Hiking and camping in The Czech Republic in early March? Well, okay. Sure it can get rather chilly, but we’re hearty souls with hardy soles, so we’re game. Go on such an outing with the students from the school where we’re volunteering? Well okay, that sounds like it could be fun. And it does turn out to be a worthwhile adventure; but this hike through the woods is no walk in the park. It’s much more strenuous, more demanding, more exhausting — and therefore more exhilarating — than we ever would have imagined.

The day begins like a normal Friday at the school, with the students attending a full day of classes. Kimberly accompanies the kindergarten to their mostly outdoor facility called The Forest, which is itself quite a hike for wee ones. It offers an abundance of opportunities for the kiddos to play in the sand and the mud — there’s a little stream running beside it, and they all wear their rainboots to school so they can frolic in the water and mud.

There are oversized toy trucks and tractors the youngsters can sit on and push. And they have a chance to participate in arts and crafts, games, songs, dances and whatever the teachers can drum up. Largely, they just have a chance to play and let their imaginations run wild. It’s a great place to be a little kid — which we can’t help doing ourselves when we go there.

After school, we, along with some of the teachers and some of the older students (not terribly old, just not the teeniest ones) pile into vehicles and make our way to the train station, toting backpacks, sleeping bags (someone has loaned us a couple), and for the kids, though not for us, mats to put under the sleeping bags. Boarding a train, we ride for half an hour or so, get off and begin walking. We anticipate that we’ll have maybe another half an hour to our destination. Ha-ha.

Over hill and over dale, whatever that is, across meadow and babbling brook — well okay, that last one is a lie, but over and across just about every other kind of storied terrain we trudge with our gear for an hour — or is it two — and still we are nowhere near our destination. How do we know this? Because we all sit down on a grassy knoll to rest. That wouldn’t be the case if there were only a short distance to fare.

The students pull out unsliced loaves of bread they were issued at the starting point, and begin munching. They’ll also, so we understand, be given dinner tonight. But all other food on this little jaunt they will have to earn by doing chores.

The school director takes out a book and reads something to the students, followed by what appears to be a little pep talk. But it could be a recipe for all we know — it’s all in Czech. And we’re surprised to see such dallying when sundown is approaching at a gallop.

Indeed, it soon becomes apparent that darkness is not going to be any barrier to this intrepid band. As the sun continues to be swallowed up by the trees, we forge ahead. Up hills and up more hills, as nightfall has almost totally fallen, through woods. There are signs posted about the various forms of wildlife we might spot, including certain species of wildcat. None of it deters anyone. On we go.

At long last, after clambering up yet another hill to a tower, then taking a left, we go down the hill a few hundred yards, and, just as the last traces of light are draining from the sky, we see the lights of a cabin — a rather large cabin, where all of us are to bivouac. Inside, with lighting provided by electricity from solar panels, there is a cheery homestead where the host and his family have been expecting us, and a dinner of soup and rye bread is ready to be served. Which is most welcome to all of us. The kids also build a fire outside and roast wieners — the biggest, plumpest, most hippo hotdogs we’ve ever seen.

This cabin evidently was built to accommodate large groups like this, and the kids and teachers trundle off to settle in for the night, placing their sleeping bags on the floor somewhere. As for our own bunking arrangements, it’s finally decided, after the school director confers with the host, that Dennis will sleep on the couch in the kitchen/living room, and Kimberly will sleep on the floor beside him. This turns out to be surprisingly comfortable for both of us, and we get a very good night’s sleep, especially after the workout we just had. And while the host has informed the group as a whole that they must use one of the compost toilets outside because the water supply is not ample for a lot of flushing, he tells the two of us it’s okay if we use the indoor john. Which is a relief, as it were, because seasoned bladders sometimes require repeated voiding during the night.

In the morning there is a huge pot of oatmeal, jazzed up with raisins and apples, which we helped chop up. And even though the oats had soaked overnight, they are cooked within an inch of their lives, much longer than we’d ever cook the stuff (in fact, our habit is just to pour hot water over the oatmeal, let it steep a little bit, and bon appetit). It turns out quite yummy though. Meanwhile a baby goat finds its way into the house and receives its own breakfast from a bottle, and in the process scampers around charming the socks off everyone.

After breakfast, the kiddos earn their keep by doing a couple of simple tasks, mostly involving moving some boards and other wood. Following which, we have a bit of time to play.

And then we all get our gear together and start hiking again. That’s right. We’d been under the impression that we were going to spend two nights here at this one cabin. But nope. It’s now time for another day, more or less, of hiking to another site for the night. This one, we are informed, will be more rustic; the kids will have to sleep on straw. Sounds enticing.

So we strike out, back up the hill, to the tower we’d passed the night before; it’s possible to climb up in the tower, if hiking the hills is not enough of a workout for you. On we go, up more hills and across more meadows. Before we know it, we’ve logged 4 kilometers. Our understanding was that we had a total of about 6 kilometers to do today, which would put us over halfway.

But when we come to a village and pause to rest beside a church, now we learn that in fact, there are 6 more to cover — and a lot of it will be uphill. It’s at this point that we start to think about bailing out. We’ve already been told that we can catch a bus back home at this location if we decide to. So after debating a bit, we make the decision to do just that. While there are definite payoffs for partaking of this kind of ordeal, we feel that we’ve done as much of it as we want to do on this occasion, particularly with one of us having a sore hip at the moment; and we have things we need to do at home rather than spend the rest of the weekend in the outback.

So we say our goodbyes to the fearless group and walk down the hill to a bus stop. This bus carts us to another town, where we transfer to another bus that takes us back to Valašské Klobouky. We have the utmost admiration for these youngsters who are indulging in this demanding ritual, and doing so uncomplainingly and even cheerfully. They are learning that challenges and hard effort produce their rewards; good for them, and good for the school administration for arranging this sort of thing.

Events occurred 3/7-8/2025