Hiking in the Dobogó Forest trapped between rivers

• Start on Malom Street heading towards the village center, then after 100 meters turn left onto an unmarked dirt road.
• Follow the dirt road along the far side of the Pinka River to the entrance of the Dobogó Forest.
• The Dobogó Forest nature trail signs guide us through the Dobogó Forest.
• Returning to the starting point of the nature trail, we return on the same path to the starting location.

Detailed tour description

In the region of unregulated rivers

Dobogó Forest is located at the meeting point of the Vasi Hills and Pinka Plain microregions, on the border of Horvátnádalja, in the floodplain area enclosed by the Pinka and Rába rivers.

Our tour starts at the Horvátnádalja Malom Lake, which nowadays serves as a resting and fishing area, managed and developed by the Horvátnádalja Holnapjáért Association. From the shore of the lake, we can clearly see the old Horvátnádalja watermill, whose wheel was once driven by diverted water from the Pinka.

From Malom Lake, we proceed along Malom Street towards the village center, and after barely 100 m we turn left onto a dirt road that we follow through Malom-dűlő to the flood prevention embankment, with a forest strip on the left and fields on the right. Beyond the embankment, we immediately meet the wild-flowing Pinka River. Originating from the southern side of the Wechsel Mountains in Austria, the Pinka is the most significant Vasi tributary of the Rába, flowing mostly unregulated within our country. Its width is 20-30 meters, average water discharge is 3-5 m³/s, but during floods it can reach 200-300 m³/s. After travelling 100 km, the Pinka flows into the Rába about 2 kilometers east in a straight line from the Dobogó Forest.

The wildflower floodplain

We cross a nice wooden bridge into the floodplain between the Pinka and Rába rivers to the entrance of the Dobogó Forest: the starting signboard of the nature trail tells us what awaits us: over our 2 kilometer walk, we pass 10 information boards, featuring lots of useful information about the Dobogó Forest and its surrounding river’s flora and fauna. Additionally, warning signs detail rules for forest behavior and traffic.

The Dobogó Forest is situated on the higher floodplain terrain, infrequently inundated by floods, covered by hardwood gallery forest. Prior to forest management interventions, the area was characterized by pedunculate oak, European ash, and black alder forest associations, but due to improper management, this has changed. Today, the hornbeam-pedunculate oak forest association has formed a dense, closed canopy with its multiple trees, where light only reaches the shrub and herb layers before leafing out. As a result, the shrub layer is sparse, and the herb layer is rich only in early spring. After snowmelt, we find abundant geophyte plants in the Dobogó Forest, which bloom and ripen their fruits before the forest canopy closes, then retreat underground. First, the snowdrops appear, then usually from mid-February the spring snowflakes emerge in millions, turning the ground white during their peak flowering.

The spring snowflakes that make the Dobogó Forest famous can grow up to 30 centimeters tall when fully developed. Their long leaves are blade-shaped, and on the top of the stem developing from the bulb, usually 1-2 bell-shaped white flowers open, with six petals featuring distinctive green or yellow spots at the tip. It is a poisonous species, containing galantamine in all parts, which can cause digestive and nervous system symptoms if ingested. It is protected in our country, with a designated value of 5000 HUF per clump.

The purple-colored western starflowers appear at the same time; from March we can encounter spotted lungworts with white or purplish-pink hollow and fingered aconites, flowers in purple and pink, and also white wood anemones in larger numbers.

The alluvial wetland

The nature trail is not marked by tourist signs, but there is no risk of getting lost: at every fork, we find kingfisher (bird) directional signs indicating the right way. Upon covering 600 meters, we reach the oxbow of the Rába, which entirely dries out in drier periods. From here we continue along the forest edge: on the left side, we can observe the hardwood gallery forest, and on the right side, we notice the Rába oxbow and the surrounding swampy reed beds. After 300 meters, we can legally cut across the nature trail if we are tired, but this should only be a last resort: exciting sections still await us! First, we pass by an oxbow, then we reach a scenic curve of the current channel of the Rába. There is a resting place on the riverbank, from which we can admire at length the whimsical world of the unregulated river.

The Rába, one of the most significant domestic tributaries of the Danube, originates in the Austrian Almenland region, and after flowing 289 km, it enters the Moson Danube near Győr. Its width in our country ranges between 30 and 50 meters, and its water discharge varies greatly: while its average water discharge is 24 m³/s, its high water can reach 900-1000 m³/s! In the Dobogó Forest section, the Rába is a middle section river, where the water speed, having come from the Alps, decreases considerably, so the river is characterized by meandering channels. On the convex inner side of meanders, sediment accumulation occurs, and on the concave outer side, erosion takes place by washing away the riverbank. The meanders continuously develop: the overdeveloped bends cut off, while new bends form. The cut-off oxbows provide ideal habitat for amphibians; birds – including the kingfisher featured on the nature trail boards – mainly come to the oxbows for feeding purposes.

After the rest, we continue along the outer side of the Rába meander and can observe the river’s erosive work a few steps from the path. We walk carefully here, as smaller or larger pieces can detach from the eroded riverbank at any time. Leaving the Rába bank behind, we head towards the Pinka, which we reach at the end of a long straight section. Here, we turn left and return along the right bank of the river, which is notable domestically for its steep descents and rapids, back to the starting point of the nature trail from where, on the familiar path, crossing the Pinka bridge and Malom-dűlő, we arrive back at Malom Lake.