We woke up to clear blue sunny skies, but with a keen wind. We took our time getting up and getting ready – this place was so tranquil and relaxing.
Yesterday we had the unique experience of being part of Poland’s national emergency test. (Alarm system exercise). We had been fore warned by text the previous day (how do they know we’re in Poland?) so wasn’t too alarmed when we heard a wailing siren (sounded like a WW2 air raid siren) around 8am, somewhere in the distance. But it was still unsettling in a way, listening to the drone of the siren waft across the city which seemed to carry on for an inordinate amount of time – the thought briefly flickers through your head whether it’s actually a test or something has happened to the world overnight. Eventually, the siren died slowly and with nobody else panicking and running around in circles, we carried on sorting out the van.
We went to the main farm buildings where you could wash up, get rid of rubbish and sort your onboard loo out and on the way back, the owner’s Golden Retriever decided to join us and followed us back. He was happy with the attention and Pupster was delighted to have a four legged friend to play with. She tried to goad him into a chase, but he just resolutely stood there watching this mad Labrador do zoomies around him. They hung out together as we sorted the Van out, the Retriever almost tempted to jump in and join our adventure, but finally sauntered off. After our customary check of locked cupboard doors and the gas turned off, we headed to our friend’s house.
It was only an hour and a half away, our shortest run since we started this trip, but we thought we might have to do a detour. We needed an electric lead connector for the Van (we have got one back home, but managed to forget to bring it with us – doh) to enable us to connect our English plug into European sockets. Our onboard leisure battery can usually cope with being off grid for a few days, but in recent weeks was showing signs of needing to be replaced. Last night, at the small holding we didn’t bother to hook up (we’ve been borrowing connectors at the previous campsites we’ve stayed in) so imagine our alarm to find a full battery showing red by the following morning!
So my job as we drove away was to locate a camping shop, but after a brief internet search, the three on offer were in deepest Lodz – we didn’t fancy fighting urban traffic looking for shops in a city we didn’t know. Our other option was to order one from Amazon and get it delivered to our friend’s house on next day delivery. As much as we dislike Amazon’s ethics and working practices, it was going to save the day and actually, isn’t it amazing that today, you can press a button on your phone and get whatever you want the following day from the comfort of your chair (or in our case, campervan) and not suffer the trauma of chasing items around town. We all seem to take this retail revolution for granted.
The sky was full of big fluffy clouds, like balls of cottonwool as we wended our way along the country lanes and picked up the motorway – the sun was glorious. The car temperature gauge read 21 degrees. Perfect.
We turned off after skirting southern Lodz and returned to the quiet A roads, through little communities, woodland and little fields. At one point, we came around a bend after going through some roadworks, to find, much to our alarm, two men in hi-vis jackets on either side of the road, with a tape measure draped across the tarmac. As we slowed downed, one of the chaps got up and sauntered causally to the middle of the road despite a black campervan bearing down on him, bent over and made a mark on the road – it seemed that they were marking out the new centre white line after some resurfacing work. No hard hats, no goggles, no cones, no traffic lights, no warning signs, no closing half the road off, no health and safety – just two men with a tape measure wandering down the road, denoting where the centre line should go. Fabulous. Back in England, that would have meant a full road closure for at least a month and a 20 mile detour…….
We found our friend’s house along a lane of houses, set back from the road. It’s the first time we’ve been here and it was fabulous. We set up the Van in their garden, caught up with each other, had lunch and then chilled. Pupster had a big space to run around in and investigate – she could also have some downtime from us too. She also spent quite a bit of time hunting flies that came into the van – there seemed quite a flying insects here and they all seemed to find our van fascinating and didn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave…….
In the early evening, our friends suggested a walk through a forest to some lakes where there would be a variety of birds to look at. We fancied stretching our legs and taking in some fresh air too. That sounded a perfect plan, so we jumped into their car and headed off. The forest had well defined paths through the tall gangling pine trees and we walked along with the Pupster leading the way. The trees were fascinating, shedding their dark bark halfway up their trunks, showing a tan colour up to their canopy. It was quite beautiful, these trees standing to attention in rows in majestic tricolours.
We walked for ages before we reached the lakes – the Pupster was quite alarmed to find a new human at the end of her lead as we took turns to walk her. It made us laugh with her hesitancy and puzzled looks. Our friends started to look for the viewing platforms so we could see the lakes better, but they weren’t so familiar with this part of the woodland and struggled to locate them. But it didn’t matter, it was really lovely – the tranquility, the quietness knowing we were probably the only people there. The sun was setting, dropping behind the distant woods and with the light fading, we decided to wander back.
We had walked quite a way so towards the end of the walk, it was quite dark. We were hoping to see fireflies, but we didn’t see any, though bats were flying between the trees. We saw no deer either – we asked about wolves and bears, but they were located further south in countryside beyond Krakow so we had no worries about mauled by an angry ball of fur. We drove back to base where The Pupster got excited about something in the tall grass and gave a good impression of a leaping gazelle.
We said good night to each other and settled down in the van. Another fabulous day on our big European adventure!
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