Weather: 🌤️⛅⛅🌤️🌤️
Picnic: 🥪🥪🥪 (3 out 5, wraps on a bench in the shade)
Track: 🇸🇰🇸🇰🇸🇰🇸🇰 (4 out of 5, mountain trail through the forest and flower meadows with beautiful views )
Track intensity: 😯😯😯(3 out of 5 quite tough in the beginning, but easier later on)
Overnight stay: 🛌🛌🛌🛌 (4 out of 5, farmhouse with dorm for hikers, great food and friendly hosts)
Name of followed trail: SNP trail
We got up in time so Jana and Daniel could bring us back on trail. We said goodbye to Jana’s mom and get in the car. Back at Vrícke sedlo we say goodbye to Jana and Daniel too. We have been so lucky that we met them and that they helped us in this stage of our journey, right when help was needed.
After 3 short days and with a bit cooler weather, we hope that today will be a good ‘restart’. It’s a 26 km day with not too much elevation, so we should be fine.
The beginning is quite steep up, and it also has some short steep sections down.
There are plenty of nice views and meadows with butterflies, so we enjoy the track. In the forest there is a souvenir box where you can buy inscripted rocks of the SNP trail.
We continue our trail to our halfway point and have lunch in the shade. There I find out that my water is almost finished. The spring nearby is dry, so we need to hike on for another 6 km to the next.
Fortunately we recognize the sign for spring by now, so we find one much earlier than 6 km! What a relief to find water here! We drink and refill and we’re on our way again. I have never been so happy with a heavy pack 😅😁. We continue until we see a nice hut with a bench, where we have a good break. From here it’s only 6 km to our destination. We stay at the farm of Jozef and Baska, in the middle of the forest. They have a dorm for SNP hikers on their attic. Baska made a very good Kapustnica (sauerkraut and sausage soup) and she baked a delicious Bublanina (fruit cake).
Eventhough we don’t speak each other’s language, we have a nice evening together.