An Eastern European Orienteering Adventure
Ruth Rhodes had an orienteering holiday with a difference in 2007. A fascinating personal account of culture and orienteering in Hungary and Croatia. During her trip, Ruth experienced the Alpe Adria Cup multi-day event that was held in Croatia in 2007. In 2008 the Alpe Adria Cup takes place in Austria. Read the article for some idea of what to expect......
Early last summer I was invited to go to Hungary and stay with Julianna and Roy Grant (ex-Southdowners). That alone would have been interesting, but it linked up with a trip to Croatia for the Alpe Adria Cup races.
I flew out to Budapest where Julianna met me and took me to their converted “Long House” in a village about an hours drive north. My lasting impressions are of the many huge potholes in the roads, both in Budapest and in the country roads, but not a 4 X 4 to be seen! Every village has a high platform to encourage the storks to
nest. During the couple of days in Julianna’s home village of Bér: we did some walking and exploring locally through some beautiful forests and across a local rock outcrop.
Almost every house has its old wine cellar either built into a mound in the vegetable garden or into the side of a nearby hill. Some were used as cellars, others were abandoned and a few seemed to be informal meeting places for the men to have a chat and a glass of wine!
The following Sunday we drove to the Matra mountains about two hours north-east of Budapest for a local badge event (which had age classes up to 35 and then an open class for anyone else). Many Hungarians don’t have cars and this is a problem for orienteering, so the entry was around a hundred. It was a lovely forest on a sloping hillside and glorious sunshine. All this contrasted dramatically with the registration area which was next to the remains of an old communist labour camp.
After this we travelled to Budapest to stay for a few days in their flat near the town centre. The temperature had been rising and the city was like an oven so we gave up walking and took a boat trip to one of the islands on the Danube, passing some stunning buildings on the way.
A couple of days later we drove south-west past Lake Balaton and Zagreb to the northern part of Croatia – an all day trip. We were to orienteer in part of the Plitvice National Park and all those from Julianna’s club (Postás SE) were staying together in a roadside restaurant/come B & B nearby. As a group we spent a few days sightseeing which included a visit to local caves, a morning trip into Serbia, and most memorable, a day to the National Park. It is the most stunningly beautiful place: a huge forest with lakes in the centre which have formed in the limestone to make huge waterfalls, marshes and interlinked waterways. Visitors are provided with buses, boats and raised board-walks giving access to a variety of circular routes. Our walk took all day, with endless photo stops.
The Alpe Adria Cup event had three days of orienteering: a sprint race; a long race; and a relay.In spite of being very international, it was also extremely informal and run in English. The first day was not too difficult on a 1:5000 map, but served to introduce us to the gigantic holes in the ground, which are a feature of the whole forest. Some holes were up to thirty metres deep and a hundred metres across. Between the craters and the trees it was fairly runnable apart from lots of crumbly and mossy rocks. Day one was very enjoyable. I was still hobbling as a result of JK at Easter, but managed to come 4th, whilst Julianna won the class. The hot sun made it all very sociable with music, picnics, and chatting (mostly in sign language in my case!). The next day was mind blowing. The map was now 1:10000 and in a larger area with few paths, just more of the large holes to navigate by, all partly obscured by trees. I went round very slowly, gathering up some other lost souls on the way. We took a long time to finish the course using teamwork and a mixture of English, Croatian and Hungarian. Julianna was lying second overall at this stage. Rachel Elder won W21 by four minutes. She was with a group from Edinburgh University who’d come to Croatia for the weekend!
The prizes were presented by the man who originally produced the map in 1991 just before the war started. What a task, and an incredible map.
The last day was relays and I made up one leg of a very slow Hungarian men’s team!
All round it was a very enjoyable event and I’m grateful to Julianna and Roy for inviting me for ten days of interesting travelling and orienteering. The Alpe Adria Cup rotates amongst the countries bordering the Adriatic and the Alps. This year it’s near Graz in Austria at the beginning of May, and lasts for five days.
Details from www.schoeckl.at/www/AAC2008/Invitation.html if you want to give it a go. NB. Early entry deadline 15 March 2008.
Ruth Rhodes
Posted by Peter Chapman on 20th Jan 08
