It all started when, on Monday, September 21, I hinted that I was going to Chocen to hunt some caches, and Sany replied that she wanted to see me in person and asked whether it could be at the weekend, since she couldn’t make it during the week. By Thursday I had started planning it and I didn’t know how to decide. I had something on both Saturday and Sunday, so I asked whether we could do it the following Sunday.
But then I told myself that I would sacrifice that Sunday after all, and Sany wrote back that she probably could, but that I had to confirm it the day before. On the night from Friday to Saturday I slept 6 hours, then came a packed day at church, where I spent almost the whole day, and I got back home at 9:30 PM. From then on I was at the PC, packing all my bits and bobs 🙂 into a big backpack, and at 12:20 AM I left the house to meet a new adventure. I was at the station at 1:50 AM, exactly 1.5 hours later.
I had always thought that at night it would be relatively quiet between the tracks, but the opposite was true: every so often a freight colossus weighing hundreds of tons rumbled through. On the platform I was approached by a Chinese man who spoke only English, asking whether the train to Prague would leave from there. I answered in clumsy English that probably yes, but I wasn’t sure, because it wasn’t on Idos or on the departure board yet. I boarded the train and went to my seat according to my reservation. In the compartment there was a pleasant man who immediately started making room, so I told him to keep lying down and sleeping, since my reserved seat was opposite.
In the dim light I was reading “He came, he died, he conquered“, and when the man woke up, he turned the light on fully for me and we talked about all sorts of things. It was really nice to hear someone with good opinions and a broad outlook. After that he alternated between lying down for a while and chatting with me, and in Pardubice, where we arrived 25 minutes late, I got off.
That didn’t matter at all, because I arrived there at 6:50 and at 7:00 I had an express train to Hradec, so I just had time to get my bearings, change trains and keep going. On the train a drunk man sat down next to me who looked like he would throw up any minute; he reeked of booze and was covering his face with some sort of tarp. I rode one stop and at the next station I got off. Just before I did, Sany, who had just woken up, wrote to ask what on earth I was doing, travelling xxx km and not even making sure it was still on. I realized she was right, and that was confirmed when I reread what Sany had written a few days earlier.
In the end, though, thanks to her own resourcefulness and her grandmother, she managed to get ready, catch a train and arrive at 8:58 :). I tried to find out which platform the train from Starkoc would arrive at, but 35 minutes before arrival nobody was able to tell me, and not 10 minutes before either, because only 2 ticket windows were open and the tickets were being printed like on a conveyor belt, yet there was still a queue like the ones for bananas under the “golden” communists, while the lady in the CD Centre, where they sell various Czech Railways promotional items, was contentedly twiddling her thumbs.
Then Sany texted me that she had arrived; suddenly there were no longer three-digit numbers of people in the queue, and I ran to the platform, where I heard the screech of wheels. Of course I went to the north end, while Sany arrived at the south end. We recognized each other from afar, and I couldn’t hide my smile that I was seeing Sany after 3 years of writing to each other in person for the first time =).
We hugged. I hadn’t even brought any cologne, so I was without any fragrance; it wouldn’t have fit into that backpack anyway =D. I hadn’t tidied up my hoodie or anything else; I had just been watching and photographing trains and texting with Sany, who kept me informed about absolutely everything =D. The photos are still at Journey to Hradec Kralove to see Sany =) and wanderings around the HK station 27-9-2015. We went into Tesco, where we bought 3 bread rolls for the nutrias, ducks and other residents of the confluence of the Elbe and the Orlice :).
Sany wanted to pay, but I was quicker =D and so I ended up poorer by CZK 5. The young woman at the checkout was clearly relaxed and in a good mood, and she laughed at how eagerly we were both trying to pay those 5 crowns =D. Sany knew the way quite well, so we didn’t have to turn back. We didn’t worry about anything, we just walked wherever we felt like it, nothing was foreign to us. At the confluence we first saw the ducks, and after a while the nutrias showed up too. Only they were terribly afraid of me: when they ran out of bread, they came up to me, but when I wanted to pet them, they took to their heels =D.
I also threw bread to the ducks in the water, and there were really a lot of them, about 30. Sany explained to me the difference between a drake and a duck =D and we had a really nice time. We even took a photo of the two of us with the nutrias :-). Then we both fed the nutrias; there were also some rats 🙂 but they were quite shy and didn’t come close to people. As soon as one of the ducks quacked, it was time to go hunt a cache and become geocachers :D. Our first steps led to the cache Hradec Winter Stadium , which we found after a little while.
Sany didn’t get very involved, and I regret now that I didn’t let her do the searching instead and just played first fiddle solo; so I can’t be surprised that Sany didn’t even want to sign any of the cache logbooks :(. But when I smell a cache, I’m impossible to control :D. After every cache, Sany and I high-fived, and among other things this photo was taken here =D.
=D. Next in line came Hucak Weir, which is also a small hydroelectric power plant a short way from the confluence, but no matter how we searched for the cache, success just wouldn’t come. I checked the logs and sure enough, it had been muggled. Never mind, at all the other caches we had great success :).
I was very pleased that Sany wanted to go on to more and more caches, while I still hadn’t fully recovered from all that loveliness. One muggled cache didn’t spoil our mood, and we moved on to GC1WWWY – Cycling Lookout No. 5 – White Tower . Here we had to pay an entrance fee, so once again I was terribly proactive, and for a moment displeasure showed on Sany‘s face, but everything was quickly back to normal.
I really should have left that backpack downstairs; the people climbing to the top floor with us told me so as well, so I just hoped it would be over soon. We climbed up high, where we had a view over the whole of Hradec, and unfortunately I didn’t take a single photo there, even though there were telescopes on every side. Once again the cache hunt overshadowed everything else. In the end we went back inside and Sany noticed something carved into the floor. I didn’t; I was trying other things again.
I left 2 of my CWGs there, gave 2 to Sany, and we went down, which was considerably faster. Museum – Following Gocar and Kotera I – that was the next one, on our way back to the station. The hint was “every bathtub has one“, so I thought of a plug or a drain. We only talked about the plug, because a drain could damage the cache or carry it off to the open sea, so it would become a sort of message in a bottle =D. Sany‘s intuition said it would probably be under the bridge, so we went there and found it at first touch.
It was only my laziness that didn’t want to give in at first and go under the bridge. We still had a few dozen minutes before the HK STATION , so we went for a cache dedicated to this very building, so far removed from modern times and architecture. It was right in the station grounds, in the railway service area away from the platforms. My desire to find the cache drove me forward, and when Sany asked whether we were allowed to be there, I said “I don’t know whether we may, but we definitely must :)”. Because, as usual, I couldn’t zoom in on the map, I felt around a bit more than necessary, but it was found within a minute.
There were about 30 minutes left until departure. We took the risk and went for one more. We had to go back or around, because half of HK is under “re”construction. Again we were searching in the wrong place until some caretaker ran out at us, asking who we were looking for or what we needed, wandering around the locked bikes. I explained it to him, he left, and then I looked at the map. The GPS on that phone goes completely haywire, but if you looked at the map by the buildings, you could work out where the cache was likely to be. We found this one too. We came to the station, where Sany‘s train was leaving in 5 minutes. She bought a ticket and at the station we took one more selfie 😀 in front of the Czech Railways logo on a locomotive.
I just asked the driver in the window whether we could, which surprised him, wondering why I was even asking, and he said it was no problem. We said goodbye in a few words that began and ended with a hug. Sany got on, and I walked to the stairs, where it occurred to me to wait a bit longer and wave to Sany. And so it was: Sany was sitting by the window on the platform side and waving =).
Then I went to Chocen, where I hunted a few more caches. Once again my connections worked out perfectly: 2 express trains where I just changed and went straight on, and all day long I kept thinking of Sany, who breathed joy and happiness into my day. I’m happy that I could see Sany, that she could see me, and that it wasn’t boring, at least that’s how it seems to me :).
I thought it would turn out disastrously, that she might not even come because she had a fever the day before, and that I would stay silent or mess it up some other way because of my huge sleep deficit, but everything turned out just great.