At the campsite I met Trev, who since a heart attack a few years ago has adopted a more nomadic and stress free attitude to life, and has covered over 20,000km cycling around Europe in the last couple of years, so has plenty of trail stories to share!
I'm off to a bike shop though to get a new kick stand, since my original has developed a stress fracture and is about to snap off.
The new one works but is a little less substantial so more care needed to balance the load, but it is a critical component to enable photo stops, pee stops, snack stops, and any other stops where there isn't an easily accessible and suitable leaning tree/ bench/wall. Which is often.
Just a few km to another campsite which looks fantastic on the website - swimming pool, sports facilities etc, I'm just worried it'll be packed. Turns out to be practically empty and somewhat dilapidated, like it was built for Soviet era group holidays and has declined since. Still, perfectly fine for my needs except that I've arrived too late for a swim. Anyways

Another short day, although not without a thunderstorm, to arrive at Bojnice with its fairy tale round turreted castle. The old historic town is small in comparison to the adjacent communist new town, an impressive maze of coloured prefab flats. I'm staying in a bargainous airbnb apartment for the night hosted by the lovely Marcela who doesn't speak a word of English but does her best to make me welcome in a mix of broken German and Czech.

And off again, uneventful day of covering distance towards the prosperous old mining town Banska Stiavnica. Looks lovely but I've again arrived a bit late having been distracted by a prominent stations of the cross style chapel thing on a hill nearby, and then dark starts to fall as I'm chatting to three Slovenian lads on a two week bike tour out of Bratislava. They have been through Hungary and didn't give it rave reviews.
So dark is falling as I headed for my "identified camping zone", and it turns out my bike headlight isn't charged up, so just got my headlamp to see where i'm going, which is climbing steeply through a wood which makes if seems even darker.
At the summit I collapse on the nearest flat bit of field to camp. Nice view. Sleep.
Andddd woken up by something pouncing on my tent. Pouncing is the best word i can think of. Immediately start wondering if there are bears around here but it turns out to be a cheeky adolescent fox, who is reluctant to leave and comes back at 3am for another round. Would have been a great wildlife photo op of I wasn't so half asleep and worried about him running off with one of my flip flops or something!