2020-03-26 Day 501 Thu

The little bridge we need to cross. Seems to hold our weight.

Went to Peters at 14:30 to fill with water. 

Peter put our washing on and said he'd return it to us when dry. Photo in front of Peters holiday house

Photo in front of Peters holiday house.

Local bus stop

Went to Peter's neighbour to buy milk and cheese then drove the 25km into town.

Dropped in at Tesco to buy a few little things. Still no hording here. All shelves full and a few people calmly going about their shop. Had to use the self check out though. Half way through I realised it had an English option plus another 4 languages.

Next fuel We filled with diesel and noticed a car wash station so dropped in there and washed EC.

A bottle of wine fell out the door and smashed so dropped into Lidle to see if they had any more of the NZ pinot sadly they did not.

Then back to our camp spot, arriving about 15:30

0km  Camp site  391m alt.

2020-03-25 Day 500 Wed

Every now and again we ask each other about going home……. But a waste of time if we sit here, and at home there is so much work to do on the house. John let Cynthia know that there is a possibility of us returning home.

Another day spent on computers and nose in a book. A nice day today. It is slowly getting warmer and warmer during the day.

We sat outside for a while and even had lunch out there.

More roast lamb, local cheese and red pepper.

0km  Camp site  391km

2020-03-24 Day 499 Tue

I got up early and melted 10 litres of water so we would have enough for the morning and maybe the following day if need be. 

John grabbed the last leg off the roof and carved it for lunch with some local cheese and a red pepper.

I was considering contacting the embassy again as I had not heard anything. However, I then received a message to say they had received our details and are consulting with LOT (polish airlines) about seats out. And would we like them to pass on our details to LOT. We agreed.

Now in all earnest Do we want to go home?????

Lots of talking and thoughts, Basically neither of us want to go home, but nor do we want to sit here for 2 to 3 months or more. Who knows when borders will reopen for tourists!

Went for a short walk. But the wind is still icy.

0km  Camp site  391m alt.

2020-03-23 Day 498 Mon

It snowed enough to cover the ground and supply enough snow to melt for our morning tea. John made many trips outside with the pot to melt enough.

At lunch time, realising the hoses would not defrost today I melted 6 lts of snow to get through the rest of the day and have some on hand for John to make my tea in the morning

The snow on the wiper decreased in volume but did not total disappear during the day.

 A cold day with a high of 1℃ but down again to -6℃ tonight.

John was working long hours on qwikgame and I was working on our blog today. Finally getting to see the end of the elusive tunnel.

0km  Camp site  391m alt.

2020-03-22 Day 497 Sun

A fine but cold day got up to 0℃. 

We moved about 50m to a spot with a little more sun. We stayed with a slight rise at the rear of EC awaiting the ground to thaw a little before John dug some holes to level us.

We had an early snack and waiting eagerly for our roast lamb. Did some computer work and kept warm inside.

 

Peter and Ola delivered our roast lamb, yes a whole one, around 1400 hrs. We gave them a front and back leg and a bottle of NZ pinot. They left and we launched into a meat meal. It was very yum. The stomach cavity had been stuffed with local garlic which is a leaf and had marinated for a while.

After eating the rib cage (or half of it) we dissected it into segments and wrapped in Tinfoil put on the roof to freeze.

It started to snow a little in the early evening and just before bed time we realised our water pipes were frozen……. Had not even thought of them. 

 

0km  Camp site  391m alt.

2020-03-21 Day 496 Sat

We left our little hidey hole and continued our run to the SE of Poland, to a small place called Gruzowa. Our unexpected route change last night has us a different option to go south so we will no longer be retracing our footsteps.

The small roads had a little traffic which eased our feeling of apprehension, and once on the motorway all anxious feelings of "not allowed to be driving" left. There were trucks (not as many as yesterday) and cars so all good.

The free way was easy driving and we would just slot behind a truck that would overtake us and settle in. Maximum speed for above 3.5 ton is 80km/h but some trucks sat just under 90km/h so we travelled with them.

We did joke about "your OK just stay on road and go straight don’t exit…." Always funnier the next day.

We passed quite a few modern designed churches.

 

From freeway onto small back roads which slow progress as it is signposted 50km/h through the towns or at least within the town limit is 50km/h but most cars don’t slow much and trucks will still do 70km/h. We tend to slow.

Peter has kindly offered to get us fresh local milk and local cheese and organised a roast lamb which will be ready at 2pm Sunday.

Peter has said he and his partner have a cough so will not invite us into their house. All good with us.

We did a last little shop some wine, bread and olive oil.

 Arrived at Peters holiday house and he met us with a Polish Corona Shake.

In his Mitsubishi ute he took us to his hill. It had been raining and the paddock a bit slippery.

Our forward momentum stopped so we dropped tire pressure and John took a run at it. Then had to go around the edge in the longer dead grass for traction.

Peter left to go sit in his Hide and hope for a boar to wander past. Once shot they are tested a sample taken to the vet who examine it under microscope for African swine flu.

Peter will bring our roast lamb out when the bakery has finished cooking it sometime after 2pm tomorrow. I hope it is not a full sheep and only a leg otherwise we will have storage issues.

I think we are feeling safe here at least from being moved on. I am unsure how the local village will accept us but we will wait and see.

-5℃ forecast with real feel of -9℃. 3-6 cm of snow forecast tomorrow.

A lovely spot but maybe to many trees. We may have to move a little once we work out where the sun tracks across the sky. No sun at the moment.

434km  Camp site  391m alt.

2020-03-20 Day 495 Fri

After some discussion about how we feel about the virus and our situation we decided to drive down to Peters place. He said he’d find us a spot in the park.

How do we feel about going home if there was a flight? Staying in Poland? Staying here where there are lovely walking trails? Lots of important topics to discus but how does one answer ?

 I could not find the email address for the Australian Embassy in Warsaw so rang them. They gave me an email address so will email them as we drive south.

We packed and started out, very shortly after to be stopped by a forestry car who said that we couldn’t drive here and escorted us out.

Well the decision to move on looks like the correct one. The bridge has a little more clearance now and no it was not us. 

More Mistletoe. 

Vistula River, We camp just south of here on the way north on the 15 march

We basically retraced our route south. We were safely on the free way with me driving, a camp site not far away with only just enough daylight left when our straight-forward spaghetti turned wrong. The straight-forward was blocked so we went around just noticing too late that there was an out….. But I was already committed. Next exit 10km.

John discovered another place to camp and 2 exits later we exited. Third little spot and a camp off the road and amongst the pines. Not much road noise

481km   Camp site 170m alt.