Before we left beautiful Torun we had to, of course, check out LIDL to see if it was housed in some stunning brick gothic building. Unfortunately LIDL are, as my blog posts, predictable; it was located, as usual, in a modern monstrosity and the food was the same as always. Sometimes predictable is good, which is why we are sticking with LIDL on this trip.
After LIDL we headed east to our next major destination, Vilnius in Lithuania. It’s going to take us four days to cover the miles but I’ve found some interesting stopping off points en route, but not for today.
Although only 100 miles, today’s drive was more difficult than it should have been due to tramlines. Not the sort of tramlines which trams run on but rather the grooves worn into road surfaces by HGVs. I’ve come across it from time to time in Britain and other countries, but for some reason today’s roads were in another league. Something to do with how Poland’s route 15 has been constructed means that lorries have worn deep furrows into the tarmac surface. In a car I think, because the wheel spacing is significantly different from a 40 tonne truck, it would make little difference. But because the width between Basil’s wheels are fairly wide we kept being suddenly jerked into the tram tracks, which, when a truck is coming in the other direction, is unnerving. It took a lot of concentration to keep Basil on the straight and narrow.
They even have a special road sign in Poland showing the deep ruts in the road and warning traffic, so it is obviously a perennial problem. We’ve noticed Polands road signs in general are rather more graphic than those in other countries. There are literally giving a graphic indication of a collision where crashes are likely and wherever there is a pedestrian crossing there is a picture of a little girl skipping with a big red blob attached to her hand. We are not sure whether this is supposed to portray a balloon or a lollipop, but whichever it is it certainly catches your attention.
The Tram Tracks of which I speak
Is that a balloon or a lollipop. Answers on a postcard.
You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?
We saw more of the Polish countryside today than on our long motorway journey two days ago. This northern part of the country has been take over by big agriculture. With large fields of wheat and oil seed rape. There is still some forest but little of the small scale agriculture we saw in Bulgaria and Romania.
We arrived in time for lunch at Camping Katno (53.704511, 20.077485). It is a small very rural site overlooking a lake near Ostroda. It looks as if money has been spent on it very recently because the toilet block and bar/restaurant are very modern.
Basil at Camping Katno
After lunch we took Melek and Mabel down to the lake. Mabel had a great time running around off the lead, until we came to a wooden jetty going out, through a reed bed, into the lake. Before you could say Jack Robinson Mabel ran straight down the jetty and dived into the reed bed. Now Mabel as a rule likes to play in water providing she doesn’t get out of her depth. The loud paddling noise coming from the middle of the reed bed made it obvious that she was well out of her depth. Never fear all dogs can swim, I thought. But then the paddling noise stopped and all was silence. By this time Sarah was half way down the jetty and when she reached the end she found Mabel not drowning but with her front half resting on the jetty and her back end still in the water. She was quickly pulled out and proceeded to shake herself dry all over us both.
Lake at Camping Katno
Forest near Camping Katno