I arrived in Gdańsk late in the afternoon after a very long ride, but I’m so looking forwards to exploring the city tomorrow. As I was just about to bring the tent down this morning the heavens opened and I had to sit in my tent for about 40 minutes before it left, but once I got going it wasn’t too bad. The occasional spell of rain and lots of lovely sunshine to dry me out again. I rode about 180 miles on a mixture of motorway and rural roads and it was 20 degrees all the way.
The countryside is lush and green with lots of farmland and lots of dense forests. Every country I’ve ridden in so far has had lots and lots of wind turbines, and this is especially so in the rural parts of Poland. It seems like anywhere they can plant some turbines they plant a whole heap of them. It kind of puts the UK to shame really.
I hit the city (or town?) of Wejherowo, about 20 miles north of Gdinya and it was traffic chaos all the way to Gdańsk, which was about 25 miles. I was pretty stressed by the time I got to the campsite with all the stop and start on a fully loaded bike.
The campsite is on the southern outskirts of Gdańsk in woodland next to the coast. And it really is a good campsite. There’s free electricity (I’m going to buy an extension lead tomorrow) and even a kitchen with free gas. It’s only about 15 mins into Gdańsk, or I could even take the tram, which is about 5 minutes walk from the camp site.
I made the mistake of going to the local Lidl to get some provisions, but it was evening and it was busy – and guess what..? Only two people on the five tills. With all my riding gear on I was pretty hot and bothered by the time I got to the tills… it must be a company policy through all their stores because it was the same in Sweden and Germany.
And another mistake..! I thought I had bought milk – but it wasn’t. It was some kind of Yogurt or sour milk. I had poured it onto my muesli for breakfast and on the first spoonful discovered the horror. I quickly got dressed and went back to the supermarket and eventually found the fresh milk. I’ve got to have milk for my wheeties in the morning and my first cup of tea of the day. I have to…and before long I was enjoying my breakfast and first tea of the day, with milk, and not yoghurt.
I’m spoilt for choice tomorrow for what to do. We’ve got rain coming on Saturday and Sunday so it’s probably wise to do some riding tomorrow. I just may go to Hel and back…
And of course, no trip would be complete without a mishap…. I was just leaving the campsite and my front wheel hit a pocket of sand. No problem, pick the bike up and carry on, but, because the ground was all sandy, each time I tried to pick the bike up the wheels would slip. I couldn’t get a purchase, even after putting some rocks next to the wheels. Eventually I just sat and waited, contemplating the meaning of life, and about an hour later a Lithuanian backpacker wandered past so I asked him for some help and straight away we had the bike upright. A great start to the day and a note to self: treat sand with respect.
