Author: Jamie

A single tractor

parked under the big tree

In the middle of the village

 

The houses now

have no roofs

walls crumble

 

These walls are now

somewhere to store

the agricultural implements

 

Not houses for families

as they once were

 

In the next village

an old man cleans

a tractor with a hose

 

Alone now

This care

Once reserved

For family

 

Beyond the black top

Out onto the gravel

double track

Dead end forest road

 

Until the pioneer plants

Grow from the gravel

Banked at the edge

Water not tire carved

 

Past the beer cans

And liquor bottles

 

Crude fire pits, broken glass

The markers of drunken

Rednecks

 

Further than this

 

A spot with water, a view

Check the orientation

For morning sun

Or at least one of these

 

Make do here?

Or on round the next corner

Might be better

But whatever

 

Tent goes up, dinner cooked

And bed

By dark.

Through Serbia from the flat lands of soviet cities

With their crumbing apartment blocks

And boarded up municipal buildings

 

Soviet infrastructure

Now little overseen

 

The backbone of these countries

Was build by a bloc

Aligned to values

That are in the past

 

Power lines, roads, swimming baths

All have the marks of another era

Mentality, foundations

That crumbled before capitalism

Showed

That all ideologies have flaws

 

Every so often in the landscape

False acacia in bloom,

Before the white drooping

Cascade of florets

The smell, unlike any other

 

Reverberant in the air

Like a high c in a cathedral

Wisps into the air

Carried on the warmth

Reflected from the earth

 

The joy of these few molecules

Of scent, transcends the ugly

Odour of the road

Tar and piss and death

 

To look up to the sky

And breath in…

This angel of the trees

We leave Austria

And the roads deteriorate

Overhead cables proliferate

And we are through to

What were the Soviet countries

 

The houses are smaller, as are the cars

And weeds poke through in any space they can.

 

We ride out of Budapest

Through the estates

And suburbs,

Then to the river again

With old men fishing

Shirts off

Drinking

In the sun.

 

Further out still

And houses are surrounded

By gardens being readied

For planting

crops for the kitchen

 

And the smell of cheese,

Animals

And unfurling leaves,

Covers the manure

And dirty diesel

Fumes

Mostly anyway.

 

On hills…
We find out where we’re at
How strong
We are
We feel
Pushing against gradient

The car less climbs
Those too steep, too remote
To torturously engraved into rock
For modernities speed

These are the routes that bring
Sweat
Pain
Elation

We climb from one watershed to another, from tilled valleys, into summer pasture, into the conifers, and out to the windswept tops.

The sheep farms, radio ariels and views across countries.

wind whipped goose bumps at the top.

The cold of the evening is already around us

And so down dark hair pins and through the damp of the forests

Eyes trying to adapt, into the light

Then a turn

And deeper into the still moist air.

The sharp breath
Of a stream
And into the town with its tarmac and noise.

The next day we start on the Danube,
One of those days on the bike that is perfect.

Beech leaves still just a reddish mist
On silver skeletons
The shadows on last year’s fall
Twisting out the curve of branch
Into spindles, stretched and gothic

Sticky horse chestnut bursting buds
Spreading crinkled fingers
Like an octopus
On the tips of its tentacles.

In the sun the spreading, deepening
Of the green begins.

Hills rise slowly on the distant blue horizon, over days they grow taller, the valley tighter.

The river meanders less, runs quicker, deeper, clearer.

Houses with bigger eaves, steeper rooves, snow bars on the tiles. The bare wood grey where it’s weathered by the harsher winter.

Barns are an extension now, not an out building. The animals become extended family in the cold times.

Bigger wood stacks, closer to the houses, the security of self sufficient, keeping warm.

More conifers in the woods. They are deeper, tighter spaced and smaller girthed.

Logging trails follow contours, deep turns have a soggy spot the sun doesn’t see. Streams can spring up anywhere furrowing the landscape.

Earth goes from deep brown loam to tan grey powder between the stones. The soils bones poke through.

The first week

Everything settling into place, muscles and minds, feelings and the reality…

kit finding its corner in a pannier, breakage, failing, the threat of loss at each stop…

It’s a set of uphill switch backs the first week. Can’t see the next challenge let alone see the line through the curves, just reactive, it’s constant,  the newness, the change from static to rolling… settling in.

The long haul… it feels like a haul just getting moving from camp in the morning, finding food, water, washing, drying, a place to stay, it’ll get easier, it will, it will.

 

Starting off in march, frost on the tent, campsites still boarded up, people double take when we pass, and ask for basics… water please, food, quickly… keep moving or freeze.

Spring is coming, crocus and daffs fading, arrum Lillie’s pushing up dark green from the dirty tan of winters slow moulding leaves. The stark bright green of willow leaf in the marsh thicket, the first hawthorn unfurling between blackthorns dazzling cascade of white light in the spiney branches of the hedgerow.

The birds bring sounds to the trees silence, there’s no blanket of green to cover for them… we saw a sparrow hawk take a blackbird which was distracted by us passing below, prone on a branch with vantage but no hiding.

Wild camping feels like this before the leaves, our little tent too green, conspicuous in the shaded colours of winter.

But we push on, knees grumble,  spines ache as they adjust to life at ground level, bums a bit sore.

Life’s complicated by the rain that forces us into moving faster than we’d like as soon as the bags are opened.

The sunshine in its fleeting glimpses, takes the sting out of the wind for a moment. Come on spring!