Pork is a dish that is definitely served best hot, though warming it up in a panier on your bike for the day pre noshing is not advised…to be continued shortly!

We picked up with you last in Cesky Krumlov and continued to be impressed with the delights of the Czech Rep.  From CK we headed North reaching Trebon where we spent the night.  We learnt a valuable lesson that evening that one should never leave anything out of the tent when you’re going to be leaving it unattended for a length of time.  The changeable weather of Central Europe meant that all our clothes and bedding was drenched by a downpour by the time we came back from a supermarket/cake trip…I failed to see the funny side but our spirits were soon mended by a fried pork and blue cheese sandwich.

Empty cycle paths of CZ

The last week in the CR and now Slovakia has been pretty wet with rain or thunder storms most days.  Not what we expected but we’re presuming it’s down to the low pressure pre the Alps.  Whatever the weather it has been splendid for all the Karp in the Czech Republic.  We knew that in Eastern Europe they eat Karp as a traditional dinner on Christmas eve but were surprised at the number and prevalance of the Karp lakes across the country.  It made for great entertainment whilst cycling along and watching massive karp breech and splash about in the water, quite the site.

Karp lake rest stop

From Trebon we had a beuatiful days cycle to Slovanice where we coincidentally encoutered a local film and music festival.  This meant there was cheap camping in a field behind the town hall which was a treat to be so central.  We spent the evening wondering around the city, chatting to a few interesting characters and cooked our dinner in the town square before heading back to our pitch.  Later that night I awoke to a scuffle in the tent and peered out of the back door to see Brian on all fours shouting at the grass.  Alarmed, I poked my head out to see if he was ok to which he collapsed with a low moan on the wet grass. On giving things a little thought we deciphered it must of been the pork we had for dinner coming back for an encour! (This is the little beauty that was pre-heated in our panniers the previous beautiful sunny day, sun dried prk it was not!)

Slovanice pre pork bulletin

Suffice to say it was a long night for Brian and we had to coax our nextdoor neighbours dog to help us with the clean up operation the following morning, god bless Fido!  I was a little too quick to laugh at the image of B shouting at the grass, starting the day off feeling like the one that got away. It turns out, of course, that I was the fool that ate the pork too and by midday was human catherine wheeling it across the campsite. Ouch! As anyone who’s had food poisoining will know, you feel like a new man once it’s out so by the next morning we were back in our saddles for another couple of days slow and steady cycling along the EuroVelo 13 – Iron Curtain route.

Another thing we’ve been impressed with since leaving London is the amount of wildlife we’ve seen.  The London dwellers amongst us are used to an urban fox and a grey squirrel but we’ve had quite the Attenborough experience of late.  Brian saw a bloomin snake catching a fish the other day and we watched as it slowly dislocated it’s jaw and ate him up!  picture below. As brians bro said after a trip doing some wildlife photography in India, its apparent that ‘everything is eating everything’ – we’ll second that!

A fish supper for our slippery friend

We were sad to leave the CR a couple of days later and said goodbye to the country with a nice 600m climb with the three H’s (Heat, Headwind, Hills).  With every up there is a down and the rest of the day saw the wind behind us as we headed into Trencin.  We’d originally planned to camp the night here but as is often the case the pictures online for the campsite told a thousand words…just not the right ones as in reality as we approached a sad cluster of cabins on the outskirts of the city by a disused pool and run down football ground. It had been 6 days in the saddle post 1 day styling out the pork attack so we decided to catch the train the following morning to Zilina and cycle to a campsite 10 miles South for our 2 days off.

As if by magic on boarding the train the heavens opened and we trunddled along hoping the couple of hours on-board would squeeze the clouds dry.  As we disembarked we did have a couple of miutes of sunshine before like a boomerang the rain was back with a literal bang.  As the thunder rolled and the rain hurled, we took a slight detour on our route and ended up cycling on a path cut through a cornfield where the mud was so thick our wheels got clogged and we had to drag our 50kg bikesslipping and sliding uphill in the terrential rain.  We still managed to have a giggle and it’s times like those when you really do feel like you’re on an adventure!

Mud chute

We’re dry now, rested and fed with tomorrow as our ‘do absolutely nothing day’ before we head West across Slovakia.

A a collectors item

Quick mention to Dad Thompson as he dropped us a text saying that he hoped we were having fun in Slovanice and the only thing we’d lost was weight.  Quite perfect timing on the day Mr Porky took centre stage 😉  Our ‘fighting weight’, as my brothers called it, has definitely dissapeared.

A couple of things to ponder:

No matter how stringent you are with the zip on your tent you’ll always find a friendly earwig bedding down with you the next day – how do they do it?

Why do moths only ever eat the good stuff?  They’ve happily munched perfect little holes in our merino t-shirts and mosquito tent netting…many thanks!

Hope everyone is well 🙂

All our love and laughs

Tommy and Brian

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