The Gokwe Kid – Rogue Rhodie on a Roller : Part 10

Someone pointed out that there is a difference between ROUGE and ROGUE – I am dyslexic...lol.

Day 9: 5^th August

Oh dear, I dot feel very clever. I think all the excitement and great times at the bar have caught up with me. I decided to simply chill and try not to chill to a cold death. It was even a struggle to down three little beers after waking up just before 12 pm. I concluded I better just read my book and leave out the internet. At 8.00pm, much to everyone’s surprise – I went to bed.

(But not before I nearly brought up my dinner. It was a Czech speciality. I cannot remember what it is called and I am glad because I would only recommend it to my enemies. It was forced upon me by my enthusiastic camp fans as the real taste of Czech. It is hard to describe. A shame I was too lethargic to take a picture. But, it reminded me of the glue we made for papermache, with par fried onions and lumps of fatty bacon chunks. I was actually retching when I crawled to bed. What came out the other end the next day was remarkably similar in consistence and smell - but just the opposite in colour though.)

Only to awake deep into the night to the howling sounds of wolves and screeching of giant wood owls. I also discovered that the bloody zip had done a runner and the sleeping bag was open and would not close.

Great, first the free tent collapses and now the free bedding is shot. I had given the kind woman 20 euros in goodies!

Day 10: 6^th August

Hah, I sprung out the tent as fit as a fiddle. Which of course is a load of crap. After getting the weird flap doors open, I gingerly crawled out backwards on hands and knees. That maybe sounds a bit daft but it stops the mourning Jew getting the morning due from the damp doors all over his face.

I had noticed a strange smell in the tent, and after sniffing around a bit (it is a small tent) concluded it came from my plates of meat but even worse from my sandals. How can open footwear pong so bad? I had even showered in them. They must have been made in China.

I also noticed a bag of jocks and socks, swollen with gas, hovering at the roof of the tent like some weird kid's helium balloon. I wondered if I could just tie it to the back of the roller as a sort of fairground attraction.

Anyway, I furiously started to pack up, had a shower, shave and defecation (known as a shit), and two hours later I was ready. It takes an age to pack everything up. Studying the bits of scraps of a two dimensional diagram of a three dimensional landscape, I sort of worked out which way to go. East by North East. I had to kick start the machine as all my toys had sucked the batteries life blood out of it.

I had been told about a small short cut (oh-oh) that actually started on the road outside the camp site. It was supposed to be quaint and quiet with lovely woods on both sides and all that romantic stuff. What the man at the pub neglected to add was that no sunlight penetrates through this forest, it is shit scary and cold, and the reason there is no traffic on the road is because there IS no road.

The loaded roller, was skittering and jumping around like a Castle beer loaded up Rhodie on an ice rink. And the pot holes. Eish - even Zimbabwe would be proud of them. This did not abode well. Speed was down so low, a rat ran out of the undergrowth to savage at the tyres whilst I screamed like a girl in fear of plunging into hole so deep, all the police would find was the top of my helmet peeping out my watery grave.

After what seemed at least over half an hour; 31 minutes later I broke into sunlight and a junction.

After a quick fag to smooth my nerves, I hit left and short time later, right, then left and.... yay oh yay, somehow I was sort of going vaguely in the right direction. I stopped to fill up, even though I reckoned I still had 50 click range, but I had forgotten to fill the emergency cannister and after the last fiasco, didn't fancy another bitOvank. This meant stripping half the roller down. It takes (after some practise) 25 minutes to put 2.5 litres of fuel into the tank.

Besides the left, right stuff, it was savage curves, steep climbs where at some point I actually didn't think the poor thing was going to get up, but when it did, wow, like the proverbial horse giving head, it went mad down hill and shuddering in spasms of delight hit 55kmh with me laughing insanely with fear. Through forests, fields of sown wheat and the occasional small town, I slowly went east, and as I did so, I realised I had left the west behind....

It seems the last camp site was end station for the foreign tourists. No Dutch, no German registered cars passed – no Czech police either thank god, as I came across a couple, but I was left in peace.

Sure the roads that I was on, some still just patched up from the Commie days, were shite, but they are not major veins of an economy busting its ass to become, and is, ranked a developed country.

It is interesting to note (as a writer I clock all this) that the first place, Cesky Krumlov, being a fancy tourist joint and near Germany and Austria, plenty locals make plenty bucks, but out here, only 40 clicks from Poland, I have not seen a BMW or a Mercedes in two days.

Then I am in a town called Frenstat Pod Radh. My bum hurts. It is past 4.00 pm and over 130 clicks behind me. I need a camp site and to my astonishment, a huge sign leaps at me saying 'Rhodies Welcome' and I ploughed straight into it. Nah. It was for a camp site, and what a place! Quickly sorted out, a couple of toots, a tired FB TGK entry and video, I hit the sack after I had sort of fixed the zip...

Day 11: 7^th August

To be honest, the weather isn't great. Always cloudy and for my African blood, rather cool. The locals still run around in shorts and T shirts. This camp site is well switched on. They even have a coffee machine almost right next door to my tent. They didn't half kick up when I asked for it. Hah hah. I am the only alien here. The place is 90% full of middle class, late 20s early 30s families with kids. It all makes sense. This must be well known and the kids make friends asap and leave the adults most of the time alone. And yet, I see no drunken debauchery. Cars are all two, maybe three wears old, mostly Skoda (top car as VW own the firm) a scattering of Renaults and Japanese models, but just average family cars.

  

What is so cute is the 'roads' in the camp site. I am not sure if they are used to teach kids' road traffic rules in the off season, but here and now – they ignore the lot as they

tootle along on their bicycles and these strange push along things.

I popped into town. Nothing much. Took a couple of pictures. This area is for hikers and bikers. Push bikers.

 I clocked the local public transport of buses is well used. The models are strange to me (local make I think), but all new. The big surprise was that they are run by ARRIVA, a multinational public transport company headquartered in Sunderland, United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn. They run services in London and even the trains I took to Birmingham when I lived in Barmouth.

A bit of something to see – as I am almost at the end of Part 1 of Game of Thrones- I thought this cool in a sad way...

There are still some remnants of the old Commie flats they built after the war. Most have been renovated. This one not yet...

I changed yet more dosh and went to a Penny Markt. I actually fancied making myself some food and I had this terrible desire for a bacon and fried onion sandwich. Also, after last night's misinterpretation of the next door restaurant's prices, whilst the spare ribs, salad, beer and fresh brown bread were excellent – it was ten pound. I can't afford this luxury.

Oddly, up here no one takes Euros, nor cards, credit or otherwise. Anther strange fact – their second language is no longer German but English. And they speak it very well.

And so finally, I dug in my 'kitchen' bag, only to find out that somehow the top of the Nescafe had come off and everything was covered in coffee. One small rage later, I had my brand new frying pan out and...

Great White Bwana says to his Sixpence- “ Eeway, kuramidza, for I am hungry for skoff. Look, I have bakon, bread bun, butter and one onion. Cut it up and fry it chop-chp and make me lekker, lekker sandwhich.”

Sixpence is veeeeery pleased to be Bwana's cookboy, it was better than taking him home when he pissed from talking to other Bwanas and trying to feel the tits of the strange girls. All the time telling them he big Gokwe Kid war hero.

Sixpence started to chop up the bread but Bwana hit him a flat smack over his head -

“You bloody fool, chop the onion, not the bread.”

Sixpence was perplexed but even more so when he examined the frying pan.

“Baas, why you want to fry this bakon in coffee powder?”

Bwana shout and make Sixpence clean the frying pan. But Sixpence had a sneaky question for Bwana -

“Ahhh, oh great one...” said Sixpence holding up a handle in one hand and the pan in the other, “Where is the screw?”

Bwana scowled and rummaged around in every pocket he had, and it was a lot of pockets.

“Just fry without a handle,” he said, but felt very stupid for he had hidden it also but cannot remember.

Sixpence examined the frying pan without the handle veeeeery carefully.

“Oh great and clever Bwana, when you take the screw out of the hole to take the handle off, why you not put the screw back in the hole – that way, we know where it is?”

____

Well, as I was just finishing the gorgeous sarmy paid for by Beverly Allen, there was a mighty roar and this rocked up next to my tent -

Oh well...

It is dribbling down now. I am up at the bar, connected to the mains. Looking at the map, if all goes well, I could crack Krakow tomorrow...

Stay tuned...