It never gets old

This blog gets older... it's been 5 years and two months since I started posting here, more or less frequently.

I get older... it was only a couple of weeks ago that I ate another birthday cake (carrot, this time).

But this travelling thing... this never gets old. Nature will always be pretty, and walking through it will always make me giggly.

It's been a loong time since I spent a whole week in the mountains. A whole week! That's seven days of making yourself incredibly tired and unbelievably dirty in your quest for new sights and adventures! And so it was.

Day 1

Total amount walking hours: 8

Target: climb Hawks' Cliff (also seen here)

  The weather was bright and really hot, which makes for some overexposed pictures (and skin.)

 

After a strenuous 15 minutes climb...

 ...there it was! The Mures valley in all its summery splendor.

 

 The river looked really refreshing and inviting from up there, so the next target spontaneously became "must bathe". But of course, the accessible side of the river was no good, and only the other side would do for splashing.

 

I don't know what slimy species of scum inhabited the rocks on the bottom, but the texture was just wonderful:

  

After the secondary target  was successfully attained, we crawled home, had some dinner and fell asleep before it was even dark outside.

Day 2

Total amount walking hours: about 4

Target: celebrate birthday in style

This time, "in style" meant have a hot meal, and limit the amount of walking to a simple shopping trip to the village. Because for some reason, food just seems to vanish into thin air when one is in the mountains!

Food was cooked, fancy lunch was had,

 

and evening was spent with hot tea, nibbles and a very bad Dan Brown novel.

 

Day 3
Total amount walking hours: 10
Target: climb Tihu peak
(Tihu has a rather Maori sound to it, doesn't it? :) )

The way there is 20km of boring forest road, with not so wild wildlife:

 

The dog above decided to follow us almost all the way. We later found out from a beekeeper that her name is Lisa and she acts as a tour guide, accompanying hikers uphill and then coming back down with forestry workers, just to do it all the next day with another group of tourists.

The last few km became steeper and more interesting.

It was an overcast day, which made the surroundings look even more impressive, dark and ominous. Added to my new-found fear of bears, that made for a rather short stay on the top; enough to snap a couple of pics to prove I've been :)

Again, the evening saw us crawling home, banishing all stinky gear to the far corner of the deck and falling asleep before it was fully dark.

Day 4
Total amount walking hours: a couple
Target: Pick and eat enough raspberries to get a stomachache and a rash.

 

Goal achieved successfully, accompanied by the same very bad Dan Brown novel.

 

Day 5
Total amount walking hours: another couple

Target: come back to the city, have a shower and attend a book club meeting. Go back the next day to continue adventures. 

In the meantime, Lisa blissfully ignored us and played with her new friend.

Day 6
Total amount climbing hours: 6
Target: climb all the routes!

  

I failed miserably on some, but at least it was good to know I had not one, but two guys keeping me safe :)

Day 7

Total walking hours: 0.5, if you count trips to the fridge.

Target: do nothing and enjoy it!

Well, it wasn't exactly nothing. The guys rigged a flying fox over the yard, and there was a big watermelon that had to be finished. So there was some work to do.

Like dance the Macarena with watermelon slices in your hands:

 

 

 

By the way, this is a non-flying variety of fox that visited the yard in the morning. She was a bit camera-shy.

And then it was back to the city and its modern sorcery, like hot water spouting from walls and electric contraptions that wash your clothes for you and stuff like that. Better go away again before I get too used to it!

So it begins

After so much rain and gloominess, we finally got to enjoy a day in the sun. Well, this one ended in rain too, but at least we made it to the top of the cliff first. This cliff being the so-called "hawks' cliff", a rock formation I spent my entire childhood under, behind or near, but I had never actually climbed.

Until this day, when I added another dizzyingly high peak (about 800m) to my portfolio:

I don't think I'll ever get tired of this view:

After conquering this difficult peak, which took a total of about an hour, we collapsed by the side of the river, fried, ate, lay in the sun and chatted for the rest of the day. Just like the good old times.

In other news today...the garden smells like honeysuckle, I have to sleep with the windows open at night, I've finished torturing my students with exams, the cherry tree across the road is teasing me with its load of deep red yumminess... Yup, I think it's summer...

Summer research

Another catch-up

Can't believe I haven't posted anything since April! I haven't got a better excuse apart from the beautiful weather which kept me well away from the computer. But now that it's raining, maybe I should put you up to date with what I've been doing. Which isn't much, nor out of the ordinary.

Just a bit of climbing...

... some admiring of the scenery (finally summer! FINALLY!)...
...and of the silly sticky butterflies which seemed to enjoy our sunscreen.

Last but not least, I would like to present to you our latest leisure time muncher: the slackline. It's as fun as it is frustrating, difficult enough to be a challenge, but easy enough to allow you to improve daily. And I sure feel proud when I can stand up there for longer than 5 seconds!

I suppose you'll see more of my slacklining exploits in the near future. So far I only have videos of falling(repeatedly and not so gracefully).

Stay tuned for some big news! Coming soon!

(Special thanks to Radu and Judit for the first two pics)

I'm back

Dear hypothetical readers,

I'm back from one of the best holidays of my life, in the pretty little town of Hallstatt, Austria. It was quite possibly also the most physically-intensive holiday of my adult life. I wish I had a week to recover now.

Up at dawn and sleeping whenever done with nighttime photography, not a minute of that sunny week was wasted: walking, climbing, cycling, sightseeing, more walking, even more walking, omg not walking again...

I think this is how life should be spent: as if you only had 5 summer days left until hell. In this case hell being work, bills and a poorly managed country with no bicycle lanes. :)

In the following days, I will give you several posts with pics carefully selected to make you very, very envious. Enjoy!

The genesis of adventure

In the beginning, there was a wheel. It lived, quietly but obtrusively, in my hallway.
Then one day, it was joined by a frame. And they lived even more obtrusively in my hallway, blocking access and looking out of place.

Then slowly, other pieces came along: a seat, boxes of springs and chains and shiny things and other parts I could not name. It was becoming too much, they were taking over my house, I had to do something! But then a nice gentleman came to my rescue, and turned the horde of invading metal parts into a shiny new bicycle for me to use!

...Except at the moment it's using me. Straining all my long-forgotten muscles and aching bones and old joints. It's killing me! I like her, though, she takes me to nice places.

Like these hills we explored this weekend. The weather has been very unstable lately, with storms and floods, so we didn't dare stray too far from home. But nice places were found nonetheless.

The greatest reward after going up the umpteenth hill was a row of sour cherry trees, absolutely loaded with fruit!
Being so far from any village, I just assumed they weren't anyone's property, so I gave myself up to some enthusiastic foraging.
But picking from the ground soon became unsatisfactory, so I had to get to the core of the issue.
I picked as much as we could fit in a backpack, and I ate as much as I could fit in my stomach.

After admiring the view a little, I came to the painful realization that (omg!) I also had to cycle back home.

I'm shattered. Everything hurts like hell, and I just want to lie down and sleep for 3 days. But the trip was fun, and I do have cherry cake. I could get used to this whole bike thing.