Back to Poland
Enjoying the Baltic Coastline
20th August - 23rd August | 2022
How quiet was this camping ground in the morning. I thought I was the first up at about 8h30, but some of the others were already up too!
Today I wanted to visit Kuldiga as it must be such a nice town. So I set OsmAnd on unpaved roads and off we were: 120km fast gravel roads. I enjoyed myself so much, that I missed completely taking a picture rolling over 111111km! During one of these fast gravel roads, I needed to visit the bushes, but I kept on rolling. For a change that was good, as suddenly approaching a turn and there were militaries with their camouflaged jeep and one totally camouflaged (with even fern over his head) in the trench! They waved me through. While I was wondering what that was all about, I had the giggles in my helmet. Imagine I would have my little bush stop! I would have been the highlight of their day!
Carrying on another 2km there was more military. I stopped and spoke to the woman and she said I can carry on, but not to turn around and they would be the last ones. So I whizzed along the gravel and saw more military in a side track - so far about the last ones! Suddenly there was a branch across the road, with an A4 paper saying "road blocked". I hammered the breaks - real fun on the gravel! Luckily I didn’t drop the bike. When I was once sorted I looked around and there stood another military guy in the bushes, who OK’d that I can carry on. After passing then another camouflaged jeep and lorry there was no more! Wow, that felt really strange as not used to this at all (anymore)!
Kuldiga is a nice old town, with a very wide (not high though) waterfall. As it is the weekend, it was also a very busy little place. After my photo stop, I opted to get something to drink at the petrol station and visit finally the lady's room.
After a snack and refreshments, I went to Liepaja to see the famous Naval Cathedral Church of Saint Nicholas. After that, it was time to find Knut, my Bunk-a-Biker lodger for tonight. When leaving Liepaja it had started raining - yes, raining!
Arriving at his driveway I had again the giggles, as he had put a sign up for me! How cool is that!! Knut is a very warm-hearted Norwegian guy, living here with his Latvian wife and little daughter. Interesting is that he is not a biker, but he has a lot of biker friends who suggested he should get registered with Bunk-a-Biker.
We had a very good, and long conversation about all sorts of things in this world during the evening.
As the weather forecast was not too good for the next day, he offered to stay for another night. Fantastic!
Finally, the weather was not too bad but had its showers. However, I could catch up on some sleep :-D
The next morning it was still cloudy, but it didn’t rain all day! After saying goodbye to Knut and his family, I started on the gravel road to Nica, where I would get some petrol. As I am riding along the coast to Klaipeda, there was no point in any offroad. In Klaipeda, I took the ferry to get to the island Curonian Spit, all the way down to Nida to the famous dunes.
After visiting the dunes, I went back to the ferry. On the way back I wanted to make a photo stop at the dunes of Juodkrante, but they asked for €5 fee, even though I already paid €5 for the natural park when driving in! Enough is enough!
Back on the ferry was a bunch of polish motorbike drivers on their way to Estonia. I recommended staying at Aleksandris Guesthouse as they want to pass by Pärnu; they didn´t know the place. Once on the mainland, it was another 2 hours drive to the hotel in Silute.
This hotel is again right on the main road, so I am not very optimistic about sleep tonight :-( And indeed, not much sleep! Today would be boring street riding, as I had to get around Kaliningrad (Russia). It was really tiring, also the bad night was not helping! Late lunchtime I reached the corner of the 3 countries: Russia, Lithuania and Poland.
After that, I was planning to camp close by, but as I gained an hour crossing the border, it was too early. So I contacted Angelo, where he is planning to stay overnight as he was just 20mins ahead of me. He sent me the link for a campground at Goldap.
Angelo arrived when I was just having my dinner, so he joined in, celebrating with a beer.
We were catching up on talking, but once it was getting dark the mosquitos were super active, so we called it a day.
I hope you enjoyed the journey back through three countries. Let me take you to the next important historical landmark in the next blog: Wolfs Leir and then to Gdansk.
Places | Cities:
LATVIA
Kuldiga, Liepaja, Nica
LITHUANIA
Palanga, Klaipeda, Priekule, Silute, Sakiai, Vilkaviskis
POLAND
Goldap
Driven km | Trip:
Total | Steffi: 23690 km
Maintenance | Breakdown:
./.
Health issues:
./.
Special thanks to:
Angelo being such a great company; I am really amazed at how many kilometres he does daily on his bicycle! Well done!!