Every year in mid-June we swap skis for boats. This time almost ninety of us gathered at the campsite in Szob, Hungary.
We arrived on Thursday evening and stayed until Sunday. Alongside Loko members, fourth- and fifth-graders from HOBA joined us as well. Some came with tents, some with campers, while the core Lokomotíva group traditionally arrived by train. Thanks to Tomáš and the paddling centre we had enough boats and rafts, Joški added more equipment, and we were ready for the water.
Two days, two rivers and a natural line into the Danube Bend
The photographs contain GPS coordinates and neatly confirm the whole weekend. On Friday 12 June, the points move from Szob to Kamenica nad Hronom and back to the campsite in the evening. On Saturday 13 June, they continue from Szob down the Danube through Zebegény to Nagymaros.
Kamenica nad Hronom lies on the lower Hron just before the river reaches the Danube. Szob is on the Hungarian side by the confluence of the Danube and the Ipeľ/Ipoly, and from there the river enters the distinctive landscape of the Danube Bend. Zebegény and Nagymaros are both on its banks.
Trains, tents, campers and a lot of boats
Thursday was mainly about everyone converging on the campsite. With a group this size, logistics are no small detail: boats, rafts, paddles, life jackets, tents, campers, children and adults. But that is exactly what makes the weekend good. It is not a packaged trip where everything is waiting for you. It is a shared weekend that we build ourselves.
Once the campsite filled up and the last people stepped off the train, it was obvious that this edition would be a little bigger than the previous ones.
From Kamenica nad Hronom in extremely low water
On Friday we moved to Kamenica nad Hronom. The water level was extremely low, so a calm paddle sometimes became a search for a wet channel between gravel and shallows. The low water created small islands where we could stop, get out and let the children run around for a while.
The goal was simple: paddle all the way back to the campsite in Szob. The evening photographs are already back at camp, so the river returned us exactly where we needed to be.
Szob, Zebegény, a summer storm and Nagymaros
On Saturday the whole group took to the water. The traditional route from Szob to Nagymaros included several stops, with Zebegény the most memorable. That is where we caught a summer storm.
The children dealt with the weather in their own way: many of them were in the water anyway. We started with twelve children on our raft. Only two were still on it at the finish. During the day the rest kept moving between boats, the river and the bank.
We returned to the campsite by train. The locals already had food waiting for us. After a full day on the Danube, the sequence could hardly be improved: boat to train, train to dinner.
A huge campfire and the official start of summer
In the evening came the big campfire. After two days on the water nobody needed an elaborate programme. The children had their adventure, the adults could finally sit down, and the whole weekend naturally shifted from sport into summer.
This is how our sporting season ends: not with a closing speech, but with a weekend together where children and parents meet in a completely different setting than at training or beside a ski slope.
A club is more than training
The Szob paddling weekend has become one of our June traditions. The children are together without ski boots, the coaches without stopwatches, and the parents without an early-morning drive to the mountain. We are still moving and still outdoors; for a few days, only the river sets the rules.
When almost ninety people gather for one weekend, it is also a pretty good sign that Lokomotíva has long been more than a group of children on skis.
What we used to reconstruct the route
- Author notes from the Ski Lokomotíva paddling weekend 2026
- GPS/EXIF metadata from 15 photographs taken on 12 and 13 June 2026
- Slovensko.sk — Kamenica nad Hronom
- Interreg Danube Region — Szob and the Danube Bend
- Visit Hungary — Danube Bend