Despite expectations (of certain people), we have conquered Slovakia. We now rule it as a dictatorship… well not quite… but we have rafted all of the way through it from our staring point near Gajary and into Hungary (about 200 km). We finally finished building the raft about two weeks ago and it is largely made of recycled materials (barrels / billboards / wood that would have been thrown away). As we launched our ship, we gave our first interview (through Slovakian Radio), then settled into life aboard a raft. It looks a little like this.. This is the basic raft, floating in the water without the tent mounted on it. Immediately after rolling the raft into the water, we had to do barrel-tying repairs. This happens fairly often and involves us swimming under the raft to re-attach the ropes. When the initial repairs were complete, we put our tent on the raft structure and loaded up all our worldly belongings and food supplies. On board we had homemade juice and jam that we had made from wild fruits as well as a large box of home-grown vegetables and jars to store future creations in. With all this done, there was nothing else for it.. we had to set sail! We initially thought that life on the raft would be very challenging. It quickly transpired that it was relaxing (particularly with the wonderful weather). While living on a raft with lots of books to read and sunshine to relax in, attempting to pose as a pirate became a popular past-time. I am really struggling to perfect my scary / intimidating face however. After the first days rafting, we stopped at a small river beach to cook dinner over an open camp fire. And then the next day we carried on life as before. Life on our simple raft is good. We have everything we need. Each day, we cruise down the river, we cook food on an open fire, and we swim (I haven’t had a shower for 14 days). Many people told us that this would be impossible. It wasn’t and it isn’t. If you doubt yourself today, don’t. Impossible is nothing (I have even started to grow facial hair which is a prime example of this: normally I look like a fourteen year old boy). More coming soon. Do I look like a pirate yet?!
Jamie. Cristina and Aileen pointed me towards your blog/travels. I feel that I must simply say…awesome! Living the dream and doing what many wish they had the guts to do themselves (including me) haha!
Kris, good to hear from you. I fully advocate ‘jumping.’ What have you got to lose?!
I love this adventure you’re having and the lesson we all can learn from it. Impossible is nothing.
Good to see you can grow facial hair though, I’ve never seen a cleanshaved pirate… You’d probably have to compensate with enormous amounts of tattoos and piercings. As it is now, all you need to do is collect a nice beard.
Hope the weather holds up for you!
Jamie, this is one of the most amazing things `i have ever heard / see / witness. It is like going way way back in the days when the only means of travel is through land or river as the nomads change their locations. And it is simply astonishing!! Best of luck guys, and can you snap some pictures of the water police, I’d like to see how they look like!!
Thanks for the support. Sadly we now have pictures of the police stopping our adventure.
Ignore the naysayers, this is cool as! Nice one.
this looks awesome!