Day 10 & 11 Near swim for 2 and on to Hungary

Day 10 & 11  Slovakia – Slovenski Raj

A Chill out day spent walking and cycling in the Slovenski Raj, just south of the city of Poprad.  Its pretty popular out here as a result of its limestone gorge walks that have been made possible through constructing ladders, chains and multiple wooden bridges....a sort of Ingleton falls walk on a larger scale with much less of a worry about the safety of those who take it on.

The main route was ‘closed’ due to the recent flooding but we took a different one through lush pine forest ....the walk was a circular one ( I wont do in/out walks) and just short of the campsite we encountered a stream at many times its normal size....boy getting tired and going back was no option...so jeans off, depth tested, trial solo crossing achieved successfully, Charlie thrown onto shoulders crossing was also a breeze......however my fireman’s lift of Susan I knew was wrong from the start with her weight all over to my right ......there was a certain inevitability as my left foot got stuck in the thick mud and then with uncontrollable laughter I sort of launched her to the other bank

S’s feet may have got a dipping ( she is saying legs !)  , Charlie in delight at having taken a photo of’ the funniest thing he had ever seen’, but Susan was triumphant having held her i-phone aloft as she came down into the water...

Later on a took a run up the 'closed' route - the water level was high so it was more of a gill scramble. the route was partially blocked due to the number of trees that had fallen across the gorge...there was clearly a good reason for it being closed - not only the tress but many of the wooden bridges had rungs that were missing

We met our 2nd Brit to date - a BMW motorbiker on  GS 1200 ??(the one that charlie Boardman and Ewan McGregor had on the long way down - my mate Rob used to have one) called Jay touring down to Romania and Greece....

Monday morning and the sun' is properly out and we head down through Slovakia on the back roads - some pretty poor areas with shanty towns and although it feels like a sweeping generalisation...lots of pretty menacing and miserable faced people hanging around not doing very much.

An so on and  into over into Hungary and to Tokaj - A town on the confluence of 2 large rivers and dominated by wine growing......

It is very much the start of the season as both campsites are empty. The first one has a cleaner who says we can stay but ti all looks a bit dodgy so we opt for the 2nd one - a 'beach resort'. Again empty but we are greeted by a lovely old Hungarian who simply cannot do enough for us - ringing up the owner ( his daughter in law it turns out) , getting us firewood and building a fire...he has as many words of English as we have of Hungarian and yet we manage a 20 minute conversation of sorts with him about travelling , his family etc...

So, it ended up a late night, under the stars by the fire... we knocked off a bottle of 'Tokaj white wine'...tasty little number and finished  our stocks of Slovak beer.

    

Day 11     Slovenski Raj ( SK) to Tokaj (H)            215 km            Total   2211 km