Böhmerwald as a suitable place for vejlet was discussed already some time ago, now the Czechs overvoted the only Slovak LH in the online poll and persuaded him to participate in this distant hike. Term chosen was the second half of October, promising a good cold weather.
The meeting point - Volary - appeared to be accessible worse than usual Slovak mountains even for the Czechs. MK, PF and Helena going from Prague spent a part of the night in Budweis railway station, VH started at early morning by car and met the eastern vejletniks (HH, LH, Jano) at Pardubice. We have been communicating by SMS like this:
>>> GIVE YOUR COORDINATES! THE PRAGUE GROUP IS APPROACHING BUDWEIS. PF + MK + WOMAN AT THE TRIP NO.2 <<< COORDINATES ACCORDING TO THE TIMETABLE: SOMEWHERE NEAR C. TREBOVA. WHAT WOMAN AT THE TRIP? >>> THE WOMAN AT THE TRIP IS PF'S HELENA. <<< IS HELENA CAPABLE OF MAKING 20KM IN A BROKEN TERRAIN? IF NOT, LET HER RECONSIDER IT. >>> H. DID NOT RECONSIDER AND IS SLEEPING. etc...Breakfast at Volary train stations, brewing tea (US cooker being adored by railway employees), then by rails to Dobra, Stozecka Skala, Ceske Zleby. Monitoring signal level of Czech GSM networks - not very good, but still there was a lot of SMS messages about failing leased lines at HH's mobile. MK was being reminded of nostalgic memories about rail hut near bridge across Tepla Vltava (New Year 1990), Stozecka kaple (in 1985 in ruins, now repaired) and Ceske Zleby (1985: too active local children, bringing attention of border police to us). From Ceske Zleby between grassing cows and tombstones of destroyed German villages (Steinkopf, Schönberg, Neuthal) to Haidmühle border crossing. There we met Ludger, who came through Passau and in the darkening day swept into a German wood. Marvelous evening picnic there: soups, olives, sweets from Ludger's home city, viennaise cheese, slovak rum, chocolate...
In the morning following the creek up to Frauenberg village and to Dreisesselberg - sometimes we even saw the Sun. Blueberries and rocks at Hochstein [1332], lunch near the chapel devoted to St. Johann Nepomuc Neumann, "bishop in Philadelphia and the great son of Böhmerwald". Along border to Austria (there was some crossing, but probably working on summer only, but the border tourist trail seems to be open for whole year, even if not mentioned at www.mvcr.cz. Somewhere behind Plöckenstein Ludger turned to Austria and took a hitchhike to train in Aigen. The others continued to Hochficht [1338], there declined by a ski path to Nordkammelweg (blue sign), in small rain and growing dark a successful search for a hut marked in the map. The verranda was just for 7 people and there was a water supply - great sleeping place.
On Sunday morning a beautiful sunny wakeup, view to Dachstein. Down by dog training place to the village and to Moldaublick. GSM calls from the top of view tower - we have recognized that there was ugly weather in all Bohemia, then down by Adalbert Stifter Weg to the Sonnenwald - Zadni Zvonkova crossing. There were some disciplined Austrian bikers, waiting for some office personnel, but when it was clear that there is no one like that, we moved on to Czech Republic and gave a bad example to the bikers who did the same. We took the road to the ferry Blizsi Lhota - Horni Plana: there we discovered that the ferry goes hourly without any connection to train departures and it was not possible to call the ferry personel for an extra ride. So they got lost 10 Kc, because the Slovaks talked Czech and got a 50% save for the Czech citizens. From Horni Plana (Oberplan) we took the trains and hitchhikes home.