It was very early in the morning as my good friends pulled up outside my apartment. I lugged my bags downstairs, bleary eyed, sipping a coke and loaded it into the back of the car.
We set out on the road to catch our ferry at Dover. The crossing was uneventful and for me at least was mostly spent unconcious and drooling on my arm.
Disembarking the ferry we made our way through the roads and countries of Europe heading eastwards. In a gas station in Germany I took over, driving through unrestricted German roads at a fair rate of knots.
We arrived at out destination late at night, headed to pick up the final member of our party, before heading to bed at her grandmother’s house.
Rivers and mountains
The next morning we were up bright and early. The sun was already high in the sky and the day was already heating up as we sat down for breakfast and some Czech hospitality. After breakfast we headed down the road to the river, where other Czechs were gathering to swim in the clear waters near the nearby wiers and to spend a day in the glorious Czech sunshine.
We returned to a glorious BBQ dinner and some more fine Czech hospitality.
The next day we headed out into the wilderness again, and went for a walk up the highest mountain in these parts. At the top, the out of season ski lodge gave us a fine meal and some lovely Czech beer. Not to mention a fantastic view of the Czech landskape, layed out before us like a chessboard.
We had another BBQ in the evening where me and a friend drank Czech killing alcohol with V’s dad. Conversation was stilted and conducted in a mixture of Spanish, Russian and English. This caused a certain amount of confusion as to both bedtime and whether we wanted more to drink.
Czech paradise
The next morning, somewhat hung over, we set out to drive a few hours south to the first camp site in the glorious Czech paradise national park. We parked up, pitched tents and then went to find food and beer.
The next morning we got up, bright and early, and went to hire bikes for the first day of cycling.
This would be the shortest of our journeys, and it was soon abundantly clear that I had made a poor choice of bike. While it was the only one with disc breaks, it also appeared to have been constructed of solid girders of dwarf star alloy.
Nevertheless, we made it round a short loop of the local area and down a few interesting downhill sections. Later that day we went back to some of the nearby rocks and did a little bit of bouldering, as well as chatting to one of the local Czech climbers who has agreed to take us climbing on our return.
Day two saw a somewhat longer bike ride, again with the same bike and we explored slightly further afield. Mountain biking isn’t really a big thing in the Czech republic and so we mainly took walking paths – many of which would be hard to traverse walking, let alone cycling. Some bits of the route involved ladders.
Stopping for lunch at the base of a castle I ate a fine roast dinner and dumpling lunch and decided that in future I would opt for a different bike.
… How far?!
The plan for the final day at this particular camp site was set to be a mission. We set off early to collect bikes and to grab some breakfast at a wonderful family cafe around the corner (best latte ever) to steel ourselves for what could only be described as an epic journey.
We estimated the distance travelled as approximately sixty kilometers, but that of course didn’t factor in the gradient or condition of the track. It quickly became clear that I had made a good choice in bike this time, and I was relieved to discover that the reason I was left panting at the rear the past two days was not that I was horribly unfit!
We cycled hard, up tracks and down dry river beds, across marshes, through forests and atop high cliffs.
Approximately half way through the day we met the only other mountain bikers which we had yet seen. When we showed them the route we were doing they called us insane, but agreed to show us the way to a nice pub for lunch (a short 5km away).
The lovely food and well deserved beer tasted sweet, but I nearly choked as it became clear that we still had two thirds of the way to go…
After a deep breath we struck off on the afternoon leg. This leg first of all took down a walking path where we had to carry our bikes over some precarious looking fallen trees, which gave it a somewhat epic feeling.
Hills, cliffs, ladders, stairs and bogs followed. All done at full speed as we were racing against the night.
The home stretch was a short 10k sprint to get back in time to return the rental bikes. Mercifully this was mostly conducted on real roads, however the final hill was utterly relentless.
However we were rewarded with a delightfully fast downhill section descending into our camp site.
On to Český Krumlov
The next day we packed up our gear into the car once more and headed south to the town of Český Krumlov near the Austrian border.
On the way we stopped for a walk in another part of the Czech paradise national park and stopped for dinner. We even found some good bouldering, although I suspect these were far from official routes.
After lunch we set off again. We arrived at the next camp site after dark, so we pitched up our tents and went to find food in town. Most places were shut, but a friendly local ordered us a taxi to town and one of the last pubs still doing food.
Some beer and steak and we were ready for bed.
The next day we were up early and headed into town to the Kayak hire shop. After a brief instruction as to the procedure for going over the rapids, a driver picked us up and drove us up the river to our starting point.
No sooner had we set off than we were confronted with the first of 7 weirs, which we crossed without too much drama. We then settled into a long stretch of shallow river flowing through the Czech forest with the hot sun on our backs.
We took the opportunity to stop at a number of the river side pubs and camp sites for food and beer.
As we got closer to the town, the number of people on the river slowly increased. As to did haphazard construction of the craft and the general drunkenness of their occupants.
Before we crossed the first of the weirs marking the approach into Český we moored up to a floating bar serving Mojitos and drank a toast to the entrepreneurial spirit of the Czechs.
To the Meaterhorn!
We made it through the ever increasingly dramatic weirs and only had to stop and bail out our boat the once.
Food was required.
By accident we discovered a fantastic restaurant hidden in the back streets of Český who’s thing was large slabs of meat roasted on an open fire. Not much fun if you’re a vegetarian (although not much is), but fantastic for a bunch of weary carnivores like us.
After dinner the night was still early, and so we explored the city for its nightlife. Another chance discovery was a charming little pub which had instruments in the corner and what amounted to a live jukebox.
Various musicians would play, and on each table was a song book with the lyrics of each song written down so that you could request a song to be played and then sing along.
The owner of the establishment sat by the piano with a grin on his face, enjoying people enjoying themselves.
They also do good food, so on our final night we returned and joined in the sing-along.
We had to leave early in order to rendezvous with our ferry, and as we left for our camp site and bed the pub was erupting into another loud round of songs.
Back to blighty
We awoke at approximately 3am for the trip home. The Czech holidays were over and almost everyone had packed up and returned to their lives, and we were about to do the same.
Driving through Austria, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands and finally France to catch our ferry and a stormy channel crossing home.
[...] Paris, had a skiing holiday in Austria. I went on an epic road trip to spend summer camping in the Czech paradise and flew to visit with a friend in [...]