An appointment with a rugby quarter final
A good night's sleep was had, the tree frogs keeping quiet except for a very occasional croak after dawn. A further inspection of the trees still resulted in no sightings.
It turned out that the campsite was on the edge of an interesting village with a large thermal bath complex. The village of Balf is on the edge (not shore as there is a huge area of marsh) of the same lake as Rust the Neusiedler See straddles the Austria / Hungary border.
After a look around the village we drove on to Lake Balaton. This was a relatively long drive but on good roads and a rather uninteresting plain, so there were no distractions. This was good because we had an appointment with England in the Rugby World Cup quarter finals starting at 15:00 our time.
We arrived at Camping Castrum (a popular name!), Keszthely, Lake Balaton just after 14:00 – plenty of time to set up the satellite, or so I thought. It was a nightmare. I will spare you the details (see Life with Henrietta – Part 1) but sufficient to say that I had to reposition the dish three times and eventually moved pitch before I was able to obtain reception. By this time we had missed all but 5 minutes of the first half. Having said that, it was worth the trouble and we saw a great English victory. We met some French motorhomers after the match – they had arrived even later than us and just parked their vans in the middle of the site roads in order to watch the match. We wished them luck in their match against New Zealand although we knew that they were bound to lose. But they didn't! It was a fantastic win against New Zealand, the favourite for the title and it set up a fascinating England – France semi-final next Saturday. I will have to allow a couple of hours to set up the dish for that one!
A good night's sleep was had, the tree frogs keeping quiet except for a very occasional croak after dawn. A further inspection of the trees still resulted in no sightings.
It turned out that the campsite was on the edge of an interesting village with a large thermal bath complex. The village of Balf is on the edge (not shore as there is a huge area of marsh) of the same lake as Rust the Neusiedler See straddles the Austria / Hungary border.
After a look around the village we drove on to Lake Balaton. This was a relatively long drive but on good roads and a rather uninteresting plain, so there were no distractions. This was good because we had an appointment with England in the Rugby World Cup quarter finals starting at 15:00 our time.
We arrived at Camping Castrum (a popular name!), Keszthely, Lake Balaton just after 14:00 – plenty of time to set up the satellite, or so I thought. It was a nightmare. I will spare you the details (see Life with Henrietta – Part 1) but sufficient to say that I had to reposition the dish three times and eventually moved pitch before I was able to obtain reception. By this time we had missed all but 5 minutes of the first half. Having said that, it was worth the trouble and we saw a great English victory. We met some French motorhomers after the match – they had arrived even later than us and just parked their vans in the middle of the site roads in order to watch the match. We wished them luck in their match against New Zealand although we knew that they were bound to lose. But they didn't! It was a fantastic win against New Zealand, the favourite for the title and it set up a fascinating England – France semi-final next Saturday. I will have to allow a couple of hours to set up the dish for that one!
The photograph shows one of the many vinyards in and around Balf.
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