Bojkovice - Near the Slovak border
I rode again with the normal menaces: roadworks that completely confuse the GPS and add hours onto the journey and heavy showers of rain. Mind you, I don't mind riding in the rain now. My Heine Gerricke jacket keeps me bone dry. My time in Kutna Hora was mixed. It was great arriving to the band in the square and finding my hotel was good(ish) – but I saw a nearby hotel – too late advertising rooms at one third of the price so I ended up feeling that I had been ripped off. People in hotels seem to lack that quality of a real or even acted welcome. There is something faintly resentful in their actions that leaves me feeling that I would sooner be under canvas for all its anoyances. Here at Bojkovice, in the Carpathasian hills, I have a nice spot in a terraced campsite (so the camping book says). I just walked a mile to the nearby supermarket and felt the same kind of vague resentment from the staff there – unlike the friendly welcome I got here and at the last site. There is a genuine camaraderie of camping.
It poured and there was thunder and lightening while I shopped but I missed it to fiind my beautifully put up tent rather damp and saggy.
Now its nine pm. The site has had an influx of teens who I imagine will make things noisey tonight (they did - one girl seemed to scream all night followed round or so it sounded by a male youth remonstrating with her. It was the day that Michael Jackson died so perhaps she was upset about that). Apart from them there are mainly Czechs but two campervans of Dutch who were friendly and helpful. I had a moment (only) of bliss when the sun came out (the sky is completely clear now!) and I got my trusty cooking equipment out and used my bike as a kitchen worksurface. See the vid below.
I cooked pasta with sauted vegetables and nice Czech sausage, followed by a yoghurt with a cheap pivo. Unbelievably 0.5L bottles each cost 8 or so Crowns and there are 27 to a pound. I have worked out the rest of my trip. Tomorrow I ride 125 miles to the highly recommended site in Slovakia, then the next day I return here, followed by two more nights in CZ toward the south and two more in Germany before I visit my cousins, then a final 200miles to Hook of Holland. If this weather really presages some warm dry days I will be really happy. Lets see if I sleep well tonight – somehow I doubt it. I had a whiff of wireless network just then but it went away.