Day 32

18/09/2011 – Day 32

Vel’ké Kasihy to Stúrovo– 82km

Last night did not go well; the room was invaded by mosquitos. We did everything we could to kill them all but there are always survivors and as soon as the light goes out they attack. Yes, I know, but we did buy one of those things you plug in to keep them away but it blew up in the hostel Tuesday evening and fused all the lights. At one point M had one trying to get up his nose, and he was not happy! By morning I had found something to cover me and slept for a few hours but that was all.

Breakfast was a traditional Slovakian affaire, sort of like the German one but not quite. The landlady was fussing about all the time making sure we had enough to eat. She kept talking about us being in Romania by tomorrow night (that is at least another 500km from here).

Once packed and ready to go we went back in to say our goodbyes and she started to fuss again, apparently many people made a mistake getting back to the path and she pulled her bike out to take us to the right place so we would not get lost, how is that for service?

So waving our goodbyes we set off on the next leg, our aim was to be in Stúrovo which is on the Hungarian border, by tonight. This is only about 80km and should take us 4 hours give or take. That is until we saw the route, a track on top of the dyke made up of soft sand and loose gravel. Even with the wide Marathon tyre we were sliding about all over the place. What a contrast to the last few days of well paved track. This is definitely the worst conditions so far. Trying to travel at any realistic speed is an invitation for disaster unless you have proper cross country tyres with a wide tread.

The next problem is the signs, or lack of them. I said earlier that it was possible to do this with only the official guide books, well think again. Today we saw about 3 signs and one of them was broken. Someone has been out with a can of white spray paint and left arrows on the road, but they are not 100% reliable. In places they take a turn that is questionable and as we came into Stúrovo tonight they indicated a right turn which is clearly wrong. I have seen a black minibus several times some kind of ‘eurotour’ logo on the side and I wonder if they are responsible for these white arrows, showing the customers where to turn to meet the bus or to go to the hotel they are staying at that night. Either way these arrows will not last for long and will soon fade from view but at the moment they are a great help.

Fortunately the route was not that complicated but the conditions really did slow us down a lot, our average speed was only 15km/h, the slowest so far I think. We did not stop until we had reached the city of Komárno. The approach is along a very narrow path along the edge of the river, if you meet someone coming the other way it is a very slow and careful dance to pass without falling off the concrete.  Once you are on the road and turn away from the Hungarian border the old town centre is just across a bridge.

Someone has done a good job here and it is well laid out and inviting, and it has the first coffee shop I have seen with free internet for its customers outside of a major city. Once we had drunk the coffee we went to a square in the town that has been made to look like a film set, one of the buildings even has the steelwork sticking out the back of its façade, just how you would expect it to be.

Leaving Komárno we saw our first official sign of the day and like fools we followed it (the white arrow said straight on at this point). It took us along a stretch of concrete slabs about 2m wide and laid badly so there was a nonstop rhythm of jumps as you passed from one slab to another. This then led us onto more loose gravel and sand! At this point we stopped and tried to find our way back to the road without having to back track.

After following the wrong road for about 1km we gave up and turned round cycling back to where the sign was and finally following the white arrows. In total we lost about 5km.

We decided to stay on the road for as much as we can after this, although not the official route it is shown as an alternative for those people who prefer roads, the only drawback being the wind which had now strengthened and was full in our face.

We spent about 20km on this road stopping once for a beer and a picnic lunch of cheese and stuff we had bought yesterday for our dinner not knowing last night’s host was going to feed us.

After stopping in Moča for a coffee (well, we had to, didn’t we?) we tried the official route again and found it was the old road between the dyke and the river. This was much better as it was still in good condition and we were able to get a descent speed up. This was good for the next 20km or so then we ended up back on the soft gravel, if this is a sign of things to come I can see a lot of road work in the next few days.

Finally we turned off the river and headed inland to pick up the road to bring us into Stúrovo and it was a relief. We had achieved our target in conditions that were the worst to date. We now started to look for somewhere to stay. Usually we don’t book in advance as that means we have to be there at the end of the day, we prefer to leave that open and find somewhere when we decide to stop. Today we found a group of B&B’s clustered together and randomly chose the first to ask at, if it was too expensive we would go to one of the others.

They opened the gate for us to bring the bikes in before telling us the price, they showed us to the rooms before telling us the price (I felt we were being drawn into a position here where we could not say no) then they told us the price, 30€ for room and breakfast for both of us, so we said yes! This is the cheapest night so far and the rooms are in a building behind their house and it is self-contained with kitchen and bathroom. The owners were the perfect hosts telling us where everything is in the town, her English was better than average, but he would speak to her in Hungarian if he wanted to add anything and she would translate. Last night was good value for money, this is even better.