When we got up yesterday, we immediately knew the weather was gonna be fine, as fine as an early spring weather can be. We didn't have any plans initially, since some of us (read: me) have to work, but as the bell was tolling the 12th hour, I realized I had done most what I wanted to finish doing. With a quick chat we decided to drive out of the city into one of our favourite forest spots, have a nice barbeque and perhaps even a swim. Some of you who have been reading my boring blogs for ages, will probably know this place.
Fast forward an hour and see us already well on our way, gear packed and foodstuffs bought from the grocery store. The location we are heading to, is approximately an hours drive away, so you're gonna have to head our early, if you wanna catch the day.
After a while, when we turned off from the highway into the forest roads, I could feel my restlessness growing, already wanting out of the car and into the nature. It's obvious for me that we humans were not meant to stay indoors and concrete boxes, we're meant to roam in outdoors, in touch with mother nature.
Last few hundred meters of the forest road we're not drivable for us, vehicles and the weaher have destoryed the roads, bringing out the roots of the trees. My car's bottom scraped the roots a few times, felt like I'm driving a Lamborgini there. No problem, we didn't need to drive all the way, we grabbed out stuff and walked the last part.
These locations, they are all sponsored by the state - they have tables, benches, fireplaces, often even firewood. Next time you hear someone complaining about how our country sucks, remind him about this.
We found one of the spots totally unoccupied, further away from others and totally separate. Some of you have seen my write about this place before - we've been here multiple times barbequeing, camping, hiking. That's right - one of our country's longest hiking trails runs just by here.
But never had I seen this forest river with such brown color! This river has always been brownish, I thought due to the rocks and perhaps by the plantation from swamps, but some sources say that it might be from the peat that gets carried into the river by rains, they're probably right.
No worries, if one looks closer, the water is totally clean, this brown tint makes this place even more lovely. The water felt cold. I knew that I didn't have to swim if I didn't want, but inside I already knew that I was going to jump in from one of the bridges.
The water was a bit shallow where we sat down but the overall depth was much bigger than usually, guess it's due to the spring. Perfect! I could just go to the other bridge, there the water has always been up to my chest, so there's that. You can see the other bridge from the following photos.
Did I mention these places have even outhouses? That's right, no hole digging. In hot weather, this might not be your first choice though :P
Must say, the temperaturs here in the middle of the forest are much much warmer than in the city, add at least a couple of degrees. Still early spring, but if you're working around the fireplace and have a nice beer, it will feel like summer.
As we started our barbeque, we noticed someone had decorated one of the tables next to us. And we found a magnifying glass.
Found a branch like an axe. After playing around with it like a kid, it was time to swim. Stomach's were full and the sun would probably start setting behind the high trees soon. We packed our gear and went to the other bridge. Damn, the water felt cold, but I was not gonna falter. Besides, I had been dreaming of swimming here all winter. The cold showers that I started a year ago, have really made my life better - I can now swim whenever and wherever I want, no cold can stop me.
I jumped in and after had splashed around a bit, my body started producing heat as usually. The water started to feel warmer as I swam the crawl stroke - the current was today especially strong - I was working hard to not get carried away by it. The water in the swimming spot was higher as well, it was up to my neck this time, that's was quite nice.
As I was splashing around, a few people with in canoes paddled by, seems they had some kind of group event. Nice, I'd like to canoe here too. Maybe that's one out next events? Anyway, don't expect me to take photos then, I'll usually leave my phone in the car during water events. I would probably just end up dropping my phone in the water and losing it. And it's not waterproof.
But toodle-oo for now. The sun had set and we headed home. Was a perfect day.
