October 18th: Day 70 – Hungary

So I wake up to a very cold morning as frost still lingers on the ground. Andreas and Caroline tell me it’s possible to get some breakfast at the bar so I do that.

So it seems that I’ll be travelling the same way as Andreas and Caroline for a while anyway, so we decide to cycle together. It should be fun as I’ve been cycling on my own since Denmark so it will be good.

We decide that supplies are needed so we go shopping in town which always takes longer the more of you there are. And then later along the route we meet another couple of cyclists. Welcome Danny and Kim, a nice dutch couple. We are all talking and getting to know each other on the cycle path for  a while, I kind of decide that seeing as it’s lunch time that perhaps we can eat and talk together.

A nice hourly lunch by the river and it seems now we are all heading the same way for the next few days so now the cycling gang is even bigger – although I don’t go around saying “Do you want to be in my gang, my gang, my gang” – some of you won’t get the music reference.

As we cycle along at a leisurely pace suddenly there are two more cyclists just catching up with us. Welcome to Paddy and Peter. As you can tell from the names they are Irish. It’s getting fairly close to evening and sunset so it seems now there is going to be 7 of us camping tonite. this is quite a turnaround seeing as the day before it was just me.

Everyone is quite surprised as we are kind of all thinking a little bit that we are crazy to be cycling this time of year when it’s starting to get colder so for 7 of us to all be here at the same time is quite remarkable.

Danny is looking out for nice places to camp and we are well away from roads and villages with the cyle path so it shouldn’t be too much problem. It looks like there might be a nice spot when a car comes along a dirt road. They don’t speak english but with gesturing I try and make out we are looking for a campsite. The guys in the car indicate that here isn’t safe and make motions of gun shapes. This doesn’t mean they want to hunt us for sport, but I’d rather hope it just means that they go hunting for boar here so isn’t safe.

I tell the others and we return to the path and carry on looking. We do find a nice spot right by the river and not in a hunting area.

As we pitch up we make a great dinner of  combination of food from everyone. This means fresh vegetable and pasta with bacon. Danny is the main cook and has brought a few spices and herbs and culinary skills which is a bonus for me as my usual cooking is heat pasta, heat sauce and eat.

It’s been a nice day to meet all those different people and I’m lucky that the common language is English, well if you can say that the Irish speak English of course. It seems though that Paddy and Peter are in a hurry to make it to the black sea so are leaving early in the morning. They usually leave at 7:30am, it’s briefly tempting to go with them as they will be doing a pace that I’m more used to, but the fact is that I’m not a morning person. So staying with the dutch and german couple and having a more leisurely ride is probably the best idea.

I go to bed nice and snug afer we’ve built a nice fire and chatted until it’s late and getting cold.

17th October: Day 69 Rackeve to Kalocsa

I do my usual routine in the morning of packing everything away ready to leave. I notice a sign in the toilets which is very amusing so there’s a photo below.

It’s pretty much an uneventful day, nice weather and I get the kilometres done through the countryside of Hungary without any struggles.

By evening I’m trying to find somewhere to pitch my tent when I notice another couple of cyclists pitching a tent in a small field. I hope they speak english. They do and I ask if this place is meant for camping, they said they just asked the manager of the bar and he said it was ok.

Of course I also ask and it seems I am now camping next to a bar again, it’s becoming a bit of a habit. The german couple are called Caroline and Andreas. and we get to chatting over a camp dinner and then a beer in the bar afterwards. Our excuse for the beer is because it’s so cold outside that it’s best to be in doors while we can.

Sure enough it’s very cosy and warm inside. Caroline and Andreas seem nice and friendly and certainly speak better English than I do German. It turns out they are also following the Donau cycle route, but are heading all the way to Istanbul for mid december.

Unfortunately the bar is closing at just after 8pm cause we are the only ones there so we’re back out in the cold before we can chat much more (or have another beer). I guess we can chat in the morning.

16th October: Day 68 Budapest to Rackeve

So before I leave Budapest I decide to have breakfast at the Caledonia bar. It might be the last chance I have to get a good breakfast for a while and gives me a chance to say thankyou and goodbye to Patrick. Breakfast is indeed wonderful and consists of pancakes and bacon. I say my goodbyes as I cycle away with a bellyful of goodness…

Today is cycling is pretty uneventful until I try and find the campsite marked in my cycle guide. I go im circles as is customary for me these days and end up asking as a prestigous looking thermal baths and hotel if they can tell me where there is a campsite. Turns out this place has camping, but still not sure if it’s the place marked in the guide.

I camp here and enquire about food in the restaurant. Turns out it’s a buffet style meal including dessert for €7. Well who could say no to that, certainly not me. So I start and end the day with some lovely food which to me is always a good day.

 

12-15th October: Day 64 – 67 Budapest

So I’ve made it to Budapest after 2 months on the road. It’s been everything I could have imagined and more. It certainly has been challenging and exciting, but being out on my own so far from home has slowly been building like a dam at the back of my mind.

I need to recharge and focus my mind so spend a few days in Budapest. I relax by going to the cinema and seeing the castle and parliament one evening. The hostel itself is helping me recharge as it’s very relaxing and feels more homely than anywhere else I’ve stayed so far. The staff are all friendly and interesting and the room I’m staying in has an african theme which could be sign as a sign for my trek.

While I’m here I also have to get my brakes fixed as they are more worn out than me. I also need to grab a map which shows the rest of the cycle route along the donau from Budapest. In looking for the map shop I also stumble upon an irish bar, Becketts the owner is from Dublin and when I explain I’ve cycled from Scotland on a charity cycle he even gives me a free steak lunch. What a great guy seeing as I mainly went in to find out if they were showing the rugby at 10am the next day. Also he tells me there’s a scottish pub nearby to.

So off I head to the Caledonia bar. I speak to the manager Patrick who’s a really great guy actually from Scotland, but always working it seems to keep the place going. And who else would be better suited to cook scottish breakfasts and haggis than a scotsman.

The atmosphere is abit quiet just now as it’s only the afternoon, but as I look round and see pictures of Scotland and Edinburgh on the walls I start to feel meloncholic and cheerful at the same time. It’s great to find a little piece of Scotland and ties to home so far away, but at the same time it makes me yearn to be back in Edinburgh even if just for a few days.

Well anyway I can’t go moping around town so bury the nostalgia away as I still have many more months until my charity trek is complete. Another thing that brightens my day is that when I return in the evening to have dinner the place is really alive with locals and expats trying whiskies and scottish beer. When I go to pay for my dinner the owners of the Caledonia say I don’t have to pay. Free lunch and free dinner in the same day, the feeling of meeting all these friendly expats abroad reminds me of the friends and people in Mwanza, tanzania where I worked for 2 years. That experience is what led me onto this path of a charity cycle round Europe.

The next day I watch the rugby at Becketts and feel dissapointed that France have knocked wales out as Wales deserved to go through but missed too many penalty kicks. Maybe watching the Liverpool Manchester United game will cheer me up. No that doesn’t as it ends 1-1 which means Man City are still ahead of us in the league. Well after these few days tomorrow I’ll have to carry on with the fond memories of Budapest.

 

11th October: Day 63 Slovakia to Budapest

I hit the road in the morning aiming for Budapest. The route in the guide I’m using follows the donau which isn’t the direct way. It’s time for me to try a short cut and I set my Garmin Satnav for a more direct route to Budapest.

This short cut is going to save me some time. It’s going well until the road I’m taking leads through a small mountain range. This turns it into a longer and more tiring day than I anticipated. The thing that I find with cycling up hill is that I believe that you are rewarded for the massive effort involved with fantastic scenery and usually a nice downhill stretch. Well this is what I always have to tell myself as my legs ache and heart pounds in my chest.

So after a long day in the saddle and many burned calories I make it to Budapest. I book into a hostel/apartment. It has a real homely feel to the place as it only has a few big rooms and isn’t the normal bunkbeds stuck in a room feel to it. After my hards day work I deserve some beer so garb a couple with a french guy, Bryce who’s also staying at the hostel. The rugby world cup is on and most of the expats in the city are waiting nervously for their teams to progress. It’s only a few days until France play wales in the rugby world cup which could be tricky.

10th October: Day 62 Slovakia to Hungary

So in the morning I wake up to a nice view across the Donau (first photo). I pack up and consider how far I should head today. I could if I push myself make it to Budapest only a 130km away… let’s see how I go.

There’s some hills on the way which isn’t going to help me get to Budapest before nightfall, I’m more a downhill expert than a mountain climber.

Although the hills are slowing me down they do give some nice views across the Slovakian landscape. There’s plenty of green to remind of Scotland and also fields of grapes grown to produce local wine.

As time draws on I soon realise that Budapest is beyond my reach today so I start to look out for any place to camp. I see a sign for a campsite just off the road, but on investigation the place is closed for the season. A wee while later I’m passing through a village when I see a sign for campervans. Really it’s just a patch of grass out the back of bar, which for me is ideal enough. I go into the bar and ask if I can camp. When I say ask what I mean is lots of pointing and hand gestures as the owner doesn’t speak English, he does speak German as well as Slovak, but any German I picked up is now as rusty as the Titanic.

Well it’s ok to camp there (for free) and I’ll be able to buy dinner there after 6pm so it’s worked out quite well. Of course ordering food is quite tricky, the owner has a plan which is to use google translate on the computer in his office. This results in me getting a big bowl of fish soup which consists of huge bits of fish which still have a hundred bones in there. It’s tasty, but hard work trying to get all the bones out.

The owner is quite friendly and comes over for a ‘chat’ as I think he’s interested in finding out more about this crazy cyclist from Scotland. He even gives me some free wine from his private collection. I think this means that him or a friend produces the wine locally. My next coarse is pasta cooked with cocoa powder – literally just pasta and cocoa powder. I’m not sure at all about this dish, it’s certainly unusual but after a tentative first mouthful actually quite tasty. Seeing as I have a sweet tooth I finish it all up and head to my tent just a few metres from the back door.

I’m soon off to sleep, feeling happy that I stayed here. Well I was happy until 4am when I’m abrubtly awoken by a train. The train track is only a few meters away from my tent so it sounded like the train was going to run ove my tent. Maybe my location wasn’t so good after all. Luckily though there isn’t any more trains before I wake up more naturally, which generally speaking is because I need the toilet.

October 9th: Day 61 Leaving Bratislava

So after an interesting evening I didn’t get a lot of sleep and I’m heading off today. I quickly grab breakfast at a cafe with the polish girls anna and maria and her boyfriend? who will probably all head to Vienna for the afternoon. The cafe is nice and has an interesting style which is retro eastern europe, it does feel like I’ve stepped back into the cold war era. I say goodbye and head off on my bike following the donau route again.

My lack of sleep doesn’t affect me too much as manage over 100km. What I don’t manage to find is a campsite that is marked in the Donau cycle guide. After fruitless attempts to find it by cycling round every street in a village I just head near the river and wild camp next to the donau. This should be far enough away from any drunk english idiots that I’ll get some good sleep.

October 6th-8th: Day 58-60 Bratislava

So I spend a few days in Bratislava as I have to wait for some post at the hostel. I use the time just to relax. I go to the cinema and watch some American films that aren’t dubbed.

There’s two nice polish girls staying in the room who speak really good English. They even help me write a funny postcard in Polish to a friend back in Edinburgh.

In the evening I even try my luck playing poker as there is a poker club next to the hostel. Things are going quite well and I make it to the final table and then to the last 6 players. I’m getting really tired though as it’s 3am now, which is way past my usual bed time. I bust out in 6th and only win my money back, on well at least I can get some sleep now.

I get to my room ready to crash out. This would be simple enough if there wasn’t some guy sleeping (probably passed out) on my bed with his clothes still on as his hand clutches on to a bottle of water.

There is a group of guys come over from England for a birthday (meaning a drunk weekend being idiots in a foreign country). I try to gently to wake this guy, I hope it’s not like poking a bear or a beehive. Partly I’m also worried he’s going to be sick on me or the bed, but he’s not waking up though. I’m not sure how to wake him without waking everyone else in the room. He’s probably drunk enough to be in a coma for a week so I’m not sure what will wake him. In the corridor there are a couple of English guys walking about so I ask them if the guy is there friend.

Sure enough he’s with them. They wake him and when he slowly comes round they try to tell him that he’s in the wrong room. Of course in his drunken groggy haze he’s convinced he’s in his bed and everyone else is wrong and he’s just going to go back to sleep now. His friends try convincing him again, but he’s still not having any of it. They even lift him up a bit out of the bed, but he starts getting annoyed. After a few minutes they try to gently shepherd him out of room at which point he tries to punch his friend, they struggle, everyone wakes up and the polish girl shouts at them to leave which they quickly do. After all this I eventually get to sleep about 4am, glad that I’m Scottish and not an English idiot like that guy.