Koruna Turca – day 9
Sobota, 26.10.2024
Saturday, 26.10.2024
→ 19,7 km ↑ 749 m ↓ 629 m – total 236,1 km
We get up at 6:30am again. It’s fairly warm in the shelter. I catch up on the blog while eating on rolls with ham, Jozef has with bacon. To drink we have black tea and coffee too. There’s a fancy outhouse here too, a modern one. I notice a Radegast 12 beer on the shelf below. I laugh at Jozef, since he’d genuinely have a beer last night given the chance. I go check out the second spring, which isn’t marked on the map. It flows just as slowly as yesterday’s, but at least I wash my face in it. Then I go pack everything and carry it downstairs. There’s good signal here, so I catch up on the blog. Jozef’s getting impatient and wants to go. He’d already changed into shorts, assuming we were leaving, so now he’s cold.
We set off at 9:30am, with the last 20 km of the route ahead of us. Today’s already typical autumn weather. Heavy grey clouds in the sky, with the sun occasionally peeking through, a strong cold wind, and colored leaves flying around us everywhere.
We cross the Sklenianske lúky and watch sunbeams filtering through the clouds onto the surrounding hills.
Then we climb Bralová skala above Remata. We’re a stone’s throw from home now. Beautifully colored hills stretch out below us.
We keep a brisk pace, ready to have this behind us. Now it’s just walking through forest, we finish off the last of our sweets, cross the highest hill of today’s stretch, Vysoká, and descend into Kunešov.
We get lost about three times, even though I have the route loaded on my watch. Eventually we reach an open meadow, where navigation gets simple.
In Kunešov a bus tempts us as it’s just about to leave, but it would bother us not to walk those last few kilometers. At the edge of the village we take a break, eat korbáčiky cheese and Asian jerky. We’ve only got 7 km left on asphalt to the end. Cows along the way make the road more pleasant.
The kilometers tick down and there’s just the last climb ahead, to Stred Európy (Center of Europe). We’ve both been there before, so we don’t stop. The end is close, just the last two kilometers.
We’re a bit anxious about what state we’ll find our car in. It’s there, in one piece, no wheel clamp, so that’s a relief. We change into somewhat cleaner shirts and swap into other shoes. It’s just starting to drizzle a bit, so we made it just in time. We sit down in the car with relief. After 9 days of walking, it feels like we’re driving unbelievably fast in that car, pretty funny. We stop at a farm shop and buy some head cheese and pork cracklings. We’re both starving, so Jozef munches on cracklings along the way, I’m not a big fan myself. We put on the Lajf podcast with Andrej Orogváni, a runner we met on the trail and whom Dávid identified based on the fact that he’d run the whole Koruna Turca and had a dark beard. Interesting guy, I recommend the podcast. We head toward Prievidza, to the Vietnamese bistro Phos. We order Pho, Bun nam bo and Bun cha. The woman there, who barely speaks Slovak, double-checks whether we really want three dishes, since the portions are huge.
We have no trouble finishing it all. We’d hoped for an open ice cream shop in Nováky, but sadly it was already closed for the season. I could’ve fit in some kind of dessert. Since we’ve got nothing at home, we put off the shower with a stop at Lidl. We shop, unpack everything at home, and it looks like a bomb went off in there. I go shower, washing my hair is a totally different experience at this point. I catch up on yesterday’s blog and Jozef’s already back at work. Our bedtime hasn’t budged, and properly exhausted, we go to sleep.
