8/8/12
1305 (local time)
Bus Station on the way to Zdiar then to Poprad again…
First off I will start off by saying I have had a moment of
absolute stupidity! I don’t know what is wrong with me today but I’ve had what
I would say a nightmare!
I had a nice wake up at 8.00am with breakfast, my body feels
broken because of all the hiking and mountain bike riding!
But I will get to that later on! I just want to record what
has just happened over the past hour.
I’m at the half way point to getting to Poprad when I
realise that I have left my towel outside of the hostel, so I get off the bus
to head back to Zdiar to collect it. Whilst I’m waiting for the bus I put my
sun glasses down, and listen to some music.
All of the sudden the bus arrives I pick up my bags and head
back to Zdiar when I realise I’ve left my sunglasses at the bus stop! I cant
believe it! So I get off the bus and start to run whilst sticking my thumb out
for a ride. Eventually I get one make it back to the bus station. Fortunately
they are still there… but now I have to wait another 20 minutes for a bus to
take me back to Zdiar to get my towel back!
For you this may not seem like much, but for me… argh! It’s
a stupid mistake after stupid mistake! So, I just had to write that down.
Later on ill let you know about what a great time I had in
Zdiar!
Cheers Steve
Following on… so I have finally made it too Spisska Nova
Ves, to hang out with Diana and her friends and already I’m loving the place.
Last night (8th) we went to Pauls, (Diana’s friend) cottage in the
forest to have a BBQ. It was so nice listening to music having great chat and
eating awesome food. I loved it. But, ill be writing more about Spisska Nova
Ves later on.
I want to talk a little bit about the amazing time I had in
Zdiar.
So I caught the train and bus from Kosice to Zdiar and there
were really no problems, except for the fact that I was extremely tired.
I made it to Zdiar and found my hostel called the Ginger
Monkey, checked in and just relaxed in the common room/kitchen watching the
Olympics and talking to all the guys and girls that were staying there.
It was a great first night, and I made some friends who were
going to go hiking up one of the epic trails in Zdiar.
The next morning I got up at 8am, and enjoyed the lovely
breakfast that the hostel provides for free, after a couple of eggs and toast
later, myself, Laura, Katia and Damien were starting our epic hike to the
saddle and beyond.
I set the pace at the front, and I trekked up the mountain
with the other guys behind me. The views were spectacular! The last time I had
seen views look this good was when I was in Zurs and Lech in Austria. It was
amazing, we took some great photos but more importantly just took in these epic
views!
Once we got to the saddle, I was determined to hike another
15 minutes up to the peak of one of the mountains. Unfortunately the trail was
closed, but we headed up there anyway! By the time we had gotten to the top, we
had been hiking for almost 6 hours. After a quick refuelling we started the
epic journey down.
When it comes to hiking, I would much prefer to hike up all
day, than to hike down. I cannot stand walking down hill, knees, ankles, shins,
toes… they all hurt when you have to
walk down. This time it wasn’t that bad, I spent most of my time talking to
Laura, who was an Australian girl from Sydney. Our great chat took away from
the fact that my legs were burning after 9 hours of hiking!
When we finally made it back to the hostel the shops were
closed so we just ordered a take away pizza and watched the Olympics! Really
nice way to end a great day!
Again, I woke up at 8am which I found to be no problem… yeah
my legs were aching a bit, but being the elite athlete I am I powered on
through. Today I was super excited as I was going mountain biking! The last
time I had been mountain bike riding was in Zurs/Lech in Austria so Slovakia
had a lot to live up to.
I rented a dual suspension mountain bike from the local
shop, it was only 16euros, it wasn’t a great bike but I was fine! Damian tagged
along with me which was cool, it was nice to have some company.
I had a rough idea of where the downhill park was,
fortunately we found it pretty quickly, and set off ‘walking’ up the mountain.
We were about half way walking up the mountain when ‘they’ turned on the chair
lift. No problem, it was good exercise to walk up.
Once we got to the top, I set off with Damian behind me! The
track was amazing! Lots of jumps, banked turns, nice little drops! Really
pushing me to the limit! Get that adrenaline pumping through my veins again!
We did this run twice, and Damian took some photos of me
boosting around a bank, I hit the first jump find, but on the second I was a
bit off angle and ended up landing badly and blowing out my back tire.
This was my first flat of the day.
I took it to the very local bike shop, and the guy replaced
it straight away, at no cost! Legend!
We went back up the chairlift and dropped off to another
track, this track we didn’t exactly know where it went, and this was a mistake!
It took us way, way, way off track and it meant we had about 30 – 40 minutes of
peddling uphill to get back to the bike park.
It was quite amusing, as I thought I could cross a puddle
with no problems, instead my front wheel buried and I went arse over tit, and
fell into knee deep mud! Check out the photos!
Once we got back to the bike park, I dropped into the
extreme/black run! It was awesome, super technical, really steep, lovely banked
turns and big drop offs! It was amazing!
Unfortunately for me, I popped my tire again… that was the
second flat.
By the time I had it repaired (for free again) it was the
last run of the day! There was only 1 more run I had to finished, but I wanted
to do it fast to see if I could fit another run in before the lifts stop.
I flew down the mountain, but it was really really slippy
and muddy! I crashed several times, but the worst crash by far was went I went
straight into a tree! I couldn’t turn as it was mud, and slowing down wasn’t an
option so instead of taking the tree to my beautiful face, I turned a took it
into my lower right back!
To this day its still sore… Any physios recommend anything I
should do to fix myself…?
Nevermind… The day was a huge success, I loved it sooo much!
And unfortunately it was my last day in Zdiar.
Which brings me to what I wrote at the start of this post
regarding the nightmare I had about almost losing a pair of sun glasses and my
towel in one day. (see the top of the post)
Ok, so thanks again Zdiar it was radical! But Spisska Nova
Ves was my next port of call!
Till next time!
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