The 4th of February was a beautiful day. The temperature has grown for about 30 degrees since the last day of January:
from -15 degrees to +15. As we melt, we start to get crazy ideas. We do not know what to do first by sudden puff of warm air.
Or is it caused by pinworms?
- Girls, let's go to Praha!
Praha is the second highest hill of Brdy right after Tok, it has 862 m
above the see level.
In Tesliny we realize that in height of 710m is a quit different weather than in Plzen - less warm and more snow.
We can feel the chill blowing from the forest. Euphoria from the upcoming trip is decreasing by looking at the rests of the snow lying
on all trampled paths leading through our chosen direction - from Tesliny to Padrť. (A note for everyone who doesn't take a dog out on
a bicycle all year round: a snow cover which is thick more than 30 cm doesn't go together with a bike ride.
We make it easier on
ourselves.
Let's go to the right to Tremsinsko. There are no soldiers and we can find hiking signs there. It will be better.
And we have been there just once. (This reality later became fateful).
To follow the green sign for 10 km, then switch to yellow sign
past Hengst - to ride a bike in the permitted part of Brdy is not bad at all. Soldiers do not paint the hiking signs.
We won't take the same way back we are not bud heads. We take the shortcut following the yellow sign to Marasek. The path doesn't look
well, but if it won't be possible to ride, I can push the bike for a while. It is not that far. After we continue on this unsigned road
and than we turn on this path, which will, leads us to our car. And if there is time we can ride along the blue-green sign - it looks
for about 7-8 km on the map.
First 20 meters take about 5 minutes. Not to us. Tome. Damn it! But in the front it looks that there
is less and less snow, of course, we have to just resist.
Mm, but the area without snow covers just a few square meters. Further on
begins a deep snow again. The dirt road is getting shape as a reversed U. There are deep creeks of water from melting snow on both sides
of the dirt road, which run through the tracks from heavy forestall trucks. It is almost impossible to walk in the middle of the dirt
road. So I keep falling to the left track or to the right track. GORE-TEX shoes treated by Nikwax are completely wet. Above all it is
up to VERY STEEP hill.
What now, carry the bike?
O, rather not. This 12 years old bike is to heavy to carry even on the plain.
Heck, when is Santa going to bring me another one? Which weight just a half!
There is so much snow, that it keeps falling to my
winter shoes from the top. I keep sliding on the terrible, horrible path devil should take it! (Let me put a little note here: he
really took it later).
The doggies have so much fun of me and they jump joyfully around me and on me. Well, wait, you bastards,
till I get to normal road. I will show you my best!
Theeere is going to be the road. It is already half past three. But in this
time of a year it won't get dark till a quarter past five. So it is no problemm. We still have enough time.
Hell! The road must
have been stolen by someone... But in the autumn it was there, wasn't it?
So we have been plodding through this deep snow for about
45 minutes. And we are about a half-kilometer further. Well you make fun of it, but if there is no road behind that horizon, than I give
up and want to die here. Zacharda, heeelp!
Still nothing, no more road. I really give up the ghost!
JYa, great! I can see a small
road now! But what about these snowdrifts, which lead to there?! It must be probably a snow from a half of Brdy!
Nice just a wet forest road, now I will show you bastards. Common, doggies - now I am the king.
We have to speed up it is getting late. And on my speedometer is now 10.5 kilometers. Nothing positive.
That is great how fast I
can ride downhill. For free. In a while there should be some kind of log cabin according to the map. Then we will connect to the
hiking trail with a green signs. We will not take that one, it would lead us to Misov and then we would have to ride more then
3 kilometers on busy road to Tesliny, because we have not parked the car in Misov.
Mm, isn't too much downhill? Hope we won't
take the wrong way so we won't have to go all the way up back on this "vacuum cleaner" (vacuum cleaner = very steep hill, which
sucks out the energy). Somehow the bikes brakes do not work properly....
Yes, the log cabin. Green signs, we came this way ...
Which way we ... Oh no, it cannot be! Through this slush?? But there is so much snow again! I will take one more look to the map ...
Really! There is no other way to Tesliny.
Well hope the ground will be light for us. I meant snow. Let's go!
Oh no! There are quarter of meter long pools. Just walk would mean wade through the water by half of legs. But what about to make a
"scooter" out of my bike - one leg inside the toe clip and the other leg I can use for pushing and go through the track full of water
- so it is not that bad.
Look, another path intersects our at this moment horrible forest path. But the new path is even worse.
(How romantic it must be here in a hot summer afternoon ...) But mainly id leads probably to hell.
So we continue on our path...
Damn, what kind of idiot has put these stones here? It is crazy. I hope we will past it soon.
Well it looks VERY interesting here.
But at least there is a hide. Then we cannot be at the end of the world.
Can we??
Ag, Bety, come here! Not a this way! Here is some
creek. But where has gone the path?
I am getting completely crazy. The path, tracks from the forestal trucks and suddenly it all
ends 5 meters behind the hide by a creek. It is not possible! Well ...Map! There it is wide road turning to Tesliny drawn on the map.
Then it must be somewhere here!
We try to walk around and we must hit to it soon or later. Because far away we can already hear cars
passing by on the road between Misov and Tesliny. It is probably caused by the last year big floating, when everything got upside down
and the road must have been covered by stones here. So we will get to it a little bit further. We cannot take a shortcut through
the forest. There is a lot of snow, fallen trees, windfalls and those creeks. No way we go there!
Oh no, the bike! That would be
the worst thing to forget where is my bike. I'll rather keep it all the time close to me. And jump over this creek with it ...
No. I do not care that we have been lost here for about 20 minutes and there is no path or road. They have just ended. So we can be at
leat happy to remember the way back and let's return. Back to the log cabin, hope we will still find the way. And then following the
green signs we can get to Misov. But it will be interested to walk on that busy road with two dogs without a light.
Let's go, hurry! It is late! Soon we won't be able to see anything because of the dark.
So back to the splashes!
We still trz to look on the left side. Perhaphs I have turned earlier than I thought.
There is the one, which intercrossed our path.
Maybe that is the one we are looking for. If it turns to the left then this is it.
It keeps climbing up and I can ride quit well
even in snow. An intersection. Yes it is on the map. But we certainly shouldnot go to the right, it looks better to the left. And soon
we must get to the green circuit, from which we started anyways. Yupiii!
We have been riding for to long time again and the green
circuit is nowhere.
The sun went down already, soon we won't even know which way is the north.
Not this. There suppossed to these
green signs already. Let's forget about it. Let's go back. This is a completely wrong place. But still, if we go here uphill, we must
get soon to Tesliny. We go the right direction. What about to try to find a road according to the map, which would suit to this one?
That road … No. There is also one…. Well no there either. We do not want to go to south-west. But who knows, where is south-west now,
the has gone and compass stayed on the cupboard at home.
This route …. O my got, what kinds of creatures are standing there??? Deer!
Two of them! And they are huge! And real! They are standing and watching us. I am curious what is Agbani - our hunter - going to do.
Luckily we have the collar. But she is not doing anything, just standing and watching not able to move. Finally she recovered and gets
ahead of them. This is the right coursing not some stupid plastic!
Ag! Let them be! So, you are a nice girl. Come here. Here you have
a special treat. You know that you cannot hunt the animals in forest.
It is common knowledge that deer is a herbivore animal and eat
about 12-16 kg of blueberries a day but who knows? What if they would share our 32kg heavy Agbani? Maybe they haven't eaten for a long
time ...
Ya, so this is not the road we are looking for either. Girls! I do not know where we are at all!!! It is a quarter past five
already. If we continue like this we can be here till the morning and maybe even a whole day tomorrow.
Soon it will be so dark.
We have to call the "master". Perhaphs he will find us somehow and take us home. The phone. Quickly. Soon is going to be dark! Luckily
the mobile has its light. Jindra. Voice dialing. Piip. Piip. Piip. Piip. He does not pick up! Again. Piip. Piip. Piip. Piip. Why does
not he pick up just now?
Pi-pi-pi. Damn, what is it?
Warning, your battery is low. The phone will be soon switch off.
We were really waiting for such a trouble! The battery is dead.
Girls! We are hopeless!!! We are going to stay over the night.
Luckily it is not freezing. But a warm weather looks differently. Let's try to call again. Piip. Piip. Piip. Piip. Where is he? Why do
we have him, when he leaves us here to die?
Pi-pi-pi. Warning, your battery is…….DEAD.
So and this is it. definitely. Ya.
We can call for help just among the trees.
GIRLS! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?????
Chocolate! It gives us sugars and we will feel
much better then. Not to you, to me. This is not a dog food. You get your special treat...
My birthday on a last January day was
quite usefull. A bunch of flowers from my uncle Petr (Tifa ate them while they were fresh. The fact is then she couldn't eat them all
in once, so she finished them in the morning - there were just supporting wires left) and four boxes of chocolate. We could ride the
bike even for one months with this kind of diet. If we wouldn't have died here, but we are certainly going to.
We can try to find the way back to the log cabin. It is hard to see anything now, but we can still do it. And from there we will at lest know
where should we head to. Even we do not want to get to Misov at all, it is the other direction. But what else to do?
When I fall with my mobile to this deep pool, then it won't be functional even after recharging. That is what mobiles ussually do.
Even that my friend's sister dropped the mobile to WC and nothing happend to it. But it was an old type of mobile, the one you can
put under a car wheel without any damage. From Motorola I thing. It won't be a case of my mobile.
Wow, there is a cabin log sticking out of the darkness. If it is the a cabin log. Which path did we say leads along the green signs?
It is impossible to see, really. This one, right? So let's go. The signs are now invisible, but hopefully we took the right path.
So, hold on, my sweeties. You still have about 2-3 kilometers to go through the forest to Misov and then on the road 3 or 4 kilometers
more. I am not really looking forward to it. But at least we have found ourselves.
Resume:
At home we found out by careful look to the map that if we would have kept going the original intended way, we would have reached
Rožmitál in about 2 days.
Discussion with my husband after our return home - late hour in the evening:
- Zacharda, when I won't return home from our trip and somewhere freeze once, then you can feel guilty because
you do not pick up your phone, when we call you.
- You called? And did I pick up? No? Well I went to climb on the climbing wall and I left the mobile on the table at home. But it was turned on!
- And the road ended by a creek in the middle of the forest! But it looked quite big on the map and it leaded to Tesliny...
- You are surprised like some budhead. It is quite normal THERE that road ends in the middle of the forest. (under beard he says: ended but not enough)
- We have almost stayed there till now!
- But unfortunately you have found yourselfs again. What can we do? Nothing anymore.
- Zacharda you are disgusting!
- Next time you have to continue, further, without a map and without a phone!