will do it again next year, but perhaps without a bit less climb and distance.

Katy Bates, with the cast of Matlock

 

Me trying to have my feet up and rest, very usefully coincided with the return of my favourite US procedurals, as well as two new ones. So far I have seen one episode of one new serial, Matlock and two episodes of the other new one, NCIS: Origins. Both was brilliant. Kathy Bates was superb in Matlock, but she is superb in most things, the other new one had an actor in the young Gibbs role, who looked quite like you might imagine  a young Gibbs, except for one thing: he was about 3-4 inches taller than Mark Harmon. Still, I am enjoying both a lot and am looking forward to future episodes.

Austin Stowell, a young and convincing Gibbs

Of my old favourites, I have seen one episode of NCIS and one each of the three FBI franchises. All the same as ever, nothing serious, just entertainment, which I have missed over the summer. As resting all day is also bad for your joints, the little bit of exercise I had since the weened mostly involved lighting the stove and looking after the flames. Even though that today we are having a bit of wind, after totally still days, the grass is still too wet to mow it, so I have not had the chance to do some tractor work.

Stephen back in the summer

Stephen is arriving today to see Valeria for 48 hours and they are staying in the flat in BP. That means we are stuck in the village, but we will go and spend 3 or 4 days, after they have left. I am glad that I didn't have to go in yet, as I will need a few more days to recover. I have booked another appointment for Stephen to go to the bank, trying to open an account. I am wondering what they will come up with this time to say that he couldn't. He is very patient and persistent, so I am sure he will overcome all obstacles at the end. Whether the existence of an account in a Hungarian bank will reduce the tax he had been charged last time, as he firmly believes, is another question. He'll find that out when after his next gig he'll have his pay transferred into it.

Must finish now as lunch is on the table. Jacket potatoes with lots of goodies on it, one of my favourites dishes. Next instalment next Wednesday, with any luck.😊