Family bike tour in the footsteps of Hany Istók

Itinerary:

• Leave Kapuvár railway station on Vasút street, then turn right onto the bike path crossing Rákóczi Ferenc street.
• Following the bike path, we enter the town center, cross main road 85, then continue straight on Damjanich street. On Margit híd street turn right, then on Cseresznye sor turn left to reach the outer houses of the town.
• We cycle on a closed bike path until the road leading to Öntésmajor (if arriving by car, we can skip this section from the town), and here we turn right.
• We ride into Öntésmajor under a beautiful plane tree avenue, leaving on the left side the Hanság Wildlife Exhibition and the S-Öntés Restaurant, then continue on the road.
• Crossing Osli, we cycle towards Földsziget on the road, but before the village a sign indicates the turnoff to the Hany Istók nature trail (to the left).
• On the wide gravel road, we first pass the Esterházy Bird Watchtower: the nature trail starts here, with its first information board on site.
• Continuing on the wide gravel road, at a sharp left turn, we find the second information board of the trail (Csíkos-Éger) and shortly after, we reach the forester's lodge at Király-lake (3rd board: along the Rábca).
• Here we turn left onto a similar gravel road, then continue straight at the nearby intersection, with a few hundred meters detour reaching one of Hanság's secret sanctuaries (4th board: Gorondok region), the Osli-Hany, where we can admire its wildlife from a birdwatching tower.
• Returning to the forester’s lodge, we continue on the familiar gravel road, then after crossing the Rábca, we turn left together with the road. Shortly after, a similar wide gravel road branches off to the right, but we continue straight. After a few steps, from the road turning right, the trail turns left onto a narrower path along the Rábca, and this several-kilometer detour is definitely worth making (we will have to return to this point).
• At the edge of a nearby meadow, we turn right and on the far side of the meadow we spot the 5th board (Király-Éger).
• On the beautiful alder forest path, we find the 6th board (Hany), and shortly arrive at Király-lake (7th board and birdwatching tower), the last point of the nature trail.
• Returning to the bike path, we follow the wide gravel road all the way to the Hansági main canal (there is only one big branch left to the left), where turning left we soon spot the famous Mosontarcsai (Andaui) bridge.
• Riding along the Hansági main canal, we pass an old border guard tower, then after a longer ride, on the left we leave the canal at a lock towards Kapuvár (the sign marks the way left).
• Exiting the wide gravel road (there is a right-angle turn to the right in between), at the main road we turn left, and after a few kilometers (ending again on a closed bike path), we turn left again towards Öntésmajor.
• We ride on a closed bike path heading back to Kapuvár, to the already known junction where turning right we return to Kapuvár (going straight leads back to Öntésmajor).

Detailed description of the tour:

From Kapuvár to the mysterious gate of Hany

Thanks to excellent train connections, arriving at Kapuvár, this charming small town, feels very pleasant. At the railway station, a memorial plaque reminds us of the sad historical events of this once well-off small town: the happenings in 1956, and the tragic fate of Jews deported from the town to concentration camps. The sad and nationally significant story of Hanság is not yet visible here. However, cycling along the bike path, we cross the picturesque town center, whose buildings were built by a formerly significant Jewish community. On the other side of town, along Cseresznye sor, we already ride among modern houses - here the proximity of the Austrian border is felt.

Upon reaching the bike path along the edge of the fields, then later the beautiful plane tree avenue leading to Öntésmajor, the magical proximity of Hanság becomes apparent: white herons, egrets and other protected water birds seek food in the field at a safe distance from the road, and in the distance, the contours of vast forests emerge.

Visiting the Hanság Wildlife Exhibition, once a forester's house and then a school, we realize that unfortunately, this unique wetland is now a thing of the past. For example, forests typical of Hanság today were much less widespread here earlier. The country's largest contiguous peatland, which was organically connected to the adjacent Fertő, Europe’s westernmost steppe lake, was rather characterized by varied habitats but essentially a continuous water-covered swamp.

Maps of the 18th century show the low-lying Hanság as a continuous water area, as if a lake of equal size was appended to the southeast of Lake Fertő. Rivers entering Hanság (Ikva, Répce) disappeared into the peatland but left the area orderly on its eastern side. The word "hany," of Pecheneg or according to other sources Finno-Ugric origin, described these marshy, reed-covered, swampy, in some places pasture-suitable areas, which historically served as natural defense lines in the border fence system.

Today, the watery world of Hany has become marshy meadows, pastures, mown fields, and further away, cultivated land; the old peat lakes and forests have shrunk significantly. In rainy seasons, Hanság’s water often caused floods in surrounding villages and fields, so attempts to regulate the wetland date back to antiquity, though the first drainage canals were only built in the time of Maria Theresa. But let's not get ahead of ourselves! The name Öntésmajor is telling: the peasants drained the edge of the wetland to gain arable land exempt from feudal duties, thus increasing their meager income. These somewhat drained yet frequently flooded areas later became sites of farms, and the harvested goods, especially peat, reeds, and valuable alder wood, were transported to the town by a narrow-gauge railway network (the cycle path from Kapuvár to Hanság follows this former route). The railway operated until 1978.

Deep in the Southern Hanság, following Hany Istók

After the museum, we head towards Hany! We cycle through Osli towards Földsziget, then a huge sign marks the turnoff to the nature trail on the left. From here, the bike path runs on a well-built, good-quality gravel road network in Hanság – reaching the most pressing issue of Hanság, the drainage.

Due to persistent floods, significant work was already undertaken in the 19th century, including giving the Rábca river, leaving Hanság, a completely new bed, and due to Győr’s protection, its mouth, originally located in the town, now reaches the Mosoni-Duna slightly northwards. Moreover, the water management of the area went so far already then that the dam of Mosoni-Duna was partly built to prevent floods from feeding Hanság. However, the real blow came during the decades of socialism, when the drainage of Hanság became an obsession of the system dominating nature. Furthermore, the socialist youth, organized in KISZ construction camps here, 'recovered' the cultivated lands from nature, which had enormous propaganda value. The first construction camp was in 1958, and until the early 1970s, about 20,000 young people participated in the vast work regulating Hanság, building around 1500 kilometers (!) of drainage ditches. The map reveals the grid-like network of perpendicular canals.

Let us now enter this still wonderful natural aquatic world, which has been a protected area since 1976 and part of the Fertő-Hanság National Park since 1991. Managed by the park, the Esterházy Bird Watchtower, dating from the 1930s, is one of the country's first buildings built directly for nature protection and research (open only during organized programs). This is where the Hany Istók nature trail starts, showcasing the most important natural values of Southern Hanság.

Going further along the bike path, we quickly feel and understand the difference between new and old forests of Hanság. Due to drainage, vast areas have been afforested, and roads suitable for transport and movement have been laid along drainage ditches, which unfortunately increase conservation problems, as we will see. While marveling at the planted poplar forests' atmosphere, at a sharp left turn, we find the trail's second information board, presenting the so-called Csíkos-Éger habitat. We walk on a special, strictly protected natural area, where black storks, imperial eagles, and eagle owls also breed. The alder forest, standing on stilts, is beautiful but a special relic of the wetland of Hany. Unlike the natural state, when wet meadows floated between trees (from which this forest area got its name, used by fishers), today the area is only under water in rainy periods, and the trees cling with their supporting roots to the loose peat soil, giving a special memory to the drainage.

Soon we reach the forester's lodge at Király-lake, where turning left and making a few hundred meters detour, we reach one of Southern Hanság’s most important sanctuaries, Osli-Hany. From a smaller birdwatching tower here, we can view the partially flooded landscape from 2013. An ancient landscape unfolds before our eyes with smaller and larger water surfaces, reeds, watery meadows, and pastures with scattered old trees, where, with luck, buffalo graze among the special sounds of herons, egrets, and other waterbirds. The tower stands on a natural elevation called gorond, home to a colony of bee-eaters, so we are surrounded by their lovely gurgling sounds. During the last ice age, river sediments were formed into small and large piles by the wild tundra winds, resulting in a wetland area of about 100,000 hectares containing about 200 goronds, an essential landmark for human settlement in this swampy area. From the birdwatching tower, it is also worth noting that Hungary's only endemic vertebrate subspecies, the Rákosi viper, lives in this special habitat.

The Fertő-Hanság National Park Directorate also carries out habitat restoration in another distant area, Nyirkai-Hany. Its success is well reflected in the fact that this latter area was quickly occupied by birds and has been under the protection of the international Ramsar convention on wetlands since 2006.

Returning to the bike path, we cross the Rábca next to the forester's lodge, which now runs in a regulated bed, separated from Hanság, carrying its water towards the Danube. Leaving the bike path, we head to the deepest point of Hanság, Király-lake. We are again in a beautiful alder forest, strange to imagine that until drainage, wooded areas in Hanság were small, replaced by alder fens, willow fens, and now extinct birch fens.

After drainage, most Hanság lakes disappeared, except the more distant Fehér-lake and Barbacsi-lake. Due to peat mining, small lakes formed at several places, as the upper layer of soil was extracted. Such is Király-lake, which has reverted to a mozaic landscape covered with broom, bulrush and floating aquatic plants, viewable today from a birdwatching tower. Of course, seeing wonders requires time and expertise. The lake's fame is that in 1749, a Kapuvár fisherman found here a boy about 8-10 years old swimming like a frog with hair. The story of the "Hungarian Mowgli" has been written by many; Jókai even included it in his novel "Nameless Castle". The information board here also reveals that science believes the boy later called Hany Istók endured many trials and finally returned to the swamp from the town that did not accept him.

From the Mosontarcsai (Andaui) bridge to Kapuvár

From the last board of the Hany Istók nature trail at Király-lake, we return to the bike path and face a longer ride until the Hansági main canal, where turning left we soon arrive at the famous Mosontarcsai (Andaui) bridge. The bridge was named after the closest settlement and was built in the 1940s to improve access to arable land, never used for public traffic. Although the bridge is famous for tens of thousands of compatriots who fled west here in 1956, years earlier, many Germans escaping forced relocations also left the country here. Soviet troops blew up the bridge on November 21, 1956, and strict border control was introduced, traceable today in the form of a surviving nearby border guard tower. The bridge was restored in 1996 and operates as a memorial site (it is worth exploring the tower on the Austrian side), where cyclists can also rest.

After the bridge, a pleasant farewell ride awaits along the Hansági main canal, then upon reaching a lock, turning left towards the main road. The Hansági main canal and other waterways are remnants of the former watery world of Hany, where rare species such as the strictly protected purple heron can still be spotted. Exiting on the main road, we turn left and cycle to the branch leading to Öntésmajor, following the second part of the road now on a closed bike path. Turning left towards Öntésmajor, after a few hundred meters we reach the already known junction, where turning right we return to Kapuvár, or going straight under the plane tree avenue leads to Öntésmajor.