Day 19 - Mushrooms

Owls all night. Awoke in the early morning mists in Peklo Park, eager to break camp before we're observed. Number one rule of illegal camping: Don't get caught. (Number two rule: Always leave the illegal campsite cleaner than you found it.)

Morning mists make for some spooky cliffs. There are lots of little holes in the rock, and sometimes deep caves. Some of them might be natural but this one was very carefully hewn and looks like it must have had hinges and a latch at one point:

...but it's up too high for us to see inside.

The trail continues to wind under the cliffs and across the swamp, and finally a cluster of informational signs marks its southern boundary.

By the way, speaking of signs, guess what's super handy and kinda trippy? Google Translate. You might be tempted to think that this sign says "No bicycles" or maybe something about dogs:

But it really says:

It also found somebody's name in the tree bark. Hi, Liz! And forgive the product placement... it really is impressive. (Especially when there's not a graphic on the sign.)

Just outside the protected park boundaries, the very same cliff formations serve as cellars and woodsheds for local houses.

The canyon widens and is spanned by a high railroad trestle.

A friendly old hiker tries to explain about a previous arched bridge that used to be here, finally resorting to drawing with his stick:

As we march on we see he's left us a few other historical notes. This old mill, for instance:

...dates from:

It looks like it was most recently used as a bar.

We pass a castle under restoration, with some intimidating old walls.

The trail briefly takes us through a farm road lined with apple trees, and soon back into the woods. Lots of families are out hunting for mushrooms today. The good mushrooms look like this:

But all we can find are spooky mushrooms...

(We're told you can find the good ones if you dig in the mossy roots of pine trees.)

We grab a hot lunch and a butter pretzel as the trail makes a jaunt through the tiny village of Jestřibi, a roadside attraction with a hilltop castle, a small market, and a couple of restaurants. Then back into the mushroomy woods and through a very sloppy logging operation, felled trees sawn to random lengths and tossed around in messy piles. And though I can't help but contrast this to the rigorous order of Germany's log piles, look at this:

That, people, is a really nice trail blaze, and typical of the Czech hiking trails. It shows unambiguously that you're currently on both the red trail and the green trail, and that the green trail is turning off to the left. I don't think there's a single trail marker that nice in all of Germany, but around here they're almost all this good. In Germany we got lost several times due to poor blazing and signage, but it hasn't happened once since we entered the Czech Republic.

With the day winding down, the trail takes us through the jolly lakeside resort towns of Staré Splavy and Doksy.

These towns are thick with cute little hotels and restaurants, but we just have to keep moving. We follow a very wide, sandy path out of town and into a large pine plantation. Kilometers later we're still waiting for the plantation to end and real woods to start. Finding a camping spot in the plantation can be tricky because the dug-up earth usually isn't very well re-leveled after the planting, so it can be a lumpy ride. But as dusk approaches there's still no real forest around, so we'll pitch where we can and take our lumps.