Not many photos today due to the weather.
Last night it started raining when I got back to the campsite. I wasn’t expecting that. I guess I should have looked at the forecast. It said there’d be rain until mid-morning, so I optimistically planned on leaving by 9.
The tent was perfectly dry on the inside – I love it. Also, I met a guy, Eric in NZ and he used to wipe the moisture and raindrops off his tent fly in the morning. It’s a great idea as it dries out so much quicker. So I did that, but the humidity was so high that it only helped a bit. Today was one of those days when you just have to pack it up damp.
The people who run the campsite are absolutely lovely. We had a conversation in German-ish and the lady then came out with a bottle of homemade jam for me. How nice ! But I just wouldn’t use it. I apologised and asked her to give it to someone else, then thanked her profusely. They took me into their kitchen to fill up my water bottles and enquired as to today’s destination.
The guy advised me not to take the Green Velo route as it was very soft around here, and after two nights of rain he said it would be terrible. An alternative was to take the quite-a-bit-more direct road – just go right at the small chapel. That’s what I did, and almost immediately, it started raining.
This calls for Poncho-man dahdahda daaa !
And it rained for the next 10kms. As a result, I didn’t check the map – my phone was safely tucked away out of the weather. Silly me.
I found a village shelter and waited out one of the heavier showers and thought, let’s just see where we are. About 7.5kms off track as the crow flies in fact. There wasn’t an easy way to get back to the right road either, they were diverging. Google found a solution – a dirt road for 7.5kms, and Komoot found another one for 11.5kms, so I went with Google because I’m lazy and stupid. Silly me again.
The road started out as your average single lane farm road but after the second farm, it got steadily worse. There were alternating patches of wet sand and clay. The sand was hard work to get through but the wet clay was treacherous. I’d literally slide unexpectedly from one side of the road to the other due to the camber.
Then I noticed that I was off track and went back to follow the right road. After a few hundred metres I gave it away and went back. At one point, I slid and nearly toppled over to the right, got my foot down and stopped, relieved. And then my left foot slid in the wet clay. There was nothing I could do except fall over gracefully in the mud.
So, back to the previous road which took me into a crop field and that was the best surface of the lot. Eventually, I got back onto a farm road and even had a sealed road for a kilometre before having to take another farm road. This one was better, but I was bailed up by three dogs within sight of the right road.
After that, the rains came down for more than an hour and the riding became drudgery. I stopped in Górowo Iławeckie, and got a drink and a mini Pizza at the local deli. The pizza would have been stale last week. I threw it out, on my way out of town. On to Bartoszyce then, where I know there are food options.
When I got there, it started raining and I huddled under the narrow awning of the local convenience store, getting wet most of the time. That’s when I decided to look for accommodation rather than camp.
I’d previously picked out a campsite less than 20kms away in this region. Their website showed they had cabins and you could book through booking.com. I tried to call but there was no answer. So I got onto booking.com and chose the Agriturismo place, but I chose one with an almost identical name in this region. It wasn’t until I’d booked and was trying to navigate there, that I realised. This one was 10kms south while the other was 20kms east.
So after a 70km ride, I reckon I’ve made only 50kms of progress. Hrmpff.
Of course it rained again as I was arriving, so I stashed the bike and found the hosts who are great. The lady showed me the room, well, after trying three keys and each time having to return to the office, she gave me another room.
With her knowing only Polish, it was a little hard to organise, but she made me some soup for dinner and will provide breakfast at 8am. I’m happy about that.
