From Walden to the Czech Woods: The Reality of Cabin Life

A cabin in the woods sounds wonderfully romantic—but what is everyday cabin life really like when there is no mains water, electricity or sewage, and the nearest regularly occupied neighbour is around two miles away?

In this episode of Unravel Travel, Malcolm takes us inside the remote cabin he has owned for around nine years in the Czech Republic. David, who has visited the cabin six or seven times, contributes the perspective of a regular guest who knows both its pleasures and its practical challenges.

Beginning with Henry David Thoreau’s Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Malcolm and David discuss the Central and Eastern European tradition of escaping from city apartments to simple weekend cabins in the countryside. Malcolm’s cabin is more isolated than most: hidden in woodland beside a river and reached by a rough track, it can sometimes feel completely cut off from the outside world.

Malcolm explains how the original two-room building—with no chimney, running water or indoor toilet—has gradually been enlarged and improved. Water still arrives in 50-litre containers, power comes from a generator and a small solar-powered 12-volt system, and cooking ranges from a camping stove to surprisingly ambitious meals prepared over an open fire.

There is also an honest look at the less glamorous side of off-grid cabin life: mowing a meadow full of ticks, keeping food away from mice, emptying wastewater buckets, running out of cooking gas and maintaining a composting toilet. More successful innovations include solar-powered lighting, USB charging, an outdoor shower using a rechargeable pump and a winter bath beside the wood-burning stove.

Along the way, Malcolm and David share stories of enormous campfires attracting the attention of low-flying helicopters, an emergency bottle of seriously out-of-date beer and the difficulties of keeping food cold without a permanently running fridge.

Malcolm also recounts his latest journey to the cabin by e-bike, travelling partly by train through Znojmo before cycling the final 40 kilometres. His return journey covered approximately 100 kilometres in six hours and provided a useful test of the bike’s real-world battery range.

Away from the practical work, the cabin offers what matters most: long walks, swimming, music around the campfire and the freedom to explore the Czech countryside. A 15-kilometre woodland walk leads Malcolm to otters, signs of wild boar, a secluded lake and an active beaver habitat hidden away from the main paths.

For anyone interested in cabin life, off-grid living, slow travel, Czech Republic travel or a different kind of European countryside escape, this episode explores both the inconveniences and the considerable rewards of having a place in the woods.

Topics covered:

• Cabin culture in the Czech Republic and Central Europe
• Malcolm’s nine years of owning and improving the cabin
• Living without mains water, electricity or sewage
• Solar panels, batteries, generators and USB charging
• Outdoor showers and composting toilets
• Cooking over an open fire
• Food storage, water supplies and cabin planning
• Travelling to the cabin by train and e-bike
• Hiking and navigation in the Czech countryside
• Beavers, otters, wild boar and woodland wildlife
• Why winter cabin life deserves an episode of its own (and many more)

Mentioned in the episode:

• Walden; or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau
• The Czech Republic/Czechia
• Znojmo - historic and beautiful border town
• www.Mapy.cz - free and perfect for walking or cycling routes and navigation
• Rechargeable camping showers - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Laserbeak-Camping-Portable-Handheld-Electric/dp/B0744938XL
• E-bike touring and battery management
• Solar-powered cabin lighting
• Czech/Moravia cabins for sale -  https://jiho.moravskereality.cz/prodej/chaty-chalupy/?sff=1  (warning this is a rabbit hole) 28czk=£1

If you have any question on this or another travel topic, just contact us at contact.unraveltravel@gmail.com

Our theme music is Traveler's Blues by Jerzy Gorecki from Pixabay (with licence)

https://pixabay.com/users/jerzyg%C3%B3recki-2233926/

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:09

Welcome to Unravel Travel, where every journey has a story. It's like the size of a Coke can, it's a little pump which is rechargeable through through a USB charging port, and uh it's got a shower head that runs off it, and you just drop it in your bucket, and uh it gives you an hour between recharges of showers, and it'll empty that bucket in about five minutes, so you've got like well less than that, probably three minutes. So you've probably got 20 showers out of out of it before you have to recharge it, and basically you just wet yourself down and then you soap yourself up and then you wash yourself off, and it and it's a great solution in the woods, it's stunning around it is a brilliant way to shower.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

It's a bit of a game changer, I think, in terms of being comfortable out there.

SPEAKER_03 0:58

Yeah, and and showering in that environment, actually, you know, it's surrounded by ferns and trees, and there's nobody around. You know, there's a privacy shield on the side towards the house and the footpath, and uh it's great. So this weekend I went on my own by bicycle and came back by bicycle, so I was only taking whatever I could carry on. Did you have a battery that bicycles? It did, but it's still a pretty still you can't take too much with you. You're still not taking very much, and I turned up there to find we hadn't because we hadn't left with that idea in mind. We we usually go by car, so we take all our fresh water and the cooler boxes and stuff like that. So I I turned up and of course I was no cooler box, because they were both here at the house still, and there was no cold water, there was very little water left, just just about enough actually.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

I I'm thinking Mary Antoinette Antoinette's coming to mind, you know, when she said let when there was no bread, let them have cake. I'm thinking, well, just drink beer.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

Well, so I looked in the cellar, which is normally stocked full of beer. Oh, cellar.

SPEAKER_05 2:06

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:07

There was there were there was one can. I saw it throwing off its nightly clothing of mist, and here and there by degrees its soft ripples or its smooth reflecting surface was revealed.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 2:27

Uh I've gone old school here.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Explain.

SPEAKER_03 2:33

Uh it's a quote from a book, David, not a not a piece of music, not a pop song.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

No, no, no, no, no, no. I that's fine. I know what the episode's about, and I'm just trying to work out the link.

SPEAKER_03 2:44

Okay, so this is this the episode is cabin life. We're gonna talk about spending time at our cabin. And I wanted to call it cabin fever, but I was votoed. Well, it could be that as well. It's pretty hot. When we bought the cabin, uh a friend of ours bought me the book Walden, which is what this is from, or sometimes called a life in the woods. Life in the woods, which is an American classic written during the 1840s, about a guy you know written about his experience of building and living in a cabin with disconnect from society, etc., for several years.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Ah, I'm getting the connection now.

SPEAKER_03 3:27

Very appropriate. It's a very good book, if you don't mind reading 1840s books. Very interesting.

unknown 3:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:35

I'll lend it to you if you like.

SPEAKER_05 3:36

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

I'll have a read. As you say, I'm not sure about the 1840s bit of it, I can they can sometimes be a bit heavy, can't they? But the certainly the subject matter will be interesting.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

So, we uh I've mentioned a number of times, or we have mentioned a number of times, the cabin that we have in the Czech Republic. You think Dacha in the sort of Russian sense, same sort of thing. There's a a a sort of cultural thing which is which is not shared in the UK, it's a very Central Eastern European thing, I would say, of having a sort of uh a holiday home which is a sort of place in the woods. People retreat there at the weekends.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

And sounds a bit like the um and I'm not joking here at all, but it sounds a bit like the American uh thing where they it's maybe got to be a bit more wealthy, I don't know, but where they have a a lake retreat for the weekend.

SPEAKER_03 4:27

Yeah, it's just a retreat for the weekend, isn't it? And and then and in the UK simpler life. Yeah, and in the UK, you know, some but it's a very you've got to be pretty wealthy to have a second house in the UK. I was thinking or a beach hut, but you still gotta be wealthy to have one of those as a high. And in Bournemouth. Uh I mean our cabin costs less than some beach huts cost.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

My house I think might cost less than some of those beach huts cost almost at least. So it's quite a common thing uh amongst our group of friends in Czech. Probably I can think of four or five others that have something similar. So we're not, you know, it's not a unique thing at all, um, but not everybody has them. And and I suppose people live more close lives. A lot of people live in apartments um here, and therefore some time away in s a more spacey environment is uh and it it it is remote.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Okay, yeah, I was gonna it is remote your cabin, it it feels remote. I mean I okay, within 15 minutes you can get to uh is it Bretzlav, uh the closest village? Yeah, um the the the village, Prishpo. Prishpo, that's it, of course it is. So you can get there, say 15 minutes. 15 minutes 25 minutes. It's a mile to walk. Yeah, uh, but in the car it's a mile, but it's over a very difficult to navigate track. I I've never driven it, and I'm quite happy that you always drive it. It it's it feels remote. Uh that's the thing about it. It doesn't necessarily have to be completely, you know, off the grid. Like you're sorry, you are off the grid, but yeah, completely miles away from anywhere. But it really does feel it. You have a different mindset when you go there, I guess, is the long-winded what I'm trying to say in a very long-winded way.

SPEAKER_03 6:14

But it it's unusual in that regard because when we look to I mean, there's a market for these, you can look it up online and uh and search them all. Nearly always they're built almost like into little villages, they're in clusters, you know, so you sort of got a neighbor cabin that might be 50 yards away, might be 20 yards away, you know, and and still people go to them because it's different to being at home. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

But but you've got the wildlife all around you, don't you?

SPEAKER_03 6:42

Well well, I don't uh yes, but unless there's I mean we when we looked at buying some, we went to look at a few, and you know, one of them was in a village of must have been 300 of these things, you know, and there's like a sort of pub and a volleyball pit down the front, and you know, communal.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Did you get lost to go to Milton Keynes?

SPEAKER_03 7:02

And so they are usually more like that, you know, they're very unusual to find them as remote as ours.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

And then how close is your closest neighbour?

SPEAKER_03 7:12

There there are there's two little cabins between us and the village, but they're hardly ever used. Um I've never I don't ever see anybody. I don't know if I see them maybe once a year, maybe. The people in the village tell us they're hardly ever occupied. And in the other direction, the nearest neighbour is about two miles down river. So quite a long way from anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

You know, you say two miles down river, which it I'm sure it is, but you can't take a a vehicle there. Yeah, you'd have to walk it.

SPEAKER_03 7:44

You could take a vehicle if you if you walk if you drive up and round quite a long way.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

I mean you can get to their cabin by car, but it's a lot more than two miles if you go by vehicle. Yes, it is. So again, it feels remote, you're not gonna have somebody driving past you every five minutes.

SPEAKER_03 7:58

Yeah, because then they just and often that is the case. Sometimes you'll be there and you don't see anybody this weekend. Yeah. Nobody walked past. Nobody at all while I was there. I mean I'll and I went for a long walk in the way. Yeah, that's right. It can be like that. But not all not all year is it like that. Sometimes there were a sort of peak busy times, but we might talk about that later. So, I mean, the the cabin itself, I mean, we've had it for nine years now, I think.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Well, coming up to nine years. So I've got a question then, because you've developed yours quite a lot. I mean, do you want to talk about maybe some of the things you've developed? But but then my question really is uh does everybody do that? Or because my impression is that maybe not everybody sort of like puts the money into the cabin, they just have it as it is. But then I think you're also spending more time there than maybe other people are.

SPEAKER_03 8:51

Yeah, I I think it depends if people are using it a lot, they'll but they'll have it a bit nicer, won't they? Um and many of them will be on electricity and mains water and mains sewage, and when they're in like these clusters, you know, they'll they'll have those sort of facilities. Whereas obviously ours doesn't have any of those facilities, and so so it's somewhat different. I mean, when we bought it, it was listed online by an estate agent with some photos and a map location, and it said it was a very brief listing, and it said would suit outdoor adventure group. I mean, they were trying to sell it as like a scout hut, basically. Yeah, yeah. Because it's so out of the norm of what people wouldn't would normally have, which would be something with all mod cons. Um, I mean, when we first went to look at it, I mean it didn't have a chimney because a tree had fallen and knocked the chimney down. So it was a two-room cabin uh on a bank above a river and meadow, and it had a sort of pretty sketchy garage associated with it, and a long drop toilet in one of those sentry huts up on the bank.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

About what, 20 metres away from a bit further, probably from probably more than that fifty metres, maybe.

SPEAKER_03 10:05

Yeah. So that sort of that was it, and it didn't I mean it had a couple of benches in it and a couple of chairs, but it was empty. That that was that was what you got.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

And you may have said so you you may have already said this no water, no electricity, and as you say, no indoor toilet or no, no water collection of any kind. There's no well and pump. So So talk talk us through how you cope with this because you you do a very good job of it.

SPEAKER_03 10:35

But for the listeners. It's much better now as we've put a load of effort into it, but and we you know we've added another story on the top of it, another uh two rooms upstairs. But we pump water in the village in into fifty litre canisters and then bring those back in the car. Uh and that's used for showering and washing up and stuff. We don't drink that directly. And then we bring bottled water um that we filled in from a tap either here from our house, or if Walter's around we go into the village and fill it up at his house. Or or if not, we buy bottled water from the supermarket. I mean, I have one of these filtration things for filter micro filtering water um to make it supposedly pure and drinkable. Petra doesn't trust it, and there's no much point in me using it if we're not gonna both if we're gonna have two, three different water supplies. So you bring in the water in, so you might as well drink that water. Exactly. So that's what we do for water, two different supplies, and then we bring the empties back and fill them up, and once a year we throw all our empties away and buy new ones because we we're using those plastic water bottles, isn't it good after a long period of time. So we do that, electricity, we have uh well we bought a generator which is sat in the sat secured away in the garage, which we drag out when we absolutely need it because it's a palava, but we use that for like running equipment like mowers, recharging battery equipment like drills and the like. So you know there's obviously a lot of grass cutting and things to be done.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:17

Tight on the meadow. You've got a meadow, don't you? There's a big meadow area, and and when they've when they've not cut it for hay, it can be sort of waist high, which means you can't really sit there and have a fire very easily.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Yeah, waist high and full of ticks. Yes, full of everything. So you you definitely want at least an area that's safe and sort of like ankle high, so you don't you're not getting the ticks very high up your body.

SPEAKER_03 12:40

But we bought this generator for power tools, really, and we we do occasionally we have a fridge there. Occasionally in the height of summer, when we've had something that we need to keep cold for a long time, we run the fridge, but you've basically got to have it plugged in and running for like a day, you know, and then you put all your stuff inside it, and then you try not to open the door for a couple of days until you need it.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

So the approach we've always taken, and I've always thought this works really well, you take a couple of two-litre bottles of water frozen from your check home, and they go in the fridge, they go in an ice box, and everything stays fresh.

SPEAKER_03 13:21

Yeah, so we we do have these these cooler boxes, yeah, which we use like that. But you've got to if we arrive from England straight away, because we don't leave our fridge and freezer in che at the check house on when we're not there. So you've got to wait a day or two for the water to cool down. You've got to remember to put it in there, cool it down, otherwise that doesn't work. So the cooler boxes, they're sort of okay, but but they don't really keep things really cold, like meat and dairy products, milk and things, unless you know, without the ice in them.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

The other thing I think when when there's sort of like four or five guys there, the food doesn't last very long, does it? So it doesn't need to stay fresh from it, and then we just go into town and research.

SPEAKER_03 14:03

Oh, that's true, but I so so this weekend I went on my own by bicycle and came back by bicycle, so I was only taking whatever I could carry on. Yeah, the battery, that bicycle. It did, but it's still a a a a pretty much with you. You're still not taking very much, and and I turned up there to find we hadn't because we hadn't left with that idea in mind. We we usually go by car, so we take all our fresh water and the cooler boxes and stuff like that. So I I turned up and of course there was no cooler box, because they were both here at the house still, and and there was no cold water. Uh there was very little water left. I went to the canisters and there wasn't very much left, just just about enough, actually.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

I I'm thinking Mary Antoinette Antoinette's coming to mind, you know, when she said let when there was no bread, let them have cake. I'm thinking, well, just drink beer.

SPEAKER_03 14:57

Well, so I looked in the cellar, which is normally stocked full of beer.

SPEAKER_05 15:03

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:04

There was there were there was one can and a bottle, uh, and the bottle had an uh best buy date of June 2024. That's close enough. Yeah, I I drank it. Of course you did. Because you know what you want is a cold beer. I mean the cellar's great like that, but the cellar, whilst we've now got the rest of the place mouse-free, the cellar is definitely not mouse-free. Um, the the mice are still active and down below. And so you can't really put your other food down there. So I was having to put everything into a big plastic box sealed, and then carry it in and out of the cellar every time I wanted something to keep it cold, because obviously it's hot at the moment. I mean, the cellar's perfectly kept my milk fine for several days. If I'd left it in the kitchen, it'd have been off. And it's quite a long because the the little village shops which are open during the week, at the weekend not open. So I uh from when I was there, I would have to.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

You're on your bike, you're gonna struggle to you're not gonna be able to bring an awful lot back from the shops.

SPEAKER_03 16:06

Yeah, I mean I've got panniers and a rucksack, but I I'm not stocking it with beer and things like that. Luckily, there's some wine in the cellar as well. So you had to slow that that was well, that's okay, but I'm just saying that it it requires some planning. You know, ev everything takes twice as long as you think it's going to, apart from the things that take three times as long. So very true. You know, just uh having breakfast, well you've got to get up. We've got the the the stove is uh there's no plugging a kettle in, it's uh filling your water bottle into the kettle, and the kettle goes on the camping gas stove, and and then I ran out of gas on Sunday, and I was on the bike, and it's a big gas canister, so there's no way I can.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

You've never run out of gas all the times I've been there. The one time I hear you do is you've got only a bike.

SPEAKER_03 16:56

And I can't go and get a replacement. So luckily I'd just finished the washing up. So I'd but no cup of tea in the morning before I left, that was annoying. So grumpy Malcolm. Yeah, but it's that sort of thing, you know, you have to be planned ahead, really. Everything takes much longer to do the washing up. So the I put a kitchen in there, there were there wasn't one when we arrived, and it it's got a sink, as you know, and it's got a f a water canister you fill up and foot pump it into the bowl.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

And that wasn't that's uh okay, it wasn't there at all at the start, but that was a more recent addition as well, because it was pouring in first of all.

SPEAKER_03 17:33

Yeah, we were pouring it in, but that's a pain in the bum, and you can't wash your hands easily and stuff, but the foot pump. I can't even lift the thing, it's that heavy. The foot pump is a good solution. But that's the cold water, and then obviously the warm water from a kettle goes in and it drains. We didn't having closed the cabin up successfully, we didn't want to have a hole out for wastewater that could have allowed mice to get in. So it just drains into a bucket under the counter, and then my job is to empty it because I'm one of the few people who remembers to look every day. Empty the bucket, yeah. And you've got to remember to empty the bucket because uh it has once or twice.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Well, one of the reasons I'm I'm happy to do that job because I know the other bucket that needs emptying is a job I don't want to do. Luckily, you're you're a very, very gracious host, and you've never asked anybody to do that shitty job.

SPEAKER_03 18:28

So we had a long drop up in the woods uh in the sentry box. Uh I'd been there for quite some time and it was basically full. Uh and it wasn't a very nice experience at all. And you had to walk quite a long way when it might be raining, it might be snowing, you know, it might be windy. Trees fall down in that part of the woods. In fact, when I was there this week, a big piece of tree has fallen down and just missed the toilet up there. I mean, we do leave that toilet because occasionally people will use it. Merlin seems to quite like it for some strange reason. I'm not quite sure why.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

So instead I built He likes having the door open and feeling like he's out in the wilderness. They told me I've not been spying on him.

SPEAKER_03 19:07

I built a toilet in the garage next to the house, so it's much closer, which is a composting toilet. Which works.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

On the face of it, it sounds very rustic, uh, which I suppose it is rustic, but it it's not an unpleasant experience at all. It doesn't smell, which is probably the thing that people used one. If you keep it dry, you've drilled home to all of us and sort of like keep it dry, and then you know, you see.

SPEAKER_03 19:48

Yeah, and so that that's been a a big addition. It just means when that bucket gets full, it has to be you're going out to the into the woods with the woods with a shovel and believe me, all these films and stories about burying bodies in the woods the worst place to bury a body. I mean, choose an open field, it's full of tree roots. Try digging a decent size hole in the woods, take you hours. Hours. So, you know. You need a JCB up there. And I I do it seem seemingly quite often.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

You're listening to Unravel Travel Cabin Life.

SPEAKER_03 20:27

Though those things have all improved things. I guess the other thing is what showering, washing. That's a huge improvement in the last year or so. So we've got two different solutions, one for the summer and one for the winter. The summer solution is I built a shower platform in the woods, and uh you prepare a bucket of warm water to your temperature preference. Uh and at this time of year, when it's really hot, you can basically just use cold.

unknown 20:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 20:55

It's nice and refreshing. And then we bought this fantastic it's the best thing I've ever bought, I think. It's like the size of a coke can, it's a little pump which is rechargeable through through a USB charging port, and uh it's got a shower head that runs off it, and you just drop it in your bucket, and uh it gives you an hour between recharges of showers, and it'll empty that bucket in about five minutes, so you've got like well less than that, probably three minutes. So you've probably got twenty showers out of out of it before you have to recharge it, and basically you just wet yourself down and then you soap yourself up and then you wash yourself off, and it and it's a great solution in the woods. It's stunning nobody around you.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

If you've still know where you bought it from, if you could put a link in the notes because it's got a similar sort of situation or camping or whatever, uh it is a brilliant way to shower. It's a bit of a game changer, I think, in terms of being comfortable out there.

SPEAKER_03 21:53

Yeah, and and showering in that environment actually, it is great. You know, it's surrounded by ferns and trees. And there's nobody around, you know, there's a privacy shield on the side towards the house and the footpath, and uh it's great. Really nice. And then in the winter we bought ourselves one of those classic old tin baths with a high back that you see th that you sit in and and you just you just pour your bucket of water into the bottom of it. Well, you know, and and use the pump and shower yourself sat in the sat in the sat in the tin bath in front of the log burner, in front of the log burner, yeah, which is the heat in the winter. And that's that's very old school. I mean very old school.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Actually, so this this conversation has led me two things to sort of like ask you about. So the first one, of course, we just mentioned log burner, so supply of fuel and also for cooking outside on the fire. I know we do cooking outside on the fire. You want to talk talk to that a little bit?

SPEAKER_03 22:53

Yeah, so cooking outside on the fire. When we first went there, that's what we did all the time because we we didn't have it even have a camping set. There's no kitchen or anything, so we're just cooking on the fire. And that but obviously, once you're in the winter, you want to do a bit of cooking inside, and sometimes it's now a mix and match. You know, we have a big metal grill we can put over the fire, so you get the fire going, you then knock it down a bit, put the grill over the top, and you can stick pans on or um things on, or use skewers for sausages and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

We've had all sorts from stews to you know the usual barbecue to fish to vegetables in the fire. Make curries or fronts on the fire. Yeah, exactly. It's how surprising what variety you can do just cooking on an open fire.

SPEAKER_03 23:35

If you've got a big enough pan with a long enough handle. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

I didn't burn myself once, not because of the pan.

SPEAKER_03 23:45

And the fire's great, you know, and it how on the meadow, you know, sat around in the evening looking at the stars or whatever. And also the smoke keeps the flies away because it can be quite flyy on a hot summer's day. So that's very good. And then the wood burner doesn't get used at all during the summer, but in the winter um is a lifesaver. Um we might do another episode to talk about going there in the winter, but um we chop all our wood locally from the well, we source it from the surrounding woods.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

You chatted and you've got permission, haven't you? Yeah, to take anything that's down on the ground. Yeah. I know when uh we do the the fire outside, I usually get through a lot of wood, don't you? I've got, yeah. That's partly because we like big fires. If you think you've seen a campfire, then you haven't. Just whatever you think, you're wrong. Yeah, you're wrong. Exactly. You're wrong. And in fact, it sometimes uh attracts helicopter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:40

So because you can see it from space.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Exactly. So yeah, they buzzed us, and you know, people will be thinking, oh yeah, yeah, helicopters flew past. No, they went round several times. I think didn't they land in the field the other day when you were there?

SPEAKER_03 24:56

Yeah, they landed in the field. They've landed in the field a few times. Yeah, in the meadow, but they definitely did the other day when we were there. They buzzed over. I mean, they're probably bored, there's a helicopter base fairly nearby, and they're flying around these woods. And look, never at the weekends, only ever during the week. And um and they're probably bored, they spot a car or somebody with a fire, and then that becomes their sort of centre of attention. And yeah, I mean, uh Merlin was flashing them with a with a to with a mobile phone light, wasn't he? And they came with all the lights off. With all the lights off, they came across the meadow at tree height and straight over top of us. And and the fire did that thing that fires do, you know, yeah. It whooshed down and as the air came past. Yeah. Too much attention is not a good thing. But uh But so so sometimes you won't see anybody at a pop unl unless they're in a helicopter. You know, you won't see anybody and then a helicopter will land outside. But that's not normal cabin life, I don't think.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

No, may maybe not, although it's becoming more and more normal, it seems to happen more and more frequently. And then the other thing I was gonna ask you about, because when I first remember going there, it was all l more or less candles and torches inside, but you you've put a nice little system inside that you know it feels it isn't maiden's electricity, but the lighting for me feels as good as mains. So do you want to talk about that?

SPEAKER_03 26:20

Yeah, okay. So uh yes, we usually use candles and uh paraffin lanterns, which I like I really like. And sometimes when I'm there on my own, it's still nice having a paraffin lantern. I'll just have the paraffin lantern. The quality of light is so much better. And I've switch I I well when you used to read real books, it was a chip problem to read by. Head torches were the sort of necessary, but I've switched to reading an e-book, which means my other lighting source can be nice and soft like a paraffin lantern. But we're always a little bit worried to knock something like that over in a place where everything everything is wood and it's wood that's oiled or varnished, all of it. Yeah, it's not gonna take much to have a a raging fire.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

So I'll tell you what, you wouldn't have a mouse problem afterwards, would you?

SPEAKER_03 27:03

No, you no, you wouldn't. You might have an insurance problem though. But that's what we used to do. Somebody that I think one of Petra's sisters bought me for Christmas a uh a this sort of multi-utility battery pack thing which you could start your car with or run as a pump, or it was like a utilitarian thing for so they thought it was good for cabins. I mean I think they just you could also plug something into it, 240 or 12 volt. And I think they thought we needed light. So we we just took like a desk light, you know, and used that and thought, well, this is just a game changer. Uh this is really we should so I I bought a little solar panel and controller and and charge controller. So we did that when we when we doubled up the size and had the loft converted. Yeah. We did that at the same time. And and actually I just bought a trickle charger, so it's about the size of two magazines. That's or a full a full size newspaper like the Times or as it used to be, something like that sort of size. Uh and then and some and a battery, and I doubled up the battery recently because we're not we're not there every weekend. So, you know, the battery whenever you get there, the battery's full, it's charged slowly, and then it will trick trickle in a bit more while you're there, but you've basically got the battery's worth while you're there, and then if you leave and it's flat, by the next time you come back, you know, in a month's time it'll be full again. But of course, now we're sort of moving towards perhaps being there more often. We're gonna have to increase our battery and solar panel sizing to match for sure. It's just bolted on the bottom.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Well you've probably got a fair bit of uh roof, roofs, but solar panels.

SPEAKER_03 28:47

The problem is the roof it's got trees overhanging it, and I don't want things drop falling on. Uh you can hear things falling onto that metal roof when you're asleep up there. And so the solar panels on the front face of the house at an angle, which is south facing exactly, so it's perfect. And it's angled for winter sun, not for summer sun, because you don't want I mean we don't need so much in the summer because we're outside most of the time and stuff. So it runs a 12 volt system which is on which has got USB charging and LED lights.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

I remember the LED lights was a bit of a you know, I didn't know. LED lights in every room. It's very nice to have the LED lights when you're actually looking for something.

SPEAKER_03 29:31

Yeah, definitely. And by the bed, you know, so you can just straight away put a light on. Oh, not on the bed you normally sleep on, but the other beds. So I have my phone so I can do it there. Yeah. But it it's just nice to have those sort of it's it it felt like a total luxury thing when we first started. Now we're just a bit used to it. Uh I haven't quite finished it off, really wiring it up. But it's it's simple enough that you can do yourself. It's not a difficult thing to add. All these things we've obviously changing the roof and having it extended, we had builders in, but everything else we've basically done ourselves. It's not that difficult really.

SPEAKER_00 30:05

And you you talked about USB charging, which obviously nicely brings you on to the subject of c connectivity. Yes. How do you keep uh phones and in internet and all that? Well what's the story?

SPEAKER_03 30:19

I mean, f until this last year when I changed my provider, I had no phone reception there at all. None at all. I was in a de it's in a valley which is windy because it's untamed river, and so and you're down in a valley, and unless there's a signal, you know, tower somewhere that's shining at you, you can you can be in a dead spot. I've changed providers now and I do get some sort of reception, it's not great, but there's something at the cabin. And Petra's always had something, but it's when I've been there on my own, I've had no reception. You know, if I wanted to do work, I'd have to drive in the car up the hill to a to a point and sit there on my laptop because that's where I have a reasonable.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

I've always been happy to collect the wood in the evening. Because you can go check your messages go get your messages, check the football scores.

SPEAKER_03 31:07

But now it's a bit now it's better. So my new phone has a better reception there, and you can put on a hotspot, you know, for other people, yeah, etc.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Yeah. Now I I've noticed I mean I've changed provider as well, but I've noticed over the last few years it's definitely got better. Uh so I wonder whether they brought in another mast or whether the signal's just stronger anyway.

SPEAKER_03 31:26

Not good enough to stream the football, though. I I went into the village to to to to Walters to watch it at the weekend. Yeah. So at the weekend I did something unusual, which is I cycled there. So we've bought these e-bikes, and when we bought them, they said, well, they've got a range of about a hundred kilometres, and it's exactly a hundred kilometres our house to the cabin down normal roads, it's like a hundred and a half kilometres, is precisely right. And so I thought, well, that's doable, isn't it? And um I thought I'd try it out this weekend. So I did firstly I took the train to Znoimo, which is a closer town, and cycled just to get a bit of contingency. Well, so that's 40 kilometres, but it's it's heavily uphill. So it we're at sort of 450 metres, and Znoumo is at about 250. So you you're rising 200 or so, but actually it's so up and down that you're probably doing about 500 metres of up and about 300 metres of down, because it's in that hilly area, everything's up and down. So that was fine, but that used sort of a third of the battery. So I so I got it ch I charged up at Walter's house on Saturday night. I was a bit nervous about putting my expensive bike charger on my generator, which is unregulated. It's probably alright, but I I'd probably risk it. Uh yeah. I I'd I'd probably put one walk without it. Yeah, I've got I've got an inverter. I'd probably take my inverter, but I didn't have it with me. It's in the car, um, and and regulate that to proper 240 vs.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

a good guy, and it it's always worth a visit to see him anyway.

SPEAKER_03 33:06

Yeah, so an hour and a half, my phone my bike was fully charged again, and then coming back, so it's uh it said 100 kilometres, drop 250 metres height, but basically dropping 500, climbing 250, because you're going up and down again in that first section. And I left at quarter past eight in the morning and I was home by quarter past two, so uh six hours. Yeah. Which uh and I I was so very and I had a third of the battery life left, so I was very nervous initially about whether it would last. So if it if it was at all flat, I'd turn the battery off because you can these bikes you can turn the battery off and cycle them normally, and they're good bikes, so there's very little friction on the you know on the drivetrain. So uh you could I could do 25 kilometres on the flat in the heavy bike. I just saved it for the the I just saved it for going uphill for when uh anything when it was at an incline or when there was a strong headwind, but other than that, you can do 20-25 kilometres an hour on the bike. Um the thing is they're very heavy with that battery and the motor and and a much sturdier frame, you know, they're they're very heavy bikes. Um but it it worked fine and I got back with I wanted to make sure I had enough margin because next time I'm gonna cycle there from the house, so that's gonna be 100 kilometres with significant uphill, and I'll be carrying more weight, so I needed to make sure I had you know sufficient spare capacity to make it, but next time I'm gonna have to go in the car because I'm gonna have to refill all can't fill gas bottle, can't fill all the water pump from the village, you know, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

So you need to resupply everything for the following time for when you're gonna go on the bike. Definitely. What what else did you get up to? Um we've got about five minutes left on this, but what else did you get up to?

SPEAKER_03 34:51

Well, I did my favourite thing when I'm there, which is I did a really long walk. Well, I did a 15 kilometre walk through the woods. I I'm always trying to ex you know, we often do the same bits of walk when we go, Dave, and with guests, that's often the case. You did the bit down the river, which is very nice. But I like to go you see more wildlife if you get away from you know the footpath down the river is where people generally hang about, where where they're gonna see people, so you see less wildlife, although I have seen an otter there and beaver in the last couple of trips. So, you know, you do see wildlife and mufflon and all sorts of things, but it's better further out into the woods. So I wanted to explore some patches I've not been to before. I mean it's a big bit of woodland, that woodland stretches nearly down to the border with Austria. You know, you can see it properly on the map from a national scale. It's a big piece of sort of wildlife corridor that that we're in. So I went off and explored, like I say, bits that I've not been to before. I found a little there's a little lake showing on the map, right off in the middle of nowhere. So I sort of hacked my way to it and found that all around it the trees are plomped into the lake, and there's a beaver definitely living there. It's a beaver, it's like a proper beaver home because the beavers that live on the river they can never really dam it up high enough to create that sort of proper swamp type environment. Yeah, and then have their density called Lodge. So I was looking there was no lodge, but there's a whole a big active hole in the bank, which must be where it's living. And and it's very active because you can see the trees have all been nibbled away freshly. Um so I found where Mr. Beaver lives. That was quite nice little spot. I'll take you there next time we're there. And I found a nice new swimming lake and uh and some more mud wallows where the wild boar are wallowing. You sort of it's great, you you sort of but they're never near the footpaths, you have to sort of break out into the wild woodland. Yeah. And then you sort of and actually with maps that's very helpful. I mean I don't use Google Maps, I use mappy.cz because it yeah it it's very much more accurate for the tracks. But you know, if you if you get turned around in the woods you can at least find your way out again very easily. But I I you you sort of wonder in something, oh look, it's a wild boar wallows, and then you think, I hope there's no wild boar actually here because if there is, I'm gonna have a big problem. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

They can be a bit grumpy by all accounts.

SPEAKER_03 37:22

They can, especially if they got young with them, which about this time of year, probably just a little bit past that, but maybe they would have. So yeah, I did that. A nice long walk in the woods. Um that was good, and then sitting by the campfire with a guitar, that sort of stuff, all the best things. Very nice. Sounds lovely. So, and we'll I mean, you're there regularly, we'll talk about it again, I'm sure. Maybe a winter type, because it's very different there in the winter.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

Yeah, I mean I've not been there in the winter, but uh from what you've told me in the past, it is a completely different experience.

SPEAKER_03 37:55

And also very nice.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

I mean, my brothers say they prefer it in the winter, tracking, that sort of thing. Anyway, that I found that very, very even though I knew a lot of it because I've been out there, there was certainly a load of stuff that I didn't know, and I just think it's quite interesting for other people who you know maybe thinking about hiring one. You can rent these cabins.

SPEAKER_03 38:15

Yeah, you're not renting mine, but you can rent them. Uh and I'll if I remember, I'll put a link on for the ones that are for sale. There's uh quite an active group on Facebook.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

Uh thank you very much for that, Malcolm. Cool. Hope you always enjoyed that. Bye.