Monday 26 June 2017

Day 18 Bodvaszilas to Irota

The first section of walk was across the flat bottom of the Bodva valley, much of it on an old railway line. House martins were out in force swooping after insects and each other, the morning fresh after some early rain. Cuckoos called to each other across the meadows as I passed strips of land planted with potatoes and wheat.
At one point the path crossed a river on the remains of a railway bridge, you had to walk across (the admittedly rather wide) remaining girders. On the far side of the valley I came to the abandoned industrial complex the railway once served, with furnaces (?), offices and other remains left as they were to decay. Among these remains was a hut marked "Ticket Office, Information", but what were these tickets for? I could find no explanatory signs. Shortly after I walked through the village of Bodvarako, where a cheery villager pointed out a stork in a nest on top of a telegraph pole with a baby stork (a storklet?).
But the inevitable climb could no longer be delayed and I sweated profusely while climbing up the next hill through woodland. A brief reward was seeing a herd of small wild boar run off, but not very clearly as my glasses were somewhat misted by hot sweat. After an otherwise monotonous walk through trees I descended into the village of Tornabarakony. The remainder of the walk included some meadows with ox eye daisies, and farmland that allowed more open views. Skylarks sang on high. Irota was the last village I passed through, then climbing up yet another hillside I found an open spot near the path to pitch my tent, which had fewer mosquitoes than sites in the woods.

Kektura cross a river on this abandoned railway bridge

Abandoned industrial buildings

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