[usa2003ardf] Reprot 2 _ Saturday - Monday

[Adam Scammell]

Long 80M practice Saturday 31 st August:
We traveled for about 25 minutes to today's starting point. Here we met
up with Daniel. Daniel helped place many of today's transmitters, as he
has many over the past week. He soon departed though, he is competing
in a National Orienteering Championship event this weekend and this
morning he will be traveling to the event. We each had 5 minute
staggered starts again, this is to closely simulate a real competition.
As I am faster than most other's I again had a late start time. I
therefore had the privilege of seeing Bob Frey travel back through the
start on his way to the rest of the map. We deduced from this that
either there were no transmitters on that section of the map or he had
collected one. Therefore there was only one on that section of the map.
I decided that with the 20 minutes or so that he had had, he probably
had collected a transmitter. I was soon off and on my way. With my
newfound knowledge I put myself in a good position to collect Tx 5 on
it's first cycle. I then collected Tx 4 (25min's) Tx 2 (45min's) Tx 1
(62min's) then Tx 3 (75 min's), and finished in 82 minutes. The course
was longer today. I was happy with my time. I borrowed a measuring
device of Gyuri to measure course length. My previous courses were
between 7-12Km in length. I have not yet measured today's course.

After lunch a few of us traveled to Pecs. We had decided jointly that
we would buy Gyuri and his family a present to show how much we had
appreciated their time, effort and hospitality. Our first stop was
Tesco, imagine if a Safeway and Kmart store were put in a blender and
mixed for say 5-6 minutes. Well the outcome was Tesco. Their camera
range was very limited, we did however shop for a lot of other stuff.
Harley stocked up on microwave popcorn. I bought some fruit bars,
popcorn (shoosh), yummy fruit tea and peach flavored ice tea (it's all
the rage here). We then visited Metro this was right next door. This
one was a combination of Bunnings, Kmart and Brambles. I got some
clothing and stocked up on a bulk pack of fruit soup. After tea Gyuri,
Susan and Thomas visited us. We watched fireworks on the TV, these were
in celebration of Labor Day. It was postponed a few days due to the
flooding earlier in the month. We also enjoyed several packets of
popcorn.

Touring, rest and packing Sunday 1st September:
Gyuri and Thomas met us soon after breaky. We visited the TV tower that
services Pecs. This tower is 197 Meters tall (I hope I remembered this
correctly) It also houses a restaurant. From here, we had a great view
of Pecs and surrounds, although not Orfu. We then traveled several
kilometers to a shorter tower that provided a view of Orfu and
surrounds. From here, I made another panoramic photo, also some video.
On the way back to Orfu we passed a nearby cave that we wished to tour
latter in the day. Lunch was next. We enjoyed skewers including, huge
chunks of pork these loosely resembled bacon, onion and sausage. They
were delicious. Also chips fried rice and some fruit. We were informed
that usually dinner is not served in September, that it would be for us
tonight, however it would be a fixed menu. Ie served to us on plates,
thus far tea had been buffet style.

I visited the information center, Kala had mentioned that the lady
there had never spoken to an Aussie before. Whilst there I collected
many brochures of the area. I also asked about the water snake that I
spotted earlier whilst swimming. She said that they are not poisonous,
however she is sure that the land ones here are.

A carload of us were going to visit the cave, however we soon
discovered a lack of petrol. Our planned detour via a nearby town was
fruitless, we discovered on arrival that the service station was
closed. Ok that is weird. Whilst I am typing this a four legged spider
just walked past. Weird you say.. Well this one had three legs on one
side and only one on the other… It must be getting late.. Anyway, where
was I... ok... So we had the choice, to travel a different direction to
another servo, or to travel back to Pecs. Well we decided that since
vapors got us here we should make a dash back to the house. We were
lucky to make it back ok. We phoned Gyuri and had him bring some on his
next trip. Our caving expedition however was canceled.

It was soon time for our final meal at our local restaurant. Some of
you may be wondering why we always visited the same one. Well there are
quite a few around here, however Gyuri visited each one and picked the
one that has the home type meals. It also simplifies this, as we had a
running tab.
Dinner tonight included rice, pork schnitzels and a small salad. Desert
was a bowl of fruit salad.

Gyuri and his family again visited us tonight. We had an enjoyable
night of chatting. Everyone was very interested in the photos on the
calendars that I brought along, these included native animals, birds,
and scenery.

Everyone else has retired and I am writing this in the bathroom to
avoid keeping them up.

Tomorrow we will be rising very early for the 7 hour trip to Slovakia.


Travel: Monday 2 nd September
This morning we awoke at 6.30am and after final packing and breaky we
were soon all pilling into a van and two cars. The trip was uneventful,
we stopped after Budapest for lunch, and yes you guessed it.. It was
very nice. The trip in all from Orfu to Tatranske Matliare in Slovakia
took about 11 hours. After the border crossing we saw on a distant
hilltop a launch ramp for ski jumping. The final 2 hours or so we
passed many ski fields, with varying difficulties. So here we are at
the Hotel. I have already met past friends \ competitors form Germany,
Sweden, Korea, Kazakhstan and of course the remainder of the American
team. Looking out the room here form the fifth floor I can see huge
mountains that disappear into the clouds. Outside in the carpark I can
see the Checz team playing volleyball. I spotted the Internet room
earlier, however Bruce has just returned and mentioned that there is
only one PC. He has organised access to the switch for his laptop. We
went for dinner at 6pm, it was beef with a large dumpling in a nice
sauce. My heart missed a few beats when after eating Bryan discovered
we had left our 2M antennas back in Orfu. I quickly found Gyuri,
several options were thrown around, the fastest would be to have them
overnight freighted here, however even that may not arrive in time. We
asked around and were luckily able to borrow enough antennas. Bob,
Dick, and Larry all had spares that they kindly loaned us. The
receivers were packed separately with our clothing.

This mornign we will be training and following this will be the opening
ceremony.
I will write again soon. We have limited access to internet form the
hotel.

Best Regards,
Adam

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