Weather: 🌤️🌤️🌤️🌤️🌤️ 🥵
Lunch: 🥪🥪🥪🥪 (4 out 5, spaghetti Bolognese in the spa town Trenčianske Teplice)
Track: 🇸🇰🇸🇰🇸🇰 (3 out of 5, tough day on a mountain trail with a lot of elevation)
Track intensity: 😯😯😯😯😵 (5 out of 5. We were done when we got here…)
Campsite: ⛺⛺⛺⛺⛺ (5 out of 5, flat spot in the forest with spacious shelter, spring, river and a swing!)
Name of followed trail: SNP trail
27 km and 1100m up, 800 down. A big day for a first part of a section.
After breakfast we reorganise our packs, and the bear spray gets an easy to reach spot on my bag. The packs are full, with 5 days worth of food. It’s been a long time since they were this full, yet we carried them with this weight through half of New Zealand, so we’ll get used to it again I guess 😅.
We walk out of Trenčín after a last little resupply (yay, the shop is open in Sunday!) and go into the forest.
The last 2 days we’ve relaxed our muscles, and now they are having a tough time getting the right tension back!
It makes for a tough first half of our walk, with a lot of sweating, huffing and puffing.
We walk into Trenčianske Teplice, a spa village 13 km from Trenčin and have lunch here. The spaghetti is good and the litre of Kofola necessary 😅😅.
From Trenčianske Teplice we go over a big hill and have an undulating track for 12 km before we go down into the valley of Horná Poruba.
In the village we get water from a kind old lady, who speaks nothing but Slovak to us, but with gestures and our 3 words of Slovak, we get water she even offers us coffee! So friendly, without language to communicate we still understand each other. With Google Translate, we explain what we’re doing and leave her with a surprised smile when we say goodbye 🙂. We continue for 1 more kilometer up the hill to find our campsite for tonight. It’s a beautiful area with a shelter, a river and a spring. There is also a fire pit and a swing! Everything is beautifully made, so we are really happy to stay here.
It’s been a really long day today, so we hope that tomorrow will be easier.
What doesn’t help is that Mark has a very persistent blister that seems to want to come along to Istanbul. Mark on the other hand is not so attached to the blister, but it just doesn’t take the hint (or more like it: the 1000 tiny holes Mark has given it…
But even without a blister it was hard today. The heat and the hills aren’t the best combination.
We enjoy the bathing possibility and we’re grateful for the spring that us running strong here.
So thank you, Klub Slovenských Turistov !