Gyor Hungary to Zebegény Hungary via Slovakia
126 kms 76miles
The Routine..... Wake Up, put eye mask and earplugs in travelling location, pack sleeping bag, pack pillow, put on cycling gear, pack PJs&Clothes for travel, deflate airbed, gather small belongings from inside tent, prep everything for emergence from tent..... Emerge into real world...
Greet Paul and get water boiling for life given tea and coffee.... begin loading bedding onto bike, prep clothing bags, leftover foodstuffs, shoes, table, chair and cooking gear for loading. Dismantle tent and load into it's home on bike. Attend the various calls of nature as necessary, and begin loading all the above.....
It's kind of like a Genie going into a bottle.... all over the place, and then shazam, before you know it, it's all tidy and ready to ride..... Put on all necessary clothing and gear to meet the needs of the weather. Glasses, gloves, rain gear as required.
Routine.... uhh, yes, today it all ended there, almost before the day even started....
.....we headed off just before 0830h this morning and got straight on to EV6.
The distances to Budapest looked much shorter than I expected, and can only imagine that today's distances have come up short due to an arithmetic error on my behalf.... this is a good problem to have as it meant our 76miles got us close enough to Budapest that we could save a day .... also the distances we observed were road distances and not all EV6..... which soon also became apparant! Despite all the shenanigans I hit 3,000km today! Not bad for an old guy!!
We hummed and hawwed and finally agreed we'd make for Budapest all things being equal..... but they weren't equal at all! Big hills, busyroads and 'Hungarians in a Hurry' convinced us that we were best going riverside, come what may!! Some sections of the route today were quite honestly to the worst we've experienced with trucks aplenty on fast roads and not even being clear if we were on the 'official' EuroVelo 6 route or not..... that's usually the case on the worst sections! I'm guessing they're hoping people will blame themselves for making a wrong turn, and thus they can deflect any criticism of the poor level of provision. C'est la vie from time to time!
This decision took us back into Slovakia where the roads are quieter, slower and not so manic as Hungary side!! But indeed this decision added an additional 40km onto our journey to Budapest thus making if tomorrow's objective.
So we were now in Hunter/Gatherer mode to source stuff for dinner! We got what we needed before leaving Slovakia and thought we may just wild camp tonight.
So now we were in 'full scale' hunt/gather mode to find somewhere suitable to pitch up! We found that spot just on the edge of the town of Zebegény. Tentatively we surveyed the area, and the deciding vote was cast by the existence of a archaic (2week at least....!!) make shift fire pit and hearth... humans had not only visited this spot before, but also cooked wild water buffalo, duck, or grouse or other such fowl fauna that may have existed in ancient times! This was it...
The site, 15m from the shores of the mighty Danube was to be our home for the night.... Paul began setting up his hovel first while I collected firewood for our campfire. Paul suggested he'd carry out a full appraisal of my technique so as to determine if U should be granted my Fire Starters Badge.... or not!!
The fire was a raging success, and we had the product of Paul's hard work (Chicken Curry!) for dinner and then each headedto our own tents for a bit of slumber.
No shower, no brushed teeth.....we both found the bathing facilies rather limited and thus looked forward to a proper camping facility the next night in Budapest for bathing and laundering!
As great as wild camping is after a 75mi day it's a tough gig with lack of fresh water and the only creature comfort being an open fire! But it's still a great craic!!
AufWeidersen Mate!!
Doug&Paul
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