Some Funny Memories & The Bartons Arrive!!

Very exciting. This afternoon we pick up Mike & Leanne Barton who will be arriving on the fast TGV from Paris. They will be staying with us for about 2 weeks. Fingers crossed for good snow and/or bright sunshine.

Nothing much to report today, other than Graeme and I found ourselves in a mad rush to get the flat in some semblance of order after arriving back from Slovakia and then having to head straight out to meet Mirielle and her family at Megeve yesterday.

So instead of too many words, I thought I would reminisce on our recent travels with some funny photos that I haven't been able to include in the blog so far...!

1/ Visit the Bad Hole...I don't think so!!

Slovakia: This is a serious advertising sign that we found in the car park when we visited one of Slovakia's old castles. Hmmm! I'm not partial to spelunking (look that one up!!) at the best of times. But nothing, and I mean nothing would make me go into a cave called a "Bad Hole!" What were those Slovakian marketers thinking? Well I suppose, if General Motors can name a car "Chevy Nova" which means "No Go" in spanish [which, by the way, was one of the worst sellers ever in South America ], it figures that the Slovakian owners of this venture may not immediately think what their name means in English. Good luck getting any english speaking tourists to this attraction!!

2/ Dana talking on the phone!

Slovakia: Telephone reception at the Hromadka household is a little dodgy. This is Dana talking to her friend on the mobile. With the increase in use of mobile phones, Tibor and Dana haven't installed a landline. Their internet is wireless and they use their mobile phones and the major form of communication. But mobile reception is not that reliable! Sometimes to use her phone, Dana has to lean way out the window and risk serious frostbite to her extremeties (it is -12C!!). But the hilarious thing about this particular photo is that she is talking to a friend who lives two houses down. Graeme and I joked that if she rigged up 2 tin cans and connected them with a taut piece of string, she'd be able to hear her friend just as clearly. Don't think the joke translated...! Dana & Tibor were obviously never a girl guide or scout!!

3/ Cool Cat...Grrrr!!

Vienna Austria: When you spend a whole day wandering around a city's streets, you're bound to come upon some good stuff. There's no stories to these photos. We had great fun making up our own theories over a cup of coffee !!

Sadly we leave Slovakia!

1/ Finally the mysterious Tatras are revealed!!

Typical!!! For the first time in a week the sun has come out and we can see the High Tatras from Dana and Tibor's house!!! And today we have to begin the long drive back to France! Bother, bother and double bother!!

Originally the plan was to go skiing with all the Hmoradka family and stay the night in their ski resort on our way home, but Mischa awoke with a high temperature and Tomi was feeling a little worse for wear. Dana was very disappointed as she loves to ski and was really looking forward to a day out. Sadly, Plan B, was a walk around their village, Stola.

The village is a lot bigger than expected. Bisected by the main road to the High Tatras National Park, the main street is littered with abandoned and crumbling soviet style buildings. First impressions are not good. But two streets back, the village is full of quaint wooden holiday chalets. With the bad weather and our action-packed programme, we had not had time to go for a wander earlier.

2/Dana & I go for a wander up one of the main side streets.

3/ A cute Stola holiday chalet

Many of the beautifully restored chalets are owned by Slovakians living in Bratislava or overseas. Unfortunately this means that, like Wanaka, out of the summer tourist season, the village is very quiet. It is also hard for Mischa and Tomi as there are very few children of their age living in the village. All their friends are at school.

We have had such a wonderful time with Dana & Tibor we are sad to say goodbye! But hopefully it will be "Au revoir" and not good-bye.

They should be very proud of their children and all that they have achieved with their business. The High Tatras is truly a special part of the world and we feel privileged to have visited the mountains and forest with such a pair of wonderful guides.

With a last hug, we're back in the car heading west to Vienna.

4/ And so...we say goodbye to Stola.

Dolina - A Slovakian Ski Resort Experience

1/ The Slovakians like their skiing. There were some good size lift queues at Dolina!!

We have been left to our own devices again today. Tibor is taking Tomi to a karate competition today and Dana and Mischa are cleaning their rental cottage. All offers of assistance from us to help them with the work were firmly rejected. I'm hoping that Dana wanted some mother-daughter time with Mischa and it wasn't that she'd heard about my poor cleaning skills!! After all, I was the only one at Te Wanaka who scored 4/10 for room cleaning!!

While there is a ski resort in the High Tatras, about 15 minutes from their house, it's very small and Dana thinks its poor value. She wanted us to go to a ski resort called Dolina in the low Tatras about an hour's drive east. So this is where we headed today.

We actually managed to get there all by ourselves without getting lost. A first!! We were hopeful of a good day as the morning had dawned fine and sunny. We were directed to a car park at the foot of the mountain and duly loaded ourselves on the bus. Arriving at one of the entries to the ski resort, we got off the bus, bought our tickets and were ready to get the chairlift when Graeme suddenly realised that he had left his backpack on the bus. Hmmm!! Small problem!

Fortunately, Graeme had taken all the important things out of the pack and there was only a few chocolate bars and some water left in it. Dana kept warning us that Slovakia was not NZ and we had to be careful with our belongings! At the time, I was uncharitably suspicious of Graeme's motives! All morning he had been talking about buying a new back pack. At last count we have 7 packs of all varying sizes and shapes and so I was understandably unenthusiastic about any further pack purchases. I thought maybe this was a sneaky way of getting a new pack. But to be fair, Graeme was very upset and keen to recover this one.

Hmmm! What to do? The only thing we could do was wait on the road and check each shuttle bus as it went by. After an 1.5hrs, Graeme was going to give up and make a claim on our insurance. I had a funny feeling and suggested that we wait for one last bus going up the hill and check if the pack had been given to a lost property office. When the bus finally arrived, I realised that it was the same one we had travelled up on. Getting on, we were disappointed to see that the pack was no longer in the luggage rack above our seat. Damn! Lost forever! But no....as I scanned the bus, I spied a black strap hanging down from a curtained off area behind the bus driver. Looking more closely I saw the DaKine label and realised it was our pack.

Now what to do? After speaking to all the bus drivers going up and down the mountain, so far, none of them spoke english. Trying to ask about our pack might cause some serious problems. We were not confidant that the driver would understand that this was our pack and we wanted it back. We really didn't want to start any sort of confrontation. So we confess that we chose to perform a sting operation!! While I distracted the driver asking for directions to the ticket office, Graeme reached up and pulled the pack down from behind the curtain and made off through the rear exit. Poor bus driver! He probably was going to do the right thing and was just safe keeping the lost pack until he got back to the bus terminus. And now it had been stolen from under his nose!! Hopefully he was not too distressed when he found out! We were certainly very pleased to have it back!!

With all the standing around at the bus stop, we were chilled to the bone. Unfortunately the sunny morning had clouded over and most of the mountain was covered in a deep freezing fog. After 2 runs down the mountain we were icicles!! Finding a nice restaurant at the top of the mountain we tucked into a hearty lunch while we thawed out. Dolina is Slovakia's largest resort and has some very modern and fast lifts. The terrain is pretty good too. However, they seem to be obsessed with snow making and despite the lovely powder snow off-piste, all the runs were covered in icy man made snow. It didn't take us long to hunt out some good snow through the trees and of course we had it to ourselves, as the Slovakians, followed the European trend and rarely ventured off the piste. Our favourite run for the day was under the big new 6 seater chairlift. Here's the film footage.

2/ Another area at Dolina

Mother, (Dana) was worried when we arrived home later than she expected. We explained that due to our late start this morning with the "pack drama" we skied right through until last lift. Nice to know that someone is looking after us!!

Another lovely night spent with the family and chatting with Dana and Tibor. We feel that we've been part of their family for ever. I wanted to take a picture of Mischa. But she is 12 (going on 22) and very self conscious about photographs! Tomi too, was very camera shy! I did manage to get a photo of Tomi and Tibor doing a crossword puzzle together. I had secretly taken a photo of Mischa tucked up on the couch in her pyjamas, but she vetoed use of the photo. I promised that I would delete the photo only if she promised to let me take another one tomorrow when she had "done her hair". Classic!!

3/ Tomi and Tibor and a crossword

Ice, Ice and more Ice!!

1/ Graeme on his way up the frozen waterfall

Today’s theme was ICE. Ice-climbing in the day and watching an Ice-Hockey match in the evening.

Seriously cold this morning –18C! Ice-climbing followed by an ice-hockey match in Poprad. Before the ice-hockey match we hiked up in to the High Tatras again but this time for some ice-climbing. Hmmm! You would think that 42 and 49 years respectively might be a little old to start this fairly demanding sport? But under the expert tutelage of Tibor and Dana, both Graeme and I managed to get up a small frozen waterfall. I don’t think that we scored any points for technique but both of us were able to swing our ice-axes and make contact and keep our cramponed feet on the ice-wall without falling off. There might be hope for us yet!?

2/ Inside the quaint Tatra hut!

D & T really have this whole adventure sport worked out. After our climb we stopped in the High Tatras oldest hut. 130 years old, the Rainerova Chata is a tiny stone hut and is named after a famous porter. The stone walls are cluttered with old photos of climbers and porters and their paraphernalia. In the Tatras, human porters stock all the high alpine huts. They refuse to use helicopters to transport food and supplies to the high alpine huts. The porters are incredibly strong and carry immense loads on specially designed packs. Tibor has been a porter in the past and I think he still delivers loads to the huts from time to time.

3/Dana and us - glowing after a Vin Chaud!!

The Ice Hockey
Go Poprad, Go!! We went to our first ice-hockey match in Europe this evening. Both Graeme and I love to watch ice-hockey. We have been fortunate to see live games in Canada and the US and we’ve been hooked ever since. Admittedly the local Slovakian competition, Poprad v. Martin wasn’t quite at the same level as the NHL and the crowd was small, but the players were reasonably skilled and it was good viewing. And it was cheap - E2.40 for Graeme and E1.30 for me. Women getter a cheaper price! Obviously they are hoping to attract more women spectators.

Despite the predominantly male crowd, they were remarkably reserved, especially when I compare them to a good loud AFL crowd! I couldn’t help myself! I was yelling my lungs out when Proprad, the home team scored their first goal and then went on to win the match 4 –2. Unfortunately, everyone else around me was politely clapping! Clapping at an ice-hockey match? For goodness sakes, men were being body slammed into the walls at high speed, sticks were flying and arguments were breaking out between the players and umpires. And the crowd was clapping??? What was going on? At least their cheer squad went wild, banging their drums like indians on the war-parth whenever Proprad looked like scoring. I think these Slovaks need to go to an AFL match to see how to support your team!

And to finish the day – we shared some delicious ICE-cream topped with Dana's homemade blackberry syrup! How fitting!

4/ Stacks on the Mill!! Puck's to the left boys!!

Going for a "Walk" - Hmoradka Style!!

1/ Going for a "walk" with Dana & Tibor is a whole new experience!!

Today, Tibor & Dana took us to Slovak National Park where we climbed up the Sucha Bela Gorge. Tibor and Dana don’t really do walks! Not even tramping or hiking really. Certainly not as the ordinary person would define the terms! They do adventures! The words – “commando course, waterfall climbing and gorge scrambling” would better define their idea of a “walk”.

2/ Check out the ladder system up this gorge!!

3/ Those "freaky" wooden ladders!!

As we began the walk, all the fir trees were still covered in their dusting of snow and every now and then, when the breeze blew, soft white crystals floated down from the trees on us like snow flakes. The National Park is riddled with deep gorges that end on a high flat plateau and the park is very busy in the summer with tourists making the climb up to the plateau. The gorges are all fitted with a network of wooden and metal step-ladders to help people climb up the river and waterfalls. I found it quite difficult. I have a terrible fear of slipping and the ice and snow covered wooden ladder walkways suspended above the river really played havoc with my mind. Not only were the wooden rungs covered in ice and snow, the icy river was flowing, in some places, 3 – 4 metres below. Like walking on balance beam, I was fine when the ladders were only 1 or 2 metres off the ground, but as soon as they got higher, the adrenaline started to flow.

Dana has regularly taken her children and friends for a “walk” up this gorge, but she has never made such a slow trip! For me, each step on these horizontal ladders was torture. But eventually, after we had crossed many metres of these walkways, I gritted my teeth and calmed down enough to make a little faster progress. This system of ladders and platforms is truly amazing. It is something we will probably never see in NZ due partly to the wild floods that sweep down all our rivers, and also, I suspect, because NZ OHS laws would say that this system is too dangerous. What a shame!

4/ Hmmm..a walk? Really?

On the way up, Tibor regaled us with many of his climbing stories. He has been on expedition in the Himalayas to Kanchenjunga (the world’s third highest mountain) he has climbed El Capitain in the US, as well as many of the technical European Peaks. As he was describing to Graeme, a particularly harrowing climb in the Dolomites, I couldn’t help but think how lucky it was that I got the same adrenaline rush from doing this walk, which for Tibor was about as exciting as strolling along a suburban footpath. If I slipped and fell, I could twist an ankle or at the very worst break a limb. A mistake by Tibor at his level of adventure has entirely different consequences. Dana is remarkably pragmatic about Tibor’s thirst for adventure. But she is also a good climber and knows Tibor’s abilities. They make a good team.

It goes without saying that it was cold. Probably –2 or –3C for the whole day and probably even colder in the shadows of the gorge, so lunch was a fairly quick bite before we headed down the access track back to the car. I can’t tell you how relieved I was to find out that, for safety reasons, you are only allowed to climb up the gorges not down!

Back into Poprad for what Dana assured me was the “worlds best hot chocolate”! She wasn’t kidding! A cup filled with molten chocolate and topped with whipped cream it was absolutely delicious and easily the best hot chocolate I have ever tasted. And while the boys headed off to do some shopping in an interesting role reversal situation, we delved into the pastry selection. Well, it would have been positively rude to sit there in the café without ordering one! Wouldn’t it?

A self-guided tour of Dana & Tibor's neighbourhood!

1/ Dana & Tibor's cuter than cute log cabin!!

Life with Dana & Tibor and their family has settled into an easy routine. The day starts around 6am, as their kids go to school early. Their kids are tough. Mischa and Tomi are on the school bus before 7am in the cold and driving snow. After getting to Proprad, the major town about 20 minutes drive away, they have to walk another 20 minutes to school. Both kids are highly intelligent and they love going to school. Mischa speaks perfect English and Tomi is a whiz at mathematics. Tomi also loves to invent board games and so far, Graeme spends most of the early evenings playing Tomi at his own games!! Graeme and I were both soundly beaten on our first night, but Graeme appears to be staging a significant come back tonight while I am writing this blog.

Dana & Tibor’s house is just lovely. A real log cabin, it is kept toasty warm by a fascinating wood burner. While the firebox is small, the heating unit is huge. It works by heating a circuitous flue system inside the brickwork. The brickwork absorbs the heat and then slowly releases it throughout the day. They only use 2 small boxes of firewood per day, once in the morning and again in the evening. This system heats the entire house.

2/ Andy writing away beside the magnificent fire!

Today, Dana set us loose to explore their surrounding country-side while they had business and stuff to do with the kids.

Armed with Dana’s itinerary and road atlas we headed off to explore the villages and historical sites in their region. The largest city Poprad, is about 15 minutes drive from their village. We like Poprad! It’s about the only town name in the immediate vicinity (and probably the whole of Slovakia) that we can pronounce. The Slovak language is a challenge. The spoken language is lovely. To us, it sounds to us like a mixture of Italian and Russian. But it’s not a harsh sound like German. The distinctive feature of the written language is the abundance of circumflexes, umlages, accents and graves. Without understanding their significance to the pronunciation of words, our attempts to speak the language have met with uproarious laughter from the Hrmodka family!

After a fairly late start in the morning, our first destination was Spisske Podradhie and one of the largest travertine castles in Central Europe. Getting there proved as challenging as always for us. Penelope (the GPS system) was no help at all. She hadn’t been to Slovakia before and once we strayed from the main highway, she was lost. And so were we! We actually ended up in a village called Spisska Nova Ves, which, as we learned later was Tibor's home town. Finally we made it back on route and found the famous Spissky Hrad - a derelict limestone castle perched on a lonely hill in the middle of surrounding paddocks.

3/ Spissky Hrad - a huge deserted castle

After circumnavigating the castle, we found a lovely spot for lunch. Serving traditional Slovakian food we enjoyed a delicious cabbage soup, noodles,beer & coffee all for E$12. The cheapest meal we've had in Europe so far!!

After lunch, Dana's itinerary took us to the historical walled city of Levoca. Here we wandered around the town's courtyard looking at the shops. The shops and businesses are so different than what we are used to. There are no big display windows. Only a small selection of goods are shown in a small window to the street. To enter the shop you have to go into the building via a large centre corridor and each shop lies to the left or right. I guess this style of display is a relic of the communist era, when really there was nothing much to offer for sale and large window displays were pretty pointless!!

Finally on the way home we visited a thermal spring area. We were disappointed not to have brought our bathers with us, as a swim in the hot springs would have been a lovely escape from the -10C temperatures of the day. There are loads of hot springs in Slovakia, and taking the waters is a very popular past-time for Slovakians. The winters here are generally long and very cold. You can understand the attraction!!

4/ Hot Springs near Kezmarok

Well it really wouldn't be a road trip without us getting lost. And today was no exception. Not only did we accidently divert to Tibor's home town in the morning, as we started for home we took a wrong turn in Poprad and ended up in the Whirlpool factory complex. It took us nearly 15 minutes to find our way out again. As we drove around and around, it reminded us of being caught in an endless spin cycle. Dana & Tibor were amazed that we could have found the Whirlpool factory let alone get lost in the complex. Aaaah ...but we explained that we especially "geographically challenged". We're not sure they understood this term, but they certainly understood that n0-one they knew could possibly get lost in the Poprad!!

Tomorrow, we are back under supervision with Tibor & Dana. We are going to do a walk in another National Park area of Slovakia - we can't wait!

Ski Touring in the High Tatras

After a good night's sleep we awoke ready to face the day. And what a day it was! Ski touring in the High Tatras National Park with Tibor & Dana. The High Tatras are Slovakia's highest mountain range running appoximately E-W in the north-east corner of the country. The national park encompasses the mountains and also spreads northwards into Poland.

The Tatra’s are made up of a chain of granite peaks all around 2500m. The highest peak is Gerlachovsky at 2654m. Below the mountains is the forest, which although decimated by catastrophic winds, still abounds in natural wildlife. The forest has bears, wolves, wild boar and wildcats! I was certainly hoping that we would not enjoy any close encounters with these beasties! I don’t like bears! An unfortunate viewing of that film “The Edge” with Anthony Hopkins about a man-stalking bear has given me a fear of bears similar to all those gullible viewers of the “Jaws’ movies. Personally I prefer sharks!!

1/ They're not joking!

It had been snowing lightly all night with a cold and strong easterly blowing. Despite the weather, Dana and Tibor took us up through the sheltered forest to a lovely chalet nestled in a mountain cirque by a frozen lake.

It was as a lovely skin up the mountain trail through the forest. Tibor & Graeme striding ahead swapping stories about outdoor equipment with the girls trailing behind. We were busy solving the world economic crises! According to Graeme, we were also using up our allocation of words. He has recently read somewhere that women use 35,000 words per day and men only 20,000! He takes every opportunity to cite this new piece of useless trivia!

2/ The Boy's using up their word allocation!

The snow continued to float down as we broke the tree-line. Unfortunately, the clouds were down and the peaks were hidden. But every now and then the clouds would lift and we would get a glimpse of the ice falls and high peaks covered in the snow. Dana pointed out the ice-falls where she and Tibor climb. After reaching the high valley, we arrived at our lunch destination, another perfect chalet in the mountains. This chalet is very popular with climbers in the summer who come to climb the high peaks. But in winter it is quieter and the friendly staff have more time to talk with their clients. Tibor used to work here and this chalet is where he met Dana – 21 years ago. We enjoyed a local speciality – sounds terrible to our western palate, spiced sour cabbage soup and rye bread, but I can assure you it was delicious!

3/ The Team outside the Chalet

And then the fun part! The ski down through the trees! I always loved skiing in the trees as a child in Australia and today's run through the forest of the High Tatras will be a special memory for me. Graeme took some fantastic film footage skiing behind me as we sped through the forest. Definitely worth a look!

On the way home we stopped at the local ski resort above where Dana and Tibor live to collect water from a mineral spring. It is an acquired taste I must say. The water is slightly aerated and has a strong ferrous taste. I am sure it must be good for you (Dana & Tibor are certainly very healthy) but Graeme and I think we’ll stick to our own health tonic – red wine!!

4/ Tibor filling the bottles with mineral water. It's -8C - check out the bare hands!!

Finally tucked up in Dana and Tibor’s gorgeous little house in Stola we enjoyed another delicious Slovakian meal. Tibor is rather a famous climber in Slovakia and he even has films made about his climbing and mountaineering. We persuaded him to show them to us and settled in for the evening!!

Onwards. East to Slovakia!

1/ Crossing the border into Slovakia

It was with great relunctance that we packed up our kit this morning and headed out again on the autoroute. We are excited to be visiting an unfamiliar country and seeing Dana & Tibor again, but we just wish we didn't have to drive all day to get there! Today we have to make it half-way across Austria and then all the way to the north eastern border of Slovakia.

The weather is suitably heinous. But fortunately, unlike the highways to the Austrian ski resorts, the road is empty. It is snowing, sleeting and raining in equal measure. Visibility is limited and we feel that we are only seeing a tiny glimpse of the terrain around us.

Poor old Pepi Peugeot is covered in snow, salt and grime. Our skis on the roof racks are getting hammered. The edges are covered in rust! I can't even begin to imagine what the salt is doing to Pepi's metal underbelly!

2/ A very grimy Pepi!

3/ How to wreck your skis without using them!!

I am going to refrain from making any comments or impressions about Slovakia at this stage. It is too early to tell. Certainly the grim weather is not making the uninspired soviet architecture of the buildings look any better. But looks can be deceiving and our opinions are also coloured by the monotony of driving. Best wait until we've spent some real time here.

4/ Hmmm. Soviet style housing blocks!

Well it wouldn't be a proper road trip without us getting lost! It was dark, snowing, Penny was completely lost! She had no maps for the area we were travelling through. By sheer dumb luck rather than any good navigation on my part, we managed to find Stola - Dana & Tibor's town. After a quick phone call to Dana, she was able to direct us to their beautiful log cabin.

Of course, Dana and Tibor look exactly the same. But of course their children, Michaela (Mischa) & Tomi have grown substantially in the two years since we have seen them. Mischa is now 12 (going on 22!!) and Tomi is 8. I will confess that Graeme and I were totally wrung out by the hard drive today and we were probably not very good company. Hopefully tomorrow we'll be rested and ready to catch up with all the news since Dana & Tibor were in NZ two years ago.