Day five - Steinhausl, Austria to Mako, Hungary

Location: Mako, Hungary.
Total Miles: 1526

Another day done, and another target reached and actually exceeded. Today was always the "calm before the storm" day what with us attempting to cross Romania in one go tomorrow, and fortunately that is exactly how it turned out.

 

This is where I blogged from the night before

Last night, after I signed off and packed my little camp chair up from its position overlooking the motorway (picture above taken in the morning as a photo off some lights blurring past wouldn't really have given the impression) I went to Julian, read A bit for Sassy's cage with Open and Then, About an hour Later, Even After She Had not bothered to Come out, I Closed it again and Turned The light out as I WAS Exhausted. I HAD A Great nights Sleep and Woke up feeling quite cold as the temperature had dropped to below freezing over night; I was toasty warm inside my duvet, just my extremities which had pushed their way out felt the nip.

Sun rise

The morning was dawning as I left Julian and I walked around a bit waiting for the parents to emerge from their posh palace where they had stayed. It was a lovely fresh morning with a hint of a chill in the air still and that clear smell in the air the tells of winter just passed and spring approaching fast. The sun peaked above the ridge as I was wondering around but I preferred this picture of it not quite there yet.

Shortly after my parents appeared and sadly they had had another bad night; this really expensive Motel had no air conditioning, no air in the rooms, was too hot, and the WiFi hadn't even worked in the rooms; I think I must have been lucky to get a connection sat outside last night. They had slept about four hours each however no complaints and we got straight on the road, after putting a bit more fuel in Julian (he IS a thirsty beast, and with only a small fuel tank we have to fill him often).

The gorgeous Austrian church

And so to our journey Onward Through Austria Towards The Hungarian border. Once again The Austrian excelled at ensuring as The JUST CAME Along Something That Would you want to Take A Picture of, The "Proof sound / vision Proof" panelling appeared. Just like this GORGEOUS church which you will have to take my word for was really pretty just next to the road.

Fuel refinery

Wind turbines, just a few of hundreds we saw

There was another sight on this road which I have never seen before; A huge OMV fuel processing factory which spread over hundreds of acres down the side of the road as we went near Vienna. There were huge plumes of water vapour and other chemicals I am sure and it contrasted heavily with the hundreds of massive wind turbines we have seen on this trip.

Julian posing next to his elder brother

The most common trucking firm so far seen on this trip is Wagerers and at one of our driver change breaks just after this I happened to pull in next to one. Queue the inevitable photograph of me leaning out of the window of Julian next to this particular truck. We have seen HUNDREDS and I think they would be equivalent to Eddie Stobart over in the UK.

I am learning a lot about the geography of places on this trip and one thing I didn't know, and do now, is just how close Vienna is to the border with Hungary. It seemed like a very short drive from the refractory before we were driving through a slightly confusing jumble of roads through the Austro / Hungarian border. It really does feel like you are forced to drive, on a motorway, through a motorway service station. Austria was one of the countries we had decided to buy a Vignette for, and Hungary was another; they are not that expensive and being able to roll along the well maintained and easy vignette roads is worth every cent. It was EU24 for both vehicles for 10 days in Hungary and I paid this, then headed off again continuing east.

I was resting and so was Thomas

Just as we entered Hungary there was a rest point so we pulled in and had a toilet and driver change break. It was at this point that the change from central to eastern Europe really became apparent as I was accosted by a man offering me an iPhone 6s; now I am not aware that they have released anything past the 5 so this was news to me! I said no, very firmly, and then hurried the parents away as I felt a little exposed as a foreign traveller with hustlers around. I probably didn't need to, and now I feel really relaxed again, but it was a bit nervy for a few minutes.

The view over Gyor

Shortly after we drove up what seemed like the only hill in Hungary (couldn't they have taken the road around it) and over took our first vehicle since that old man on the M6! We also drove past Gyor which was quite a large town and looked typically post-Soviet with large concrete tower blocks and a lot of drear. I was starting to feel a lot more at home by this time as the villages scattered over the small hills looked very Bulgarian in that they were not planned around roads, instead people had built their house where they wanted it on their land and this gives the view a higgly-piggly untidy aspect which I prefer.

Very flat country, is Hungary

Once we had crested and descended from these heights we were back to what we would continue on for the rest of the day; very flat plains with a few slight inclines and, every now and then, the misty outlines of hills in the distance. Hungary is very very flat and while this made for boring driving, it made it easy and we made really good time.

The restaurant at our rest stop

It was not long before lunch time came around and so we pulled off at a very pleasant little rest stop called "Mizse". Of course we did not go into this restaurant but made our own dinner which was scrambled eggs with bacon bits in barms. Absolutely lovely, and thanks to my mum for making it while I had a couple of minutes rest.

Starting the scrambled eggs off

Just a couple of words on our habits as they have built up over this trip. I am driving Julian and have driven every mile so far (a point of pride now) and my parents are alternating in Thomas. When the one is riding with me they get to listen to my music (my mum has so far been subjected to Rammstein while in Germany and today, Nirvana), talk with me, or they can have a doze. After the bad night last night today they dozed a bit and so for any of you wanting to criticise me for asking my mum to make lunch; I hadn't rested at all up til that point so shhhhh.

Mmmmm scrambled egg with bacon bits

Anyway the food was epic and we ate it sat outside Julian with me and mum on deck chairs and my dad perched on the step up into Julian which is also a comfy spot. The sun was baking down and all was very well with the world.

My dad, Geocaching

After our food my dad went to find a geocache as he has been very good this trip and hasn't really nagged at all to go looking for them; as it is this one was very close and it was nice to chill and watch him look really dodgy as he poked around in the bushes behind a road sign.

More incredibly flat Hungary

After lunch we set off on what would hopefully be a short trip towards Szeged, a name which has been burned into my mind for the past six months after it became apparent that I would have to stop there on this trip no matter what other decisions I made. The way through Hungary continued to be flat and boring and this was still a good thing as I just switched into trundling along mode and my parents took turns to doze next to me.

Szeged, the water tower (maybe?)

And then, suddenly, out of the distance came a sign that we had entered Szeged, and then another. Here was the fabled place, the very thing we were looking for. Except as we approached I had looked at the map and decided that we wouldn't divert into the centre after all, and would continue onto a new road towards the Romanian border in the hope of finding a service station to stop in without having to negotiate city ​​streets with Julian and Thomas + Trailer.

A bridge in Hungary

And so we drove and drove and then drove a bit more seeing some more flat country and the occasional interesting bridge which my dad took a picture of and eventually we spotted a sign for a service station (not that it claimed to have beds) but we pulled in and me and my mum asked about Romanian vignettes (no, get them in Romania, which was what I thought) and beds (go on to Mako, 10km up the road) and so back into the vehicles, after a driver change as the previous leg had gone on for much longer than originally planned, and along the new road.

We got to the end of the new road. It literally ran out. I had put in a search in the SatNav for "Hotels / Motels near my current position" and picked the first one. The SatNav was 1 and 1 as of this stage so it was time for it to get back on to a winning record. We followed and followed the directions deeper into Mako, a small town really reminiscent now of the Bulgarian places I know so well, and then reached our destination.

The entrance to the apartment

There was no hotel, or at least none we could see. So I jumped out and went to the bar which was just on the corner where we stopped and asked and, true to eastern European form, they were really happy to help and pointed to the building across the road with a lady standing outside "there there .... "so we went over and, long story short (well not short, this has been a CRAZY long post today) my parents booked into a suite with about ten rooms in it for EU30. About a fifth of the horrible room from last night.

And so I sit here, in daylight even after typing all this, parked outside the hotel with my parents making butties for tonight and to get us through tomorrow (we are planning on having as short stops as possible tomorrow) and also having put our clocks and watches forwards to Romanian time so we don't cross the border and psychologically lose an hour of travelling time just like that. I am about to turn this laptop off and go in to their suite for a cuppa and some wraps for dinner, then come back and let Sassy out (I can hear her running around and making lots of noise in her cage right now) and then get another early night as we want to be up really early to get through tomorrow.

By tomorrow night we should be in Bulgaria! Wow! What a great feeling!!! And hopefully we'll be somewhere with WiFi so I can post this update. The lady has a website and a card (my dad has it) but no WiFi obviously.

Anyway, off for my dinner ... May add more to this later.

Ciao for now.

Dinner with my parents

I did go and eat my dinner in the hotel, and then came back, let Sassy out, and now I'm about to sleep and lock the noisy girl up. Night.