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27th October 2018 by Leigh Walton Leave a Comment

Saturday 27 October
Kiskunmajsai, Hungary – Sankt Polten, Austria.

We’ve enjoyed a fairly easy travelling day moving on from Hungary to Austria. Crossing the border from Hungary to Austria was supersimple. Nobody even wanted to check our passports…a friendly nod and wave from the border police was all that happened!
When we set out this morning the temperature was showing as 19 degrees. I knew it was warm as Leigh was in a short-sleeved summer dress. A couple of hours later the temperature had dropped to about 9 degrees…what a difference a couple of hundred kilometres make? Very soon the fluffy clouds gradually darkened then the rain set in, blurring my view of the countryside. What did strike me was the majority of trees appeared to be mustard. There was the odd group of dark green tall pine or fir trees but no reds or burgundy’s at all.
We arrived at (what should have been) our designated camp-site around 4.15pm but the place was deserted. Unable to raise anyone my humans jumped back in the car, reprogrammed another campsite into TomTom and drove on. Leigh rang the new campsite (just double checking they were open) and the conversation was hilarious.
The receptionist spoke no English at all. She eventually hung up (frustrated by Leigh’s lack of German I imagine) but then she rang Leigh back (did she think Leigh would have miraculously have learnt German in five minutes?). Leigh’s phrase, ‘Ein night for ein caravan’, quickly changed to, ‘Ein nacht’, (courtesy of Tom’s knowledge of German). After trying to explain we would arrive at 5pm, Leigh hung up too. Yelp!
On arrival at this second campsite Tom discovered reception was closed. I was just about to despair but, spotting plenty of other inhabited caravans, it was obviously still taking bookings. Leigh managed to persuade another camper to let her use his key to drive through the barrier which would give us access to the campsite: Tom then found a good pitch, plugged in the electric, sorted the water and waste and Leigh and I set off to explore. We wound our way down to the river and I had a paddle!

After about twenty minutes of being on site the receptionist came and found us, so we are set up, paid up, and happily ensconced in ‘Lower Austria’ for a night or two!
Woofs, Martha xx

Travels with Martha

27th October 2018 by Leigh Walton Leave a Comment

Friday 26 October
Kiskunmjsa, Hungary.

Today has been a wonderfully warm, bright, busy day. Leigh started her day off with a short run around the little estate over the road from our campsite. She came back full of the joysofspring, telling Tom and I about the, ‘Delightful houses, pretty wooded area and immaculate, freeofrubbish streets’, that she had noticed.

After breakfast the three of us went back to the estate (to indulge Leigh to be honest); I admit, Tom and I were impressed. Not a sweet wrapper, not an empty can, not even any doggydoodoo was to be seen. Hungary, I applaud you and your inhabitants.
The rest of the day passed pleasantly. I had a couple of nice walks, through the leaf-shedding trees where there were some wonderful scents; Leigh spent some time in the Thermal Baths and spa area – she also enjoyed a marvellous aromatherapy back-massage ; Tom updated his iPad and sorted out some issues on it. In between these activities my humans caught up with the laundry. The site of all the bedding, towels, and other clothes blowing gently on the line was quite refreshing actually. The warmth of the sun ensured the washing dried pretty quickly too.
‘When you live in a house with a washing machine and clothes line as permanent fixtures, you don’t quite appreciate the value of these things’, as Leigh told me. I’ll believe her but I am glad this is not something that I have to concern myself with.
Leigh was a little taken aback when she first went into the Thermal Bath’s as the changing area was a tad different to what she is used to in a ‘Spa’. It reminded her of a workhouse (not that she remembers workhouses, but it is how she imagined a workhouse laundry to be). Rows of coat-hangers with white laundry-type-bags and rows of small, private changing-rooms were not typical of the luxurious changing rooms you see in a Spa in the U.K.

However, this place is more for ‘health’ according to the receptionist, ‘Where you take the waters because all the pools are different’.
They certainly were. Different water temperatures and different types of salt baths were on offer, as were several saunas, steam rooms, Jacuzzi, plunge pool and jets that pound and pummel your back and shoulders.
We finished the day by popping into the local hardware shop for a ‘Witches Broom’. Not for Leigh’s annual flight on 31 October but for sweeping up the zillions of leaves back home. At 1500 Hungarian forint (£4 approximately) it’s a great buy.

Woofs, Martha xx

Travels with Martha

27th October 2018 by Leigh Walton 2 Comments

Thursday 25 October
Paulis in the region of Arad, Romania – Kiskunmajsa, Hungary.

Tom had planned a three-and-a-half hour journey for today, but due to delays of over an hour-and-a-half at the Romanian/Hungarian border, our actual time of arrival in Kiskunmajsa meant Leigh needed to delay her plan to use the Thermal Spa here.

The best laid plans eh? Honestly, every single vehicle was being subjected to having its documents checked; as you can imagine, most people don’t have these to hand (ours were in the caravan) so by the time each driver found said documents the time to get through the border was increasing. There were a lot of frustrated humans. Yelp!
After arriving at a campsite our routine is (most often) Tom hooking-up the electric, filling the aqua-roll with water and connecting the waste water container whilst Leigh and I take a walk. Suits me for sure! Tom also puts the steps out (it’s a bitofadrop from the caravan to the ground). Before Leigh and I managed to attach ourselves to our lead Tom said, ‘Where are the steps?’ We had left them behind at the previous campsite. This is not the first set of steps we have ‘lost’. If you have read my first book, ‘Travels with Martha’ you will know this…we have also ‘lost’ many other things along the way such as a washing line, pegs, new towels…the list goes on. Yelp!
Once everything was ship-shape we went for a stroll around the area. The Thermal Spa looks good so Leigh is booking a session there tomorrow, meaning we will now stay here for two nights. It’s quite nice to have two nights in the same place as it gives us chance to really familiarise ourselves with the area. I can find some well-scented trees to read and the humans have time to check out the town, local restaurants and site facilities such as laundry rooms.
Later in the afternoon we drove into town.

As are most Hungarian towns, this is well kept and there are some wonderful roofs to admire from an architectural angle!

Driving home we spotted some rather unusual ‘pets’ in the front garden of a house. Two huge Ostrich. They really are quite magnificent creatures, however I couldn’t help myself, I had to bark at them twice just to let them know they don’t’ scare me…much!

Woofs, Martha xx

Travels with Martha

24th October 2018 by Leigh Walton Leave a Comment

Wednesday 24 October
Bran, Transylvania – Arad.

We‘ve journeyed for around eight hours today – through about five different weather fronts. Sunshine, very low cloud, almost gale-force winds, rain (spiky, cold, sleettypeofrain) and sunshine again as we were nearing Arad. Mind you, I don’t mind the changes in the weather on a travel-day. The worst of it was the spiky sleet-rain that hit us just as Leigh and I were stretching our legs at lunchtime. Yelp!

Driving west across Romania proved an interesting journey. We encountered winding, mountainous roads before huge flat fields, then pretty alpine-type villages followed by concrete-block towns. The changes in scenery, and living conditions for the communities living in these areas, made for a thought-provoking ride. There were many statues and monuments depicting Christ today than we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks.

When you live on the side of a steep mountain does it cause more leg and back problems? I even felt sorry for the horses as the must always be leaning forwards, backwards or keeling over to one side. Living in a flat (or apartment if you are posh) must make you either super-social or terribly unsocial – these are huge blocks where I can imagine you have very little privacy. Living in a pretty house in an alpine village gives you some wonderful views but those at the bottom of the valley would get very little sun. As for the people working the fields, looking after their goats and cows and sheep, well, they all look pretty weather-beaten and many are stooped well before ‘old age’. Discussing all of this, Leigh and Tom are appreciative of living in the U.K…with all its faults.
One town, Fagaras, had a real communist-feel to it yet the church there was stunningly beautiful; a big contrast to the rest of the buildings.

Crawling though one village (the road was too rough to go any faster) we came to a standstill when two cows trotted across our path and started to fight! It was quite funny. None of us had seen anything like this before.

If only I could share the video with you. Yelp!
I enjoyed spotting some houses that reminded me of old cottages back home. Have you seen the ones with ‘eyebrows’ that are often thatched? Well, some of the houses here have normal windows then right at the very top they have a couple of slits – just like eyebrows.
Although I appreciate the use of a horse-and cart, I do feel sorry for the horses who wear the traditional red tassels which appear to swing very close to their eyes. The point of these may be to stop flies getting into the horse’s eye but I know they would annoy me greatly.
I absolutely love the mountains in Transylvania. Unlike many mountains, which appear to be crammed with tall trees, these mountains look soft with giant pillows of green between the trees. I can imagine all the wildlife coming out at night, just to rest their weary heads.
We decided to end our day by stopping at a campsite we used just about ten days ago. The site was advertised as being open all year yet on arrival it was closed. Oh my goodness…Leigh and I realised we could well be wild-camping so would have to be economic with the gas-heating. That’s fine, but tonight is the night the temperature has lowered considerably.
Luckily, Tom managed to ‘Whatsapp’ the proprietor who said, ‘It’s out of season really, but you can stay’. Phew.
We are all very appreciative of this, as we now have electric for the heating, and plenty of fresh water for a shower. My question was, ‘Why on earth does he advertise ‘open all year’ and then say, “It’s out of season”?’
Bizarre.
Woofs, Martha xx

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