Geocaching in Zala county

I'm a bit late, but we have been away and so busy that I've hardly had time to breathe. Last week, before we went away, we had good news about the pálinka distillers. Apparently, Pali was going to take the mash during the weekend, or even before, and the guy would do it over the weekend. As it happens, we did have a phone call from him on Sunday, telling us that both his barrels and ours have now been taken to the still and he will go and fetch it once the guy lets him know that they can be taken. We are both keeping our fingers crossed that the mash has really survived the year and the new chap knows how to do good pálinka.

Father Christmas, bringing a Xmas cache to every county

Other stories include the Father Christmas cache  that I have undertaken to have in Bér. This year Marcsi, the organiser, decided that at least one of these caches will have to happen in every county. Finally I volunteered for Nógrád, so I had to decide where to put it, prepare a big box, buy some presents and sweets to put in the box and then write the POI and send the details to Marcsi. I will be very interested how many people will come to Bér for my cache, and whether we will be able to keep it safe. We decided to put it on the outer corridor in front of the Bunkhouse, but take it in between 10pm and 6am every night.

Kereki castle's ruins

 

We left Bér on Friday last week, because I had to go to the hair dresser and she didn't work on Saturdays. I also started writing the cache lists for our next trip, which is next week, but thankfully is only for three days. Never before did we have two trips so close together, but due to our flu/Covid, the recent one had to be postponed and so we have the two so close together. We will be going South, and stay in B&B's in Szeged and Gyula.

The pretty little chapel in the woods

So, after spending a fair amount of time packing, we left BP quite early on Monday morning, heading to the SW. The first day was spent caching in the county of Somogy, on the South side of the Balaton. I had a couple of interesting hikes: the first to a beautifully renovated and updated castle ruin, the next to 3 caches on the other side of the same hills the castle was on. The latter included looking for another highest point of a county, this time Somogy, some interesting cellars cut into loess and an old geodesic tower.

One of many lookout towers on this trip

Later we went to see a cute little chapel in the middle of the forest and a few others en route to our first day's accommodation in Nagykanizsa. This was on the first floor of a 1950's apartment building, beautifully renovated and updated, with all comforts. The beds were comfortable, we had our own little kitchen and it was a good beginning for the week. Dinner was had in a nearby restaurant, where Roy made friends with an English couple from Doncaster and had a long and enjoyable chat with them.

The Fishermen's Villa, our second night's accommodation

Day 2 was still spent close to the Balaton, but we had started to navigate our way towards the Göcsej region of Zala county. This is an area neither of us knows or had been to before. It is supposed to be full of lovely little hills and valleys, vineyards, and other oldie worldie places. Overnight, we had a fascinating experience by staying in the absolute back of beyond, in a Fishermen's Villa by a lake. It was a rather large, recently renovated and updated house, belonging to the local forestry and open up for us by a really lovely lade. We had the whole place to ourselves and we were warm, cosy and very comfortable there.

An oil well

The following, our 3rd day, we carried on travelling West, into the heart of Göcsej, and while some caches were missing or very hard to find, had another good day. The only downside of the whole trip was the weather. After weeks of mild, beautifully sunny weeks, as soon as we left home, the weather changed to winter, cold nights, very overcast and depressingly dark days, cold temperatures, although we were lucky that there was no wind and/or rain.

One of many reservoirs, turned into fishing lakes

That night we stayed in a B&B in Lenti, which is extremely close to the Slovenian border and which was the least comfortable of the B&B's we had This one was a bit stuck in the old days and was the most expensive. We did have breakfast included at this place, but on the whole we liked this one the least. This area is full of lakes, mostly artificial ones that were created as reservoirs, but most of them were very picturesque and pleasant to walk by. We looked at some lookout towers, and especially, being in Zala, memorials to the heroic oil workers still working locally in Hungary's only oil fields.

An ancient beech tree in a reserve

Finally, we arrived in the county town of Zala county, Zalaegerszeg, around which we did some nice hiking and caching. The accommodation there was of very high quality and reasonably priced, so Roy stopped grumbling about his back ache. Talking of back aches, mine was having a field day with my painful lower back during all this time. I suppose we will have to shorten our away days, as we are no longer up to the physical demands of driving, hiking and geocaching.

A lovely old chateau, now a cultural centre

The total finds on this trip were pretty high, I planned to get 40, including the very last narrow gauge railway cache, and we did make that figure. Not 100% exactly the same ones as planned, but still 40. The only change was that the last one had to be left off, as Roy got very tetchy and was eager to get home early on Friday, but the missed one was replaced by a moving cache in Keszthely, which amazingly waited for us right through the week, without being moved on. I took it with me and will be placing in in Gyula next week.

Csömödér narrow gauge railway engine

 

Now we are back in BP, trying to rest up a bit, catching up with paperwork and general admin, e-mails etc. Tomorrow we are due at the 70th birthday party of a very good friend, on Monday we have appointments at the hygienist and on Tuesday we are off for a spot more of geocaching, this time on the Eastern side of the river Danube and staying in B&B's in Szeged and Gyula. Hopefully, I will be able to put together another post next week, once we got home to Bér next Friday or Saturday.