Author: ninemilesperhour

9th AUGUST 2018

I wake up feeling neither rested nor hungover. I’m in an unthinking, robotic daze and go about my morning routines on auto-pilot. Normally I’d be paying a visit to the loo by this point, but I’m quite shocked to find that my bladder is empty. The litre of beer I drank must have been absorbed straight into my system as it tried to rehydrate from a day of climbing steep hills in thirty-three degree heat. Anyway, that’s my excuse for feeling drunk on two pints. I can also feel a cold sore brewing, which is a sure sign that I am feeling a bit run-down. Lucky, then, that today I only have to ride 40km to my Warm Showers hosts in the city of Banská Bystrica.

I’m staying with a family called the Mazanecs and, from reading feedback from their previous guests, it sounds like Jan and Evit will be a lovely couple. When I put in my request to be hosted I was answered almost immediately with a refreshingly open ‘Hi Rob, you are welcome at our place !’ I can tell I’m going to like them just from the tone of the messages. The ride to their home is uneventful though, save for cycling along Slovakia’s Route 66, which has tacky motels and souvenir shops that borrow heavily from the original Route 66 in America. I reach Banská Bystrica by mid-afternoon, find it’s bigger than I expected and spend a while negotiating the town centre before I get to the correct street. Jan meets me outside their block of flats, puts my bike in the basement storage locker and invites me inside.

As with most Warm Showers hosts, Jan and Evit are also fellow cyclists and therefore know the simple needs of a bike tourer. I have a shower, put my dirty clothes into the washing machine and Jan then cooks up a huge pot of carbohydrate-laden spaghetti. Into that we mix a tin of tomatoey mashed bean pulp, which he says takes him back to eating cheap, student meals at university. It tastes really good though, especially with grated cheese on top and I’m actively encouraged to eat a super-sized helping because he knows I need the calories for cycling. By this time Evit has arrived home with two sleeping children who are transferred straight from her car to their beds. It’s not long before a tired Jan joins them in their slumber.

With the rest of the household having an afternoon nap, Evit has a chance to tell me all about her and Jan’s year and a half cycle trip in the Americas. At the time they had been living in Boston and working as seasonal guides on a whale watching boat. When their contracts ended they sailed on a friend’s yacht down the East coast of the USA, berthed in Haiti where they bought a pair of old ramshackle bikes and then cycled across Cuba. From there they moved on to Mexico, bought sturdier bikes and carried on riding through Central America, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile. It sounds like such a brilliant trip and it piques my sense of wanderlust just that little bit more. What I like most about these two people is that their sense of adventure didn’t just die out when they had kids – they’ve already taken cycle trips to Italy and Vienna with the children in tow and the eldest boy, Janko, could ride a bike without stabilisers at two years old. What is more astonishing is that now with a three year old, a toddler and another on the way they are already planning their next cycling expedition in Iran. I find it inspiring that these two ordinary people are so positive about doing extraordinary things, although it does make my little jaunt through Europe seem very routine in comparison.

When the kids wake up, young Koloman is endearingly shy at first but soon transforms into an energetic, smiling little dude. He’s only one year old but is a chunky little beefcake, brought on by the fact that he will eat any food that gets within his grabbing range – salads, veggies and even green olives are all dispatched with great enthusiasm. We sit downstairs at a table outside their flat and have salmon salad for dinner, before returning indoors as darkness falls. The evening is spent chatting about travelling, life in general and also addressing the all-important issue of whether the ‘Loch Ness Creature’ exists or not. Citing no scientific evidence whatsoever, I tell them it’s such a huge body of water that anything could be living in there. We’re still talking at midnight with Janko fast asleep and sprawled on the couch between us. Before I go to bed Evit asks me to sign a guestbook that they use as a keepsake and memento from all their Warm Showers guests. I have a look through all the other messages first and am not at all surprised to find an outpouring of compliments and appreciation. I scribble my entry, but find it quite difficult thinking up new words to try and describe how positive, friendly and welcoming the Mazanec family have been. This feeling is compounded when they insist I should have the kids’ room all to myself, while all four of them share the main bedroom.

The next morning for breakfast we have bread with pate and a sort of light coloured Swiss Roll option that uses sunflower seeds instead of chocolate as a filling. Then I’m introduced to another family tradition whereby every guest pins a home-made paper flag into a wall map to show which country they’re from. I dutifully stick a small blue flag halfway up the West Coast of Scotland. This map is also like a giant scratchcard, where you can scratch off the original gold coloured surface of every country you’ve visited to reveal it in greater detail underneath, which is a concept that really appeals. Amongst their other wall decorations is a Slovakian flag which they received as a present from their boss at the whale watching tours. This flag then accompanied them from Boston and was tied to one of their bikes for the entire journey through Central and South America. It was caught up in the bike’s chain a few times and received various other injuries so it does look a bit old and battered, but nevertheless it’s still a great souvenir from their trip. I toyed with the idea of having a Scotland flag patch on my panniers but then decided against it. Part of me regrets not doing that now, especially when I hear how often their Slovakian flag acted as an ice-breaker in new surroundings.

Jan has to leave early so I shake his hand and thank him wholeheartedly for his hospitality. Evit and the kids come downstairs with me when I leave to say Goodbye and to spend some time playing outside. She looks at the gel seat cover on my saddle and has a good laugh when I tell her I also wear two pairs of padded cycling shorts to cushion my rear. ‘You spoil your ass’ is her unsympathetic verdict.

I leave Banská Bystrica full of optimism and with my faith in human nature renewed somewhat. I probably only spent half a day in total with the Mazanecs, but I already know it will be one of the highlights of my time in Slovakia. It’s just good for the soul to have met such a genuinely charming family.

 

 

 

6th AUGUST 2018

We wake early at Monika’s as her first floor flat is on the noisy main road into the centre of Nowy Sacz. She looks dog tired, but still cooks up a breakfast of scrambled egg on toast with onion and tomato, for which I am very grateful. I say Goodbye and take the pot-holed and busy road out of town, trudging along slowly until I reach a petrol station at a roundabout. A queue has backed up on the road leading from Slovakia which makes me wonder why I’m entering a country when it seems that everyone else is leaving. It also reminds me to spend the last of my remaining zloty coins as I’ll have no use for them again once I leave Poland. I don’t have quite enough for a proper feed, so my last Polish transaction involves only me and two chocolate bars. The girl who served me gets to keep the rest of my change.

As I get closer to the border the road gets slightly hillier, but also becomes an awful lot quieter. I cross a bridge over the Poprad River, which provides a natural boundary between the two countries and am greeted by signage at the halfway point telling me that I’m now crossing into Slovakia. My main thought at this point is that I’m relieved to have made it through Poland after all the horror stories and warnings I received about its roads and drivers. Of course that advice wasn’t given without reason – in broad terms the main roads were fast and dangerous, while the country roads were mostly slow and bumpy. My job was to pick a way through the country from North to South using a mixture of both, although going so far East that the locals spoke Russian was possibly slightly excessive.

I’ve only ridden a few hundred metres from the border when the road starts to snake it’s way up a densely forested hill. There are some shady sections that I feel thankful for and some exposed sections that have me dripping with sweat as I climb. I just keep plodding upwards and reach the summit after 8km, before a long downhill takes me into my first Slovakian villages. Quite often when crossing a border the two countries seem to merge into one another, but going into Slovakia feels immediately different. The landscape is certainly more mountainous and, once I’m over that first big hill, the country just feels generally poorer. Houses look older and in some disrepair compared with Poland, while most towns look a little unkempt and run-down. And, although it’s only 20km since the border, even the people look a couple of shades darker. At first I think they look almost Indian, but then realise it’s more of a Romany gypsy or dark Mediterranean colour.

There’s a fair bit of cloud cover by mid-afternoon, which is good for cycling but not so good for seeing the dark, spiky mountain range rising to my right. I keep getting tantalising glimpses through the gloom, but only ever for a few minutes before clouds return to re-shroud the view. The road has been following a river upstream, but a steady tailwind pushes me along nicely until I reach the village of Vrbov. I check into a guesthouse, where a Dutch guy and his Slovakian wife rent out rooms on the first floor of their house. He tells me about the Vrbov thermal springs, and the thought of languishing my tired limbs in hot mineral water prompts me to make tomorrow a Rest Day. I go for a pizza and a beer in one of the village’s two restaurants and am delighted to find that the beer costs just over a pound for half a litre.

When my Rest Day arrives I have big plans to visit the thermal hot springs and possibly even cycle to the next town and back to withdraw some Euros as we’ve changed currencies again. The cycling plan is quickly shelved though, as the whole point of a Rest Day is to stay off the bike and let your body recover. Instead I go to the village store, where a language barrier sees me using a lot of pointing and thumbs-up gestures to secure what I want. In amongst my purchases I buy spaghetti and what I think is a jar of tomato flavoured pasta sauce. When I open the jar though, I find that it contains only red peppers in their own watery thin juices. Nonetheless, it doesn’t go to waste and at least adds a bit of colour to the spaghetti. After lunch I start to feel unexpectedly tired and crash out for two hours. On waking I find that I now have absolutely no motivation to walk to the hot springs whatsoever. Short of staying in bed, I don’t think my Rest Day could have been any more lethargic.

On the day I leave Vrbov I finally get to see the mountain range – The High Tatras – that have been hidden by cloud for the past two days. Jagged and majestic, there are more than twenty peaks which form a large chunk of the border between Slovakia and Poland. In the distance today they’ve taken on an almost dark blue or purple colour as they point up into the light blue sky. I wish they’d been visible for the whole three days as they are spectacular and I’ve not seen anything even resembling a mountain since Finland.

My ride is going to take me over The Low Tatras, which aren’t as grand or spectacular as their big cousins but will still pose a test for me on a bike. I take a minor country road and pass through a poor, untidy village where small brown children are playing outside with no clothes on. As I cycle past their front yard a posse of eight or nine run to the road while shouting and waving at me. Some of them could be street urchins straight out of Oliver Twist.

All morning I’ve been making small climbs and descents in a fierce, draining heat but all that changes shortly after Vernar. As I leave the village a roadsign tells me to expect an uphill gradient of twelve percent for the next 5km, and consequently my capacity for swearing out loud is once again triggered. I stop beside the sign to take on some water and prepare myself to get into a slow, plodding rhythm. The climb is definitely twelve percent in some sections, but thankfully a lot of it is less steep. I stop on a number of occasions, either for water or to wipe away the rivers of sweat that are running off my brow, into my eyes and down my cheeks and nose. I’m losing so much moisture through my pores I’m beginning to resemble a wet sponge that is being squeezed. By the summit I’m only fit to stand there for a few minutes as a breathless, dripping mess. I also see a sign saying there will now be a downhill gradient of twelve percent, but this time only for 2km. I feel like I have been thoroughly ripped off after all the effort and time taken on the 5km ascent. There’s not even a decent view from up here as the tree coverage is so thick.

However, what the sign didn’t tell me was that after the 2km steep slope I’d then have almost 20km of gradual downhill to follow. Even when it appears to have flattened out I can see that the road is following a river once again, only this time it’s flowing downstream and therefore downhill. On the outskirts of some towns there are scattered pockets of folk standing along the roadside with catering sized tubs of blueberries and lingonberries for sale. It must have taken them ages to pick enough to fill those containers. There are also trays of what looks like batches of flat, home-made doughnuts on offer too, but I don’t want to stop and break my momentum when I’m flying along so effortlessly.

I get to the town of Brezno where I check in to a building above a courtyard that is primarily a restaurant but also rents out rooms. One young waitress has been given the task of dealing with me as she is the only staff member that can speak English well enough. She shows me the room and explains everything fluently, although she does get terribly confused when trying to explain the uses of all five keys on my set. As a result of her recommendation I eat in the restaurant and choose a tasting plate of cheeses, onion, tomatoes, chorizo and a type of fried, long mushrooms that have the same texture as bamboo shoots. All of this is washed down with another pound-a-pint beer while I sit and watch the everyday goings on in the courtyard below.

The Wi-Fi in our building isn’t connecting so I move to a hotel on the main square to use theirs and, just to be polite, order another beer. It turns out the internet here is almost as bad, with only Google Maps and Facebook working so I head back to my room. I attempt the simple job of eating a sandwich, but my co-ordination is all over the place. Most of it ends up as crumbs on the floor and, while I’m giggling, I realise that I feel half-pissed after two pints ! By 9.00pm I’m fast asleep with the lights on and my contact lenses still in my eyes. A combination of today’s heat and hills has dehydrated me so much that beer has gone straight into my bloodstream to replace all the lost fluids. I wake around 3.00am, take an enormous drink of water, remove the contacts that are now stuck to my dry eyes and turn off the lights. I’ll be mortified if I have a two pint hangover tomorrow.

3rd AUGUST 2018

My plans for a Rest Day in Sandomierz have been thwarted, so I decide I’m only going to ride 20km to Tarnobrzeg and will have a ‘short day’ instead. I leave town by crossing the Vistula River once again and on the bridge I turn round to see the spires and turrets of Sandomierz Old Town high on a hill behind me. I then spend most of my short trip on uneven pavements and crumbling cycle paths until I reach the unremarkable town of Tarnobrzeg around mid-day. I check in to a Pension where I’m given an odd-smelling basement room and proceed to catch up on my Rest Day activities of chatting on skype, writing the blog and shopping to satisfy my still ravenous craving for chilled food.

The next morning I vacate my basement cave and follow the contours of a huge lake to get out of town. I’ve been cycling for nearly an hour when I have a strange, uneasy feeling that I may have left my tyre pump back at the accommodation – I’d taken it from one of the panniers with the intention of pumping up my tyres before I left. I just don’t remember putting it back. I actually think to myself how awful it would be to get a puncture on the one day that I don’t have a pump. Half an hour later, and with a certain inevitability, my back tyre goes flat. It’s almost like I’ve wished this upon myself by thinking about it.

I pull over into a rest area at the roadside and begin the process of getting all my gear off the bike. I find all the tools I’ll need to remove the tyre from the wheel rim, but I’m now looking for my pump with a feeling of increasing dread. It’s not in the first pannier, so it has to be in the second one, right ? I open the remaining pannier and take out the two bags of clothing that should be covering my pump. I delve my hand in slowly and am more than a little relieved to feel the pump nestling at the bottom. Thank Goodness for that ! I upend the bike, get the tyre off and replace the damaged inner tube. I notice a few tiny bits of twigs and stones have found their way onto the inside of the tyre rim as it’s a dusty, gravelly rest area. I try my best to remove every last foreign object because any sharp remnants could quickly puncture the new inner tube.

I carry on through the busy town of Mielec and then over the main motorway that runs between Krakow and Rzeszow, where a queue of cars have stopped on the bridge. They are all gawping at a fire in a motorway services building that has already sent clouds of black smoke billowing upwards into the blue sky. I stop to watch the drama, which takes a comedic turn when two speeding fire engines take the wrong motorway exit to access the fire. A good five minutes is wasted as they have to turn round and cross our bridge to approach the fire from the correct junction.

Once the fire is under control everyone loses interest and carries on with their journeys, myself included. I have a nice long downhill through late afternoon countryside and get to within 5km of my accommodation when my back tyre deflates once again. You have got to be kidding me ! I haven’t had a single puncture in 3,000km and then I get two on the same day. I go through the whole rigmarole of changing the inner tube again and get to my accommodation using my one remaining healthy specimen.

In the evening I repair both punctured tubes using glue and patches. The first one had a small hole right beside the valve, which was probably a result of bumpy Polish country roads and also having to continually jump on and off pavements. The second had a hole right in the middle of the tube’s outer, where it was in contact with the inside of the tyre. There were also signs of scraping before the tube eventually punctured, which means the culprit was probably a small stone that got trapped between the tyre and tube. Annoyingly, that one was my fault for not being thorough enough in removing all the tiny debris from the tyre when I changed the first puncture. With my inner tubes successfully repaired, I fall asleep to sounds of singing from a Polish wedding reception downstairs.

The following morning’s breakfast buffet is as tasty as it is enormous. I stuff myself with eggs, sausage, pasta, cereal, bread, yoghurt and even miniature cakes. I then struggle back up two flights of stairs with all the grace of an obese turkey to fetch my gear for today’s cycle, which should hopefully be my last full day in Poland. Miraculously, I’ve even managed to find a couchsurfer in Nowy Sacz – my first since Norway – so I’ll hopefully get to see the town through the eyes of a local. I use the word ‘miraculously’ as Couchsurfing has been next to useless on this trip compared to the cycle-friendly Warm Showers hosting site.

I’m still a little worried about puncturing today and for the first few kilometres I ride along tentatively, half expecting my back tyre to deflate again. As the day progresses though, I start to think less about my tyre and more about the monstrous, towering thunderclouds that are building up ahead of me. These sort of clouds tend to form during the afternoon and usually try to coincide their downpour with my arrival in a town. Today proves no exception. I’m about 10km from Nowy Sacz and climbing the steepest hill I’ve seen since Norway, when great flashing forks of lightning start to illuminate the sky ahead. When I reach the summit it feels like the cloudbase is so low that I could almost reach up and touch it. There’s a steep downhill on the other side, so I start to descend quickly while it remains dry because it would be bloody treacherous in the midst of a thunderstorm. I get to within 5km before it rains, but I’m so close that I just put on a kagoule and continue.

I go to meet my couchsurfer, Monika, who invites me in and we put my bike in her basement storage space. Every flat here has a lockable store room underneath the building. She’s just finished work and is in no mood for cooking, so asks if I want to try some traditional Polish food. This sounds like splendid fare to me so we walk to town and into a restaurant that is one flight of stairs below street level. There’s no way I would have stumbled upon this place by chance, which is why I’m so grateful for some local knowledge.

I let her order for me with the only caveat being that I will eat whatever’s on my plate as long as it’s a traditional Polish dish. For starters we have zurek soup, which is slightly sour and contains cream, portions of sausage and halves of hard boiled egg. This is accompanied by a weird, fermented bread drink that smells alcoholic (but isn’t) and tastes like ginger beer. For the main we share a plate of pierogi, which are a sort of ravioli / dumpling hybrid containing different fillings like cheese, minced meat or mushroom. I’m certainly no food critic, but I can say that the soup was delicious and creamy, the bread drink was strangely OK and unfortunately the pierogi were just a little bit bland.

We go for coffee at her mates coffee shop where she casually drops the topic of de-structured water into the conversation. I’m told that people in Siberia were found to be fairly healthy despite having a poor diet, which is apparently a result of drinking water that has been frozen and therefore has a different molecular structure to normal, everyday water. So now all the water she drinks comes through a tap filter first, is then boiled and finally twice frozen to change its molecular structure. I’ve no idea if this actually works, but of course she says she feels much healthier than before due to drinking de-structured water. Oddly, after all that health-obsessed talk we go for a beer.

It turns out that we are quite different people, but I suppose one of the beauties  of hosting websites is that they bring people together who wouldn’t normally meet. I really appreciate being hosted by her, but I think she’s mildly disappointed that I don’t want every single conversation to be deep-thinking and meaningful. Sometimes I’m up for that, but today is my birthday and I just want some good food, a beer and someone to chat shit to. However, on the bright side, at least I know I won’t be facing a two day hangover like on my last birthday. And that’s just as well because tomorrow I’ll be cycling in thirty-two degree heat and climbing into the hills of Slovakia.

 

 

1st AUGUST 2018

I leave Kock after absolutely gorging myself on the enormous All You Can Eat breakfast buffet laid on by my hotel. Many of the choices seem to be more suited to main meals than breakfast – fried chicken, salads, pastas – but that doesn’t stop me consuming most of my recommended daily calories in one sitting. Also eating are four big guys whose military outfits suggest they are in the Polish army. They don’t have much breakfast, but instead buy around twelve bottles of spirits from the bar as they leave.

The road out of town is infested with roadworks, which is an annoyance at first as I often have to stand in the hot sun waiting for red lights to change. Then I begin to realise it’s a good thing as it holds up traffic for me once I’m through the roadwork. I don’t mind pulling over to let a line of vehicles past if it means I get the road to myself for five minutes afterwards. Then I take quiet roads for 20km, riding through wheat fields and villages that always seem to contain an unhappy-looking religious statue, a couple of big scruffy stork’s nests and a dozen barking dogs. Thankfully, all the dogs so far have been fenced in, because all I have to defend myself are a water bottle or the sole of my boots. I’ve heard of some cyclists who carry pepper spray in case of dog attacks, although I’ve not quite reached that stage yet.

When I rejoin the main road I’m plagued by lorries and motorway redirections until the town of Pulawy, where I cross the Vistula River for the first time. This is the longest river in Poland, flowing from the Carpathian Mountains in the south to Warsaw and eventually all the way to the Baltic Sea. Once I get across the river I’m faced with a long, slow climb on the other side and there’s not a puff of wind to cool me. Sweat is running between my eyebrows, down my nose and dripping from the end like a leaky tap. My God, it is hot.

I’m back on minor roads towards the end of today’s cycle through pleasant countryside of corn fields, wheat fields and wooded areas. At one point I hear a loud thumping, which turns out to be a red squirrel charging around on the forest floor like it hasn’t a care in the world. It can’t hear my freewheeling approach due to the racket it’s making, and I get to within a few feet before it spots me and scampers up a tree.

By late afternoon I get to a roadside Penzion run by a bloke wearing a red ‘Polska’ t-shirt that makes him look like a football hooligan. My room upstairs is small and has no curtain or blind on the skylight window, so I’ll have to blindfold myself with a towel if I don’t want sunlight to wake me up at 6.00am. I open the window as the room is stiflingly hot, but after sunset this only encourages a squadron of mosquitos inside. It takes a while to dispose of these intruders, but I have to close the window and lie listlessly in the heat to ensure a bug-free night.

As my Penzion is in the middle of nowhere there are no breakfast options, so I just munch on my road food leftovers to get me started. The target for me today is reaching the town of Sandomierz, but it’s straight down the busy Number 79 Road and I’d rather avoid that. I try to find a route that will get me there using quiet roads, but it looks like they all involve huge detours and riding extra, wasted kilometres. Then I think outside the square and consider going down the other side of the river. Even Google Maps didn’t think of that one. It would mean re-crossing the Vistula again, but it looks like it will be quiet and won’t add too many unwanted extra kilometres. I decide to go for it as the smaller roads have been improving since I left Eastern Poland and, consequently, so has my arse.

However, I seem to have conveniently forgotten yesterday’s uphill struggle from the river, which today I have to repeat in the opposite direction. The temperature has also risen a degree or two, which means that this time I end up even more breathless and sweaty. Once at the top though, I find I’m surrounded by apple orchards and can get a good view back over the river at some spots. The payback comes in the form of a lovely descent when I have to get back down to river level to cross once again. The final 25km to Sandomierz are on a fast and increasingly busy road, which I speed along in an effort to beat some ominous dark clouds that are hanging low over the town. I get to within 5km before a torrential downpour sends me scurrying into a yet another bus shelter to escape a drenching. Within ten minutes the cloudburst ends just as suddenly as it began, but it does bring some welcome relief from the heat. I’m still relatively dry by the time I reach the street my accommodation is on. I get to within twenty metres and am waiting to cross the road when a passing car goes through a puddle, sending an arc of water right up onto my belly. I swear out loud, using a duo of really bad words.

As I’m checking in I can’t help but notice a huge print hanging on the wall behind reception. It’s a stunning aerial view of an Old Town square and I ask the bloke if the town in the picture is Sandomierz. He confirms that it is, and then says that it’s only a 200 metre walk away. With my lack of research this is a real bonus for me as I didn’t even know Sandomierz had an Old Town. Off I happily wander to be greeted by medieval churches, cathedrals, an old palace, towers, arches, cobblestones, bars and restaurants. All the attractions are within a short stroll so there’s a nice cosy feel to the place, especially as everything is bathed in that magical yellow light you get in the hour before sunset. A Scottish family stop me to ask if I can take their picture, without realising I’m from Scotland. I keep quiet for as long as I can, while trying not to laugh, before I finally surprise them by asking where their accent is from. I spend a while chatting with them and then visit a supermarket where I have great fun miming ‘mosquito spray’ to a shelf stacker.

I was hoping to stay two days in Sandomierz, but unfortunately my accommodation is already fully booked and other places are quite expensive. But, nonetheless, I’ve been really impressed with the town. It’s always good when you stumble upon a place that you take to instantaneously. And all the better because it was so unexpected.

 

 

 

30th JULY 2018

Somehow I’ve got myself so far East in Poland that I’m almost in Belarus, so I really need to change direction and start moving West as well as South. This in turn gets me thinking about my original goal of wanting to cycle all the way from the Arctic to the Mediterranean. The question facing me now is which point on the Mediterranean coast should I realistically be aiming for ?

This decision is influenced by having to be back in the UK by mid September, so I do have a deadline of sorts. My original thought was that I could make it to the South coast of Turkey, but I’ve left myself a lot to do if I want to get that far. Besides, I really don’t want to be pushing myself through hilly Turkey in baking hot August temperatures just to make a deadline. The alternative, and easiest option, would be to head straight for the sea in Croatia or Slovenia, which are the closest parts of the Med to where I am currently. So, it looks like reaching Turkey will be too difficult with my timescale, whereas getting to Croatia isn’t going to be much of a challenge. In the end I settle for Sarande in Albania, which is about halfway between the two. This will still test me but hopefully won’t wreck me in the process. The clincher is that from there it’s only a short ferry ride to Corfu and direct flights back to Glasgow.

With a final destination sorted in my head I leave the strange Russian-influenced village of Dubicze Cerkiewne and move steadily South-West. For the most part I even manage to avoid the horribly busy Number 19 Road and stick to quiet, safer routes through the countryside. I’ve noticed that the road quality is improving the further I get from Eastern Poland, although now I’m having to share with dozens of tractors and combine harvesters. At one point I’m joined by an old guy on an ancient rickety bike who’s carrying two metal milk urns as he rides along. He speaks no English and I speak no Polish. I keep trying to tell him I’m from ‘Scotland’ but he keeps replying ‘Holland ?’ Eventually something clicks and he asks ‘Scots ?’ I nod and smile before he breaks into a huge grin and says ‘Whisky !’ We cycle along together for a bit, talking to each other in our own languages and not understanding a word that the other is saying. We both seem quite happy with this arrangement until eventually he stops at a farm, either to milk cows or to give the urns back.

I stop for the night at a sort of petrol station / truck stop that has rooms above for rent. Poland is so gloriously cheap that I’m now getting a single room for the same price as a camping pitch in Finland.

In the morning I do something that I’ve been meaning to do for ages – swap the tyres on my bike over. I don’t use front panniers so when I’m fully loaded all the weight I’m carrying is on the rear of the bike. As a consequence of this my back tyre has been worn down so that it’s almost smooth, while the front tyre looks like it’s barely been used. I’ve been procrastinating for days on this as it’s a faffy little job, but now hopefully swapping them will prolong the life of the sad looking rear tyre.

I cycled 100km yesterday, so today I’m glad that only half that distance will get me to the marvellously named town of Kock. I’m on the nasty Number 19 Road for most of the day, although I do spend half an hour in a bus shelter to escape a thundery downpour that splatters fat raindrops noisily onto the road. By mid afternoon as I near my destination the air around me still remains hot and humid. I turn off the Number 19 Road for the very last time and say something along the lines of ‘Good Riddance,’ knowing that I won’t have to suffer it again. Just as I utter the words an enormous, violent crack of lightning strikes a power line not 500 metres ahead of me. It’s so loud and powerful that it makes me physically jump in my seat and I can almost taste the static in my mouth afterwards. I really don’t want to get hit by lightning. Not here. I don’t want to die in a town called Kock. I have visions of my obituary reading ‘He was struck by lightning just as he was about to reach the safety of Kock.’

My accommodation tonight is in an old palatial hotel called The President. It is gleaming white inside so I feel a little out of place pushing a dirty bike into the foyer while covered in sweat and sunscreen. Adding to the glitz there’s a huge, ostentatious chandelier hanging above reception that is about the size of a car, and probably weighs much the same. The head receptionist clearly doesn’t like the look of me and I’m certain she’s about to tell me they are fully booked. However, much to her obvious dismay, I have a reservation and have already paid for my room. Despite the glamourous surroundings in reception, the rooms are fairly standard and my night costs the equivalent of £20, which is still cheaper than some Finnish campsites.

I go to a Biedronka, which is like a Polish Lidl, and stock up on food for today and tomorrow. For the last few days I’ve had a real craving for anything from the chilled cabinet – potato salads, pastas, yoghurt, refrigerated drinks and even tubs of marinated fish. I guess it’s my body telling me what it needs to replace all the salt and minerals that I sweat out during the day.

In the evening I take a walk into town to have a look around, but mostly to see if I can spot signage for some Kock businesses and therefore amuse my immature mind. I was hoping to find Kock Massage, Kock Doctor or the Kock Police, but sadly the best name I can find is Kebab Kock. However, in addition to the obvious comedy value of getting to a town called Kock, it also represents progress for me as it marks roughly the midway point of cycling through Poland. Considering all the warnings I’ve had about the roads and traffic, I’m pleased to have made it this far without major incident.

 

28th JULY 2018

I’m woken around 7.30am by the sounds of some type of sporting activity taking place on the lakeside, which gets me thinking that this is rather an odd location for a campsite. We are hidden behind sports club changing rooms, hangar type buildings for storing rowing equipment and, when I pop my head out the tent, I find there is a beach volleyball tournament in full swing. The small tent area, with its rock hard mesh grass, seems very much out of place amidst all this competitiveness. There’s no hope of extra sleep, so I pack up the tent and depart, slowly walking my bike past all the noisy rowers and volleyballers.

My first stop of the day is at a petrol station, where I buy a sandwich and a drink so that I can use their Wi-Fi while having breakfast. I want to get some accommodation booked for tonight, and that way there will be no temptation for me to just keep cycling for hours like yesterday. I find a farmstay based mostly on price, but also the fact that I can use country roads to get there.

I take a back road out of Bialystok that is littered with Saturday morning road works. There’s also a guy in his thirties who’s still pissed from last night and trying to cross the road while being almost unable to walk. He staggers across eventually and slumps down with his back against a corrugated iron fence, so that he’s facing the road and in direct, blazing sunlight. He falls unconscious with one hand inside a jumbo bag of crisps. I keep going and watch in dismay as the road gets more bumpy and potholed the further I get from Bialystok. Then, I have to bounce along a 15km section where only one side of the road has been surfaced with the patchiest of asphalt, while the other side is nothing more than a dirt track.

My disgrace of a road eventually leads back to the busy Number 19 Route for a few kilometres, before I’m able to exit again and start heading East. This time the entire road has been surfaced, but with a mix that contains far more stones than is necessary for the comfort of one’s bottom. I pass through a handful of similar little villages that line the road with names like Ploski and Krzywa, all with a church, barking dogs behind garden fences and a couple of large, messy stork’s nests atop telegraph poles.

As I near my accommodation I notice that signs for villages are now written in both Polish and Russian, which reflects the fact that I’m only 20km from the Belarus border at this point. When I do reach Dubicze Cerkiewne the first landmark I pass is a cemetery which seems to be divided in two – one half has blue crosses above the gravestones, while the other just has normal stone crosses. I find out later that blue crosses are for the Russian Orthodox church.

My ‘farmstay’ turns out to be on the first floor of a creaky, old wooden house and I notice my bedroom has one wall taken up by a bookshelf consisting solely of religious books. I ask the elderly owners if there’s anywhere in the village to buy food, because if there is then I’ll likely stay for two nights. The old lady then says she would be able to provide a couple of meals for me, so I duly book myself in for an extra night. I’m invited down for dinner later and am served up a whole jumble of small dishes, beginning with a bowl of veggie and noodle soup. That is followed by a little plate with tomato, cucumber and peppers, one with ham, cheese and pork, bread, home-made jam, some kind of pancakes and apples from the tree outside. I am well and truly sated by the time I finish.

It turns out that the old fellow (Anatoly) is from Belarus originally and his wife (Olga) is Polish, although the whole family and most of the village speak Russian. They live with their daughter in a modern bungalow at the rear of the former family home where I’m now staying. I discover that a family of Ukrainians (Dad, Mum and SEVEN kids) live on the ground floor below the rentals. Anatoly’s English is OK and the daughter’s is passable, but Olga’s isn’t quite so good. Her favourite catchphrase is bellowing ‘EAT !’ at me any time I stop munching her food to chat for a minute.

At one point I’m almost certain that Anatoly asks me if I’d like a beer and to hear them singing in Russian. It sounds like it could be interesting culturally, and I quite fancy a beer so I accept enthusiastically. However, in the most horrible case of crossed wires, he has actually invited me to the Russian Orthodox church tomorrow morning to hear them singing in Russian. I’m still a little bewildered by how this has happened. Still, I have a few hours leeway in which to come up with a plausible excuse.

I’m woken on my Rest Day in Dubicze Cerkiewne by what sounds like, and probably is, an air-raid siren from the Second World War. This excessive, ear-splitting din lasts about a minute and I wonder if this is how the villagers are encouraged to attend church. Olga serves me breakfast, which is much the same fare as last night and most likely leftovers. I worm my way out of going to church by not washing, putting on my crumbliest clothes and saying I would feel embarrassed looking like this when everyone else is dressed up. They troop off to church, and as they are just round the corner, I can hear them all singing in Russian anyway.

For lunch we have mushroom and veggie soup to start, but without noodles this time. The entire second course consists of what looks like the fattest, longest black pudding I have ever seen. I’m looking forward to this as I do like a bit of offal at mealtimes. I take a bite and am left feeling disappointed as the inside is potato, which is filling, but a little bland.

After our enormous potato sausage, I’m witness to a somewhat bizarre turn of events. Anatoly, Olga and their daughter all begin to sing a religious song along the lines of ‘You have to read your bible if you want to grow up.’ Freakishly, they all raise their arms in the air when they get to the word ‘Up.’ I’m treated to the song in English first, then Russian, then Polish. One of their older sons is also present, but just shifts uncomfortably in his chair, arms clamped to the table while mumbling the words half-heartedly. The singers look unbelievably happy, but from my perspective it all looks a bit mad. I think of Homer Simpson being subjected to religious songs by the Flanders family and feel some kind of solidarity with him.

Just like Homer, I’m glad when the singing finishes and we can return to consuming food. Dessert comes in the shape of home-made jam biscuits and apple compote, along with fresh yellow plums and a type of sour blueberry. The daughter then wants me to listen to some gospel music on her lap-top, but by some kind of divine miracle, the songs won’t load. I make my excuses and leave them to it. They are a such a nice family, but I find their whole religious fervour a little creepy.

By late afternoon, the clouds that have been building all day finally release a downpour of thundery biblical proportions. It proves to be a great joy for the army of Ukrainian kids as they all take turns jumping around under an overflowing rainwater pipe. The water is warm too, as it has come down via a roof that has been bathed in sunshine most of the afternoon and has retained all that heat. By bedtime on this strange day, my only remaining task is applying Sudocream to my poor, grazed arse cheeks. All this time spent riding on bumpy roads recently has definitely had an adverse affect on my rear.

The following morning I receive my final breakfast from Olga, this time with home-made honey and cottage cheese thrown into the mix. I’m also given an itemised bill for all the meals I’ve had, so she wasn’t just feeding me from the goodness of her heart. Still, she only charges me ten zlotys per meal (£2.10 per meal) so I can’t really complain. I say Goodbye to them all and in turn they all shake my hand as I leave. They are actually a lovely family, but with that scary, unquestioning blind faith when it comes to religion. But, who knows, maybe that’s what makes them lovely. It’s certainly been a weekend that I’ll remember for a while.

 

 

26th JULY 2018

I leave my campsite at Marijampole after scoffing down a plate of hot rolls and bread that the reception girl sells as a money-making sideline. She must ask every customer if they want morning bread when they check in, as she spends the first hour of her day heating and delivering bakery goods.

With a full stomach, I continue on the same minor road that I used coming into town yesterday, before I join a main road for my last few kilometres in Lithuania. From here to the border there’s a nice metre-wide margin at the side of the road to allow for safe cycling. The border itself houses a few imposing looking buildings from when it was a functioning crossing, but today no-one is stopped and everyone passes through freely. The only official presence takes the form of three soldiers on the Lithuanian side, but they are just sitting under the shade of a tree and chatting. I wave as I pass and they return the gesture.

Once again, the only real giveaway that you’d crossed a border is a large sign on the Polish side advising of their traffic regulations. I’m a little apprehensive about cycling in Poland as I’ve heard a few bad reports about it – German Nicklas cycled from South to North and described the country as having ‘nasty roads and nasty drivers.’ Just as his warnings are swirling round my head the safe buffer zone at the road’s edge disappears, leaving me at the mercy of these awful Polish drivers.

As it turns out the drivers aren’t particularly nasty compared to anywhere else. The concern for me is that they often zip past at motorway speeds on this narrow-ish road. Thankfully though, the further I cycle from the border, the quieter the road becomes. Pretty soon I’m cycling through a pine forest, with twenty metre tall trees on each side of the road providing coolness and shade, but still with enough gaps to let dappled shafts of sunlight through. I follow this road towards Augustow, where a new-looking cycle path starts a good 15km from town. I don’t know it yet, but this is to become a recurring theme in Poland – good quality cycle paths when close to towns and cities, but next to nothing in between.

I’m staying with a Warm Showers host tonight named Jan (Yann), who lives about 4km North of the town. I takes me a little while to find his address, but I call at two houses beforehand and both instantly knew who I was talking about. When I find him he’s an affable chap who’s probably in his late fifties, and a veteran cycle-tourer. His first tour was from Poland to Hungary as a teenager in 1976, and since then he’s taken a month off every year to go travelling with a bike. Off the top of his head he recounts destinations in Europe, South East Asia, the Caribbean and Central America, although he’s bound to have been to more. His favourite cycle-trip country is Iran, which may be a surprise to some, but this isn’t the first time I’ve heard that from a cycle-tourer. According to people who’ve cycled there, the hospitality of the Iranian people is amazing.

It looks like he owns the holiday apartments across from his house, but must keep a room free for any cyclists who put in a request to be hosted. His own house is a huge, modern two-storey building and he’s clearly quite well-off. Another two cyclists show up that night and he lets them put up tents on grassland beside his private beach on the lakeside. I also notice that every single person who’s been kayaking or swimming at the lake goes to his house afterwards or stores all their gear there. He tells me he’s received so much hospitality during his cycle tours that now it’s good to be in a position to give something back. I’m shown to my accommodation, which is similar to a private room in a hotel and he just leaves me to it. I’m also shown the communal kitchen and he tells me to help myself if I don’t have enough food for tonight. What a thoroughly decent bloke.

The next morning I go to knock on Jan’s door to say Goodbye and Thank-You. He arrives in a dressing gown like Hugh Hefner, clearly a little bleary and hungover after a few wines last night. He shakes my hand and tells me Poland is a great country to cycle in because it has good food and it’s cheap. I go back into town to withdraw some Polish Zlotys and then immediately go to Lidl and spend some on road food.

I’m on a mission to avoid major roads today, so head East out of Augustow when really I should be moving South. The cycle path I’m on has signs for the Green Velo cycle route, which German Nicklas had used in his trip and had recommended to me. It doesn’t always go in the direction you want and is sometimes reduced to a sand track, but it does cover a fair chunk of Eastern Poland. I also see a sign telling me that it’s 32km before I reach Lipsk and am able to turn South again. I feel this is a wasted distance as I’m travelling in the wrong direction, even though the road is quiet. After Lipsk the road quality becomes shockingly bad and I bounce along uncomfortably for the 40km it takes me reach Sokolka.

Now I really have no choice but to join the busy Route 19 to Bialystok. There are a lot of trucks on this road and I’ll often take to riding in the roadside gravel if I hear one approaching from behind. Even if I see a queue of trucks coming towards me I’ll sometimes just pull in to the side anyway to be safe. By this point I’m thinking I’ll stop for the day if I see a campsite any time before the city.

Strangely though, I start to focus that bit more because it’s so busy and my head gets into a ‘just keep going’ mode. A long, well-timed downhill then speeds me towards Bialystok and now I decide that I’m going to get through the city to the campsite tonight. I’m able to skirt round the city centre fairly easily by using a network of brilliantly smooth cycle paths that follow the motorway. The campsite itself should be easy to find as it’s beside a lake on probably the only stretch of beach in the whole of Bialystok. However, I still almost conspire to miss it as it’s tucked away behind a sports club that uses the same lakefront. I have to walk my bike past beach volleyball courts, changing rooms and children’s play areas, before a security guard on a bike gets me to follow him to the camping area.

I’m treated to another lakeside sunset, with clouds reflecting a pinky-orange glow onto the boating lake. It’s a nice way to round off a long day, but it’s almost dark by the time I get my tent set up. With my winding round-about route today I’ve ended up travelling 130km. That’s eighty miles. I’m not sure cycling that amount of kilometres every day just to avoid busy roads is a sustainable tactic. I’ll wreck myself. And, besides, even though it was quiet to begin with I finished the day on a busy main road anyway ! I feel that getting through Poland may prove a bit of a conundrum.

21st JULY 2018

It’s a Saturday morning when I leave Riga and, although it isn’t too early, the other five bodies in my dorm are motionless. I quietly take all my gear out the room and begin packing it next to the lift so I don’t disturb the sleeping and hungover. Eliza pops out to say Goodbye and gives me a surprisingly crushing handshake before I depart.

I use cycle paths to pick my way out of the city and across the river, then simply start following the Via Baltica south once again. I’ve been cycling on this road for a few days now, building up a bit of a love / hate relationship with it. I love it’s directness, but I hate it’s traffic. However, I realise I’ll have to stick with it unless I want to add twenty or thirty kilometres to my total every day.

Today’s cycle is a short, straightforward one at only 40km, and is based mostly around my accommodation choices. I pull into a cheap roadside motel, to be met in the lobby bar by an ancient German man who reminds me of the confused Major in Fawlty Towers. We talk for a while and, when no staff attend to me, he shuffles off to ring the desk bell loudly and angrily on my behalf. Luckily he remains at the desk so the owners don’t mistakenly think it was me trying to rudely get their attention. I check in, put my bike in their garage and see how all my Lithuanian Warm Showers and Couchsurfing requests have fared. To my dismay, about half have declined and half haven’t replied. This is such a shame as spending time with a local gives you a much better feel for their country. I’ve never set foot in Lithuania yet, but I’m already a bit grumpy with them.

There also comes a time in every long cycle trip where you just have to get your head down and do some miles. If I want to reach the Mediterranean by mid-September then I’m going to have to get a wriggle on, and it’s probably better to do it now while I’m riding in countryside that’s flat. With this in mind, I resolve to start in earnest the following day.

On waking, my enthusiasm is dulled somewhat as it’s already baking hot before I leave. I’ve already added one more water bottle to my tally, which means I now start each day with four full vessels. In each new country I always ask the locals if it’s OK to drink their tap water. So far every single person has said that it’s safe and some even seem quite offended by the question. I have been putting my faith in them though and have drunk tap water since Day One. This either means that it is actually safe, or my stomach has become accustomed to housing different microbes than it normally does.

Despite the heat, I just keep spinning the pedals and reach the Lithuanian border some 50km later. There are some roadworks beforehand and I’m joined at the head of the queue by a car containing two guys in their twenties. We’re going to be waiting a while so we have a bit of chat. It turns out they are French and are driving to the capital, Vilnius, which will complete their tour of the Baltic States. They offer me an unopened bottle of water, which is a nice touch as they must recognise the struggle of cycling in today’s heat. It suddenly strikes me as strange that I’ve been passed by thousands of locals, yet it’s two French guys that are the first to offer me some water.

I cross the border without really being aware that I had. There’s no flags or touristy ‘Welcome to Lithuania’ stuff, just a massive roadsign telling me what the speed limits and road regulations are here. I much prefer a bit of pomp and ceremony at my border crossings.

After being underwhelmed by the border I realise I’m not even at the halfway stage of today’s cycle. However, the kilometres have been passing quickly as I’ve been keeping my mind active. I read an article on-line yesterday about a woman who, as an experiment, tried to get through a twenty-four hour flight from Sydney to London without having to switch on the entertainment system. Her tactic was to try and distract herself by attempting to remember the names of all her old school teachers and such-like. Apparently this worked so well that she barely noticed the time passing and she reached London in a Zen-like state of relaxation. In a slightly different take on this, today I’m trying to recall the running order and singing each song on albums I used to listen to in my teens. I choose Greatest Hits albums too, just to make the game last longer. I check later and surprise myself by getting more correct than I would have imagined. And it works ! What should have been a difficult cycle of 110km in draining heat is somehow made easier by distracting myself with trivia. However, I’m certainly in no Zen-like state on my arrival in Panevezys. (Pan-Ehh-Vicious)

I check into a motel / hostel hybrid on a busy crossroads and get ready to take a shower. I’m just about to jump under the water when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I’m actually glistening with sweat to the point where it looks like I’ve been oiled up with lotion. The next thirty minutes are spent in the shower cleaning up and cooling down. The bedroom is still stiflingly hot though, so all that time in the shower may just prove to be a temporary respite. I open the window to let in some fresh air, but that inevitably also brings in an influx of flying bugs. Especially green ones.

The following morning feels a little bit Groundhog Day as, once again, I have to cycle 110km on another baking hot day. I’m told that Panevezys is Lithuania’s fifth largest city, but I find my way out easily enough using a combination of terrible roads and even worse cycle paths. I’m aiming for Kaunas today as it’s on my route and a convenient distance away, despite me saying that I’d try to avoid any more big cities.

If anything, it’s even hotter than yesterday. There are clouds teasing me with the promise of cover but they remain tantalisingly out of reach on the horizon. The road I’m cycling on passes straight through flat, dry, golden wheat fields and often has long stretches without any shade. Tractors and combine harvesters are my constant companions today as they transport crops and move between fields. I’m using any excuse so I can stop for a break – re-applying sunscreen, food stops, buying drinks at every petrol station. Even when I pass through a shaded area I’ll sometimes pause for a while just to get out of the sun.

About 30km from Kaunas I’m able to turn off onto a quieter road that passes by some smaller farms and run down looking towns. The silence is almost eerie after the main road and it’s soothing to give my left ear a break from the sound of traffic buzzing noisily past. I have a laugh to myself at a roadsign warning of a six per cent gradient – that would be a gentle slope in the UK, but it’s probably more testament to the flatness of the countryside around here. I still haven’t seen a proper hill since Finland.

As I get nearer Kaunas the road starts to get busier, while simultaneously deteriorating in quality. I have to use motorway slip roads on occasion as cycle paths often just reach an abrupt dead end. On first impressions it’s quite an ugly city with many old Soviet-style apartment blocks and more roadworks than I would ever have thought necessary. This city actually feels busier than Riga to me, yet has only about half the population. I take a speedy downhill to the riverside then have to crawl up the opposite bank to reach my hostel. I check in, put my bike in the storage cupboard and am fast asleep in bed by 9.00pm. Two 110km days in roasting heat and humidity have taken their toll.

I still feel wrecked the next morning from my efforts of the previous days so decide to have a Rest Day in Kaunas. Instead of completely resting though, I go for a 3km walk into the Old Town to have a look around. It all looks rather average, but that’s probably a little unfair as I’ve been spoilt by visiting the spectacular Old Towns in Tallinn and Riga first. At night I revisit my Warm Showers and Couchsurfing requests, but without any success. Sadly, I’m not goimg to be able to stay with a Lithuanian host before I depart the country. Ironically though, it looks like my first night in Poland has already been sorted courtesy of Warm Showers.

My final full day of cycling in Lithuania ends up as my favourite, and that’s mostly because I leave the busy main road and go for a meander. It also helps that my leaving Kaunas isn’t half as stressful as when I arrived. I have to re-cross the river and deal with yet more crappy cycle paths, but I’m more or less able to follow one straight road out of town.

About half today’s journey is on quiet roads, but I do have to join a major route in the afternoon to get to Marijampole. I’m a bit apprehensive as it’s one of the main roads from Vilnius and it looks fairly daunting on the map. I needn’t have worried though, as this road is smooth, relatively quiet and a joy to cycle. It has shady, wooded sections and even passes through fields of black and white cows munching contentedly on lush green grass. This is such relief for my senses after days of travelling through dry, flat, dusty wheat fields.

Aided by a steady tail-wind, I speed into Marijampole and check in to a campsite just past town at the end of a 2km gravel track. It’s a lovely spot with tall shady trees, campers swimming in a small lake and a disarmingly friendly girl on reception. It will be nice to get back in the tent too, as most of my time in the Baltics has been spent using hostels in cities. After cycling all day my first priority is always a shower, but I notice something odd when I’m finished. As I’m drying myself the towel is gradually going a rusty brown colour. At first I think I may have been particularly dirty, but then realise that this campsite must use bore-water drawn up from underground.

I’m in my tent by sundown and reflect on my short stay in Lithuania. It’s fair to say that it’s not been my favourite country so far. I’ve spent the same amount of time here as I did in both Estonia and Latvia, yet I feel I haven’t really got to know Lithuania at all. Part of that is my own doing as I sped straight down the middle of the country and couldn’t really justify a long detour to Vilnius or the coast. Another part is not being able to find a Warm Showers or Couchsurfing host – you get a much better feel for a country by visiting a local, chatting with them, seeing how they live, being shown their town, trying local food. I’m disappointed I didn’t get the chance to do any of that in Lithuania, but there’s no use in getting downheartened – it’s just the way things happened to pan out. There’ll be plenty more chances in plenty more countries. And that starts tomorrow with Poland.

18th JULY 2018

It’s mid-morning by the time I leave the Ikla hostel and Estonia, by which time the Belgian cycling family have already departed. I cycle the short distance back towards the coast so I can use a border crossing on a quieter road, only to find that there isn’t much of a border crossing at all. There are two large flags high up on poles – one Estonian and one Latvian – only a few metres apart, and they are all that mark the crossover between the nations. I get my picture taken by a Swiss couple beside a wall that has the word ‘Latvija’ emblazoned upon it. They are touring the Baltic States and, for once, I meet cyclists who are heading in the same direction as I am. The bloke is particularly happy that for now we have a ‘Behind-Wind.’

I only have to cover about 50km today but, of those, some 45km are on the dreaded Via Baltica. I keep thinking about the Belgian family who are cycling this same busy road with their three kids. Even for me alone it can be quite a heart-in-mouth experience at times. Instead of waiting, one tour bus comes perilously close as it overtakes me while also avoiding a truck travelling in the opposite direction. If my nerves are shredded, I hate to think about the stress levels of the Belgian parents.

However, I make it safely to the small coastal village of Tūja, to find my accommodation looks like a family home where the owners live in one half while renting out the other. I notice something odd while I’m unpacking – my duo of gel seat-covers that cushion my arse while riding has been reduced to only one. As they are tied on fairly tightly it can only mean that someone has stolen one. I figure it must have been taken from the campsite in Helsinki or the backpackers in Tallinn. But, honestly, who on earth would steal a seat-cover that has been living under my sweaty butt for six weeks ?

I get to Tūja around 3.00pm which gives me plenty of time to have a look around and take a wander along the beach. I hadn’t previously associated Latvia with beach resorts, but this place is a little gem. The sea is a flat, lazy blue and dark, golden sand stretches back to high dunes connected to the beach by sets of wooden steps. There are people in the sea, but it’s such a gentle, shallow slope that they have to walk for ages before it gets deep enough for them to swim. I walk in the sea for the length of the beach and am pleasantly surprised at how warm it feels. On the way back to the accommodation I buy some road food for tomorrow while treating myself to an ice cream for now. At day’s end I’m back down the beach again because you just can’t beat watching a sunset over the sea. There’s a scattering of wispy clouds overhead which reflect the tranquil orangey-gold sea. The sun disappears so slowly at this latitude, so I sit there marvelling at the colours until the mosquitos start to make an appearance. At least the winged pests play by the normal rules here and wait till sundown. In the twenty-four hour daylight of Finland they were a twenty-four hour annoyance.

The following morning I have a date with the Via Baltica once again to get me into Latvia’s capital, Riga. I also received a message last night from German cyclist Nicklas who rode the same road in May but in the opposite direction to me. In an effort to avoid the stress and hassle of getting out of Riga, he put his bike on a train for 50km until Saulkrasti and advised me to do the same. My initial reaction is ‘Fuck that !’ I’m not getting any trains ! As the day progresses I’ll be able to see just how foolish that notion turns out to be.

In my favour today is that it’s gorgeously cloudy after days of sun and temperatures of thirty degrees. It feels so good to be cycling in cooler conditions and without the need for sunscreen. I ride back along the same little road out of town to rejoin the Via Baltica, then continue on my way south. There’s no white lines on the road at this point due to recent roadworks, but I can zip along on a smooth, wide, black tar surface for about 20km before I take a quieter road through Saulkrasti. I’m back on the coast again now, but the sea looks very different and less welcoming under grey clouds after the brilliant sunshine of yesterday. The final push into Riga has me on the big main road again, but amazingly there is now a buffer zone of two metres to help separate cyclists from traffic. A road that is both safe and fast means it’s probably the easiest day I’ve had yet on the Via Baltica. German Nicklas could have ridden this easily ! I turn off and am then able to follow one road, using cycle paths or pavements all the way to my hostel.

I was messaged directions by the hostel on how to find them and gain entry which proves really helpful. What isn’t so great is that the hostel occupies the sixth floor of a city street block. Eliza, the hostel owner, happens to be on the ground floor when I arrive and says I can take my bike up and chain it to the bannister on the sixth floor. She thinks I won’t be able to get myself and the fully-loaded bike into the lift, so will have to make multiple trips to transport all my gear up. What she doesn’t account for is my inherent laziness and the fact that I’ve pulled this trick before. I simply pull back the handlebars so the bike is doing a wheelie and push it straight into the lift, upended and on its back tyre. I squeeze in, she pushes number six and off we go.

For a hostel, this place is very decent indeed. It’s much bigger and brighter than the one in Tallinn and even has a private bathroom for our six-bed dorm. I do a MUCH needed clothes wash and just chill in the hostel at night. There’s all the usual characters – the loud American, the Aussie who talks about shark attacks and a bunch of assorted Europeans. There’s also an old, posh English couple who I think are enjoying spending time in a backpackers and conversing with the kids. It turns very humid and sticky at night so the bedroom windows are all left open. Thankfully this doesn’t lead to an invasion of mosquitos, due either to being on the sixth floor or being in the middle of a built up city.

My second day in Riga is a Rest Day, which are days you definitely need to take in the course of a long cycle trip. I know I would wreck myself by riding every day and, besides, it would be daft to come all this way and not see the city. My first priority though is a haircut because I’m getting so woolly that it’s not funny anymore in this hot weather. I just step into the first barbers shop I see, but then notice a price list on the wall saying that it costs twenty-five Euros just for a haircut. Bloody Hell, that’s expensive ! It would be the most I’ve ever paid in my life to be shorn. Can I be bothered trying to find somewhere else ? ‘No,’ is the slightly inevitable answer. Still, I do get a shampoo and a nice cup of tea along with my trim. I also get the same standard haircut I could get anywhere else, but pay three times the price.

I walk into Riga’s Old Town, which has a similar feel to Tallinn but slightly rougher round the edges. There’s seems to be more encroachment by modern buildings in Riga, but there is still a fine selection of historical structures to keep me busy with photo opportunities. As a contrast there is also the United Buddy Bears display in an open space between churches. Originally the Berlin Buddy Bears they are a collection of over 140 life-size fibreglass bears used to promote friendship and tolerance. Each bear represents a different United Nations country and has been painted by an artist from their respective nation. I play a game of trying to guess the country from the bear’s design before looking at the plaque between its feet to confirm, with varying degrees of success.

I go to a buffet type place for lunch and have a weird mixed feast of salads, unidentified burgers and something that looks like lasagne but inside contains chicken and potatoes. Back at the hostel afterwards I ask Eliza if she can recall anything from the Soviet times. She would only have been five when Latvia broke away from Russia, but she remembers queuing for food with her mother – she would stand in one line for bread, while her mother would queue in another for eggs so they didn’t have to wait twice. Interestingly, Aimar in Estonia is three years older and has no real recollection of these events or the changeover. Perhaps it was tougher for Latvians under Soviet rule.

I walk back into the Old Town after dinner and see a good few things I missed on my afternoon wander then return for an evening at the hostel. In our dorm, an Irish and a German guy have a ‘Tactical Nap’ between 10.30pm and midnight so they can be fresh for another night in the Old Town pubs. I spend time sending a dozen or so Warm Showers and Couchsurfing requests to see if I can find someone to host me in Lithuania, for that is the next country on my route and I’ll be heading in that direction very shortly.

 

15th JULY 2018

For the second day in a row I gorge myself senseless with the hostel’s gargantuan breakfast feast. This monster food intake should easily keep me sustained for 65km till I reach today’s target of Märjamaa. Quite by chance I’m leaving Tallinn on a Sunday, which should mean a little less traffic to contend with as I’m leaving the city. However, this good luck is offset by the fact that a top temperature of 30 degrees has been forecast.

I take a bit of a zig-zag route out of the city to avoid the major roads, but soon my only option is to join the Number 4 Road – The Via Baltica. This is the main highway that connects Estonia to the rest of Europe and I’m destined to get to know it very well indeed over the next few days. For the first 20km out of Tallinn I can use cycle paths alongside the road, but then it transforms into a motorway, and I’m off on a magical mystery tour once again.

I join a minor road and follow the map to where it shows I have to cross another motorway. I assume there will be a flyover to reach the other side, but when I get there my road simply joins the motorway. I can see the road I want to get to on the opposite side but there’s no way to get across because of crash barriers that separate the two carriageways. If I doubled back it would take me about 10km of cycling just to get to a spot which is a stone’s throw away. It takes a few seconds of hesitation, but there’s really only one thing for it – I walk my bike across the motorway and begin to attempt lifting it over the central reservation barrier. My God it’s heavy ! It feels like a dead weight with all my gear strapped to the back. I realise that swearing at the bike and urging it over the barrier will not affect it’s movement in any way, but that still doesn’t stop me from trying. I then have to repeat the whole process amidst breathless grunts and a stream of profanities to get it over the second barrier. By the time I push the heavy lump to the other side I’m gasping for breath.

After composing myself I continue on with my circuitous route towards Märjamaa. These minor roads are quiet, and I’m freewheeling along silently so that the animal that emerges from the forest is unaware of my approach. At first I think it’s a fox, based purely on the colour of it’s coat. This creature is stocky though, and about twice the size of a fox with a short stumpy tail. I actually say “What is that?” out loud when I see it. It’s definitely a large feline of some sort and my best guess would be a lynx. I must have been approaching downwind from the big cat to have gone unnoticed. As soon as it sees me it turns and bounds back into the forest. The whole encounter is over in seconds, but it’s the highlight of my day.

The heat has been building all afternoon and the sort of tall, fluffy white clouds that preceed thunderstorms are beginning to accumulate on the horizon. I’m glad for any cloud cover as this is unquestionably the warmest day I’ve cycled in so far. I’ve even upped my stock of water bottles to three. It hasn’t helped that my routine 65km day has turned into a motorway-dodging meander of 95km. The one saving grace is that the entire journey has been flat. With this heat even a handful of steep hills may have done for me today.

I reach Märjamaa about 5.30pm, which gives me just enough time for a shower before going to watch the World Cup Final. My accommodation tonight really isn’t sure what demographic it’s trying to aim for – it’s a peculiar mix of hostel and motel. There’s also a slightly weird shared-bathroom system for me and the room next door, with the shower and bathroom sandwiched between our two bedrooms. When I open the door from my side it locks their door and vice versa. I never set eyes on the people next door but, quite disturbingly, I can hear them pooing.

My accommodation for the next day is undecided as yet. I’ve got a Warm Showers offer pending, but failing that I’ll just cycle the 60km to Parnu where there’s a campsite by the river. Luckily I check my Warm Showers account the following morning to find a message saying I’m able to stay. My host will be a bloke called Aimar who lives in a tiny place called Lindi Village. Unfortunately, for the purposes of my trip he lives about 25km into the countryside on the wrong side of Parnu. It will mean a 50km detour to visit him, but it should be worth it to spend an evening hearing things from a genuine Estonian viewpoint.

When I leave Märjamaa, the first 15km are on a quiet road before I have to join the busy Via Baltica again for the next 25km. This particular section is bearable as there’s a metre margin at the edge of the road which gives cyclists some space in which to ride safely. Then I’m able to rejoin the minor roads as I make my way towards Lindi Village. In fact this road is so minor that it suddenly converts to a gravel track with a covering of loose stones. I had no indication that this was about to happen and I have no idea how long it will last for. I have to crawl along painfully slowly as I’m liable to wreck my spokes on this surface with all the weight I’m carrying on the back. I spend about 15km on this track before it reverts back to asphalt.

By this point the heat has intensified horribly, and there’s no relief from cloud cover like yesterday. This now supercedes yesterday as the hottest day of the trip. I stop at a little village called Jõõpre and down two bottles of orange and carrot ice-drink in an instant. I reapply sunscreen too, but I’m perspiring so much that the cream just seems to drip off along with salty beads of sweat.

With today’s draining heat it’s a real effort, but I slog through the next 30km of twists and turns and eventually reach Lindi Village. It takes me a while to find Aimar’s place, but one of his neighbours points me in the direction of an old ramshackle farmhouse near the shore. He’s not home yet so I just sit exhausted in the shade and wait.

Twenty minutes later Aimar arrives, having been grocery shopping in Parnu. I’m invited in, have my warm shower and we chat at his kitchen table. He’s a gentle giant in his mid-thirties who talks with a boyish enthusiasm about everything from music to food to politics. Amazingly, he has an answer to all my inane questions about his country and has an encylopaedic knowledge of Estonian history. I’ve also picked the right person to ask as he’s now on his summer break from being a history teacher. I ask him the origins of the Estonian flag (Three horizontal stripes – blue on top, black in the middle and white on the bottom) and I’m told it was an old student flag from the early 1900’s. In the romanticised version the blue represents the sky, the black represents either the fertile soil or the dark forest and the white represents the clear conscience of every Estonian.

For dinner Aimar cooks chicken breast with pasta and salad, loading everything with garlic, tomatoes and red peppers. Along with about seven pints of water it absolutely hits the spot after today’s debilitating struggle in the heat. While we’re eating I ask him if there are lynx living wild in Estonia. He says there are, although he’s never once seen one, which makes me feel even more privileged for yesterday’s sighting. We chat till about midnight, but I’m starting to fade by this point and need sleep. I’ve been given the guest room, which doubles as storage space with stacks of furniture and bric-a-brac against every wall. There’s just enough space for a mattress on the floor in the middle, but that’s all I need.

The next morning I’m served porridge for breakfast to set me up nicely for another hot day. Aimar was a good guy and an extremely interesting host. I’ve probably learnt more about Estonia from one evening chatting with him than I would from ten nights staying at campsites. With a full belly I have to retrace yesterday’s cycle for about 10km, then head round the top of the Gulf of Riga before veering off towards Parnu. I simply try to follow the Euro Velo 10 signs – The Baltic Sea Route – to get me through the city, which goes surprisingly smoothly. After Parnu I’m reacquainted with my old friend The Via Baltica for about 25km, before it’s quiet coastal road all the way to Ikla at the Latvian border.

I see two snakes on the road today. The first is barely two feet long, skinny and slithers off into the undergrowth as I pass. The second one is larger and has clearly been run over by a car, with a gaping chunk having been ripped from its side. It’s writhing around in agony. Part of me wants to stomp on its head to put the animal out of its misery, but my more sensible side is worried the snake will attack if it thinks I’m the one responsible for its injury. I keep going, but feel slightly guilty.

I get to the Ikla Hostel to find no-one on reception and the doors locked. I just sit down to wait and am soon joined by an entire family of cycling Belgians. Dad, Mum, 18 year old son, 16 year old daughter and 14 year old son have all just taken two days to cycle here from Riga. They say they’ve had to use The Via Baltica practically the whole way which can be dangerous enough for one person, never mind a whole family. I can’t imagine it would be a pleasant experience watching trucks and buses speed past within feet of your children. However, the family are seasoned cycle tourers and go away for three weeks every July to coincide with the Belgian Construction Trade’s holidays. Last year’s tour took them to the three European capitals of Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest. This year it’s Riga, Tallinn and Helsinki. We all get into the hostel after thirty minutes when the receptionist finally shows up. On a bicycle, ironically.

For dinner I go to a truck-stop cafe right on the border and have probably the most average chicken schnitzel I’ve ever eaten. When I get back to the hostel the Belgians are sitting outside and ask if I want to join them. We have a beer and a chat before they all troop off to bed early in preparation for another day on The Via Baltica. I faff around for a while longer and reflect that, apart from the heat, it’s only taken me three fairly routine days to cycle across Estonia. And I don’t think I’ve cycled up one single hill in all that time !