22 July
After Auschwitz, we headed for the Slovak Republic. Summer
has taken a grip of us with a 31 degree day forecast. The fridge has been
having a hard go at it trying to keep things cold, so any frozen food and
perishables are being eaten ASAP. We have our fingers crossed that it’s just
the heat and not another visit to a fridge specialist.
The next few days will require an extra 20km travel per day
to keep on track to be in Transylvania. That wouldn’t be a problem if it was
clear highways but so much of it is through towns and roadworks you’re
generally travelling 50-90km/hour. It’s great to see the countryside and the
towns but the male part of me just wants to get to our end place for the day.
The first 70km of the day took over 2 hours………..
We finally entered the mountain range that separates Poland
from the Slovak Republic in the afternoon and enjoyed the view of the massive
mountains.
Once we crossed the border we noticed the change in home
immediately. In Poland, most of the country homes were basic and sturdy but not what you would call
attractive. The Slovak houses were similar but were brightly painted and the
place felt much happier. Who knew how much colour could effect a house so (
unless you watch those home makeover shows).
With the heat, all we can do for the passenger at the back
is wind down the windows, turn the air vents fully on and drive fast where
possible to get airflow to the back.
We finally stayed at a Thermal Springs park in Bvrol (SP?).
As we drove up, we had great expectations it would be as good as the one we
passed 16km before. Unfortunately, the actually camping site was run down with
one other family camping there with us. The shower and toilet block looked like
something out of a B grade horror movie and up the rise were accommodation
blocks that seemed to be recycled shipping containers.
We sent Gene off to have a shower and I sorted out the
accommodation paperwork. Once a freaked out Gene returned, Dee went for her
shower only to return shortly after in her towel as there was no water in the
showers. As Gene is a teenager, she was closely questioned on whether she
actually had a shower in the first place as we all know how much they hate
having showers and then loathing to leave
them.
I checked the men’s showers and they didn’t have any water,
so I harangued the staff there and they finally fixed the problem. They didn’t
tell us of course when it was fixed and I only found out when I went to the
reception with a Google translation of the questions, ‘Has the water been
fixed?’ and ‘when?’ as a follow up question.
With the water flowing again, I had my shower and hand
washed my dirty clothes. The night was then spent trying to keep an internet
connection long enough to finish my Auschwitz blog and plan out the next few
days of travel.
Thursday, 23 July
To try and keep our travelling in the cooler part of the
day, we left at 8am instead of the normal 9-9.30am. We stopped at a local shop
a little later to by some basic food stuffs and realised that whilst I brought
my clothes in from the line I strung up, Dee didn’t take in her towel, bra and
knickers that were hanging of the back ladder of Springy. Luckily, they were
still there when we parked to get the groceries.
The drive was hotter than Wednesday but we all survived
somehow. Springy did wonderfully in the heat but the fridge hasn’t shown any
signs of improvement.
We crossed into Hungary and enjoyed watching the wheat being
taken in. We have been noticing the wheat changing from the green at Waterloo
and getting paler and dryer. As a city lad, I don’t normally get to see that
occur.
We found the campsite, set up and had a siesta. The heat was
hard on all of us, with very little options to get away from it all. Of course,
it finally started to rain just after Dee put out her laundry.
Gene has now started reading the first book of the ‘Game of
Thrones’
Tomorrow we hope to visit a few towns on our way to Romania,
if the heat doesn’t put us off. It should be cooler though, only in the
mid-20s.
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