Poland - Motorcycle Trip August 2020

Monday 10/08/2020 ------------------------------ We camped next to a famous fortress city, but I woke-up with my eyes set on the mountains and the promise of good mountain roads to enjoy. Due to the rain we saw nothing of Zamość, despite having a very central campsite..... Grzegorz is self-catering whilst the rest of us are eating out. He went to cook his meal last night and found that his wife had packed him tins of cat food! Also had another funny incident yesterday whilst riding through a small town. A lorry flashed-us to warn that there was a Police speed check up ahead. We slowed down to the speed limit and were joined by a young lad on an old moped who became part of the gang, riding in between us and waving before finally accelerating away from us! Anyway, despite some rain during the night, the sun came out and it primised to be another nice day. Indeed it was. We quickly made our wa...

Sunday 09/08/2020 -------------------------------- After a noisy night spent on a lovely but busy beach/campsite, we left early to make up time and get to some of the roads we missed yesterday. It was boiling again but we ran through a lot of dense forest which kept the sun off. We went to Białowieża to see the Bison, but we were low on time so didn't end-up doing anything there..... before taking a photo, turning around and heading back the way we came..... We went through loads of small roads and really old villages with quaint wooden homes - really peaceful and remote places. As we went through one of the villages a priest was by the side of the road blessing something and as we went passed he blessed our bikes with holy water as we rode through his village! Amazing and very funny. We finally hit the main road and it was scorching and we wanted some food and drink so we stopped at a village shop. Really great service and they had a...

Saturday 08/08/2020 ----------------------------------- After the inevitable 1st night of under canvas drinking... I woke-up at 6am feeling great! It was boiling from the moment the sun rose. We left by 8.30, but it was 30C by then! Lots of roadworks and route changes, but we hit some great roads and I really enjoyed the riding - more great bends with a few interesting stops en route. Too hot for riding though. Had a a mesh jacket on so it was like riding in a T-shirt but even when moving it was too hot.  Stopped to see the canals / locks in Augustów and went to see some old Orthadox church. Too hot - probably about 33C with zero wind. Amazing views and old villages with wooden homes - really nice. On an interesting road I had a deer run-out in front of me which I didn't expect. Also rode past a very drunk cyclist who was all over the road! Other than that, no real adventures today apart from stopping short of our planned location due to calling ...

Friday 07/08/2020 ------------------------------ So, amazingly, a small number of us actually made it to the start-line and headed-off through a cloud of dust and sand. I am starting to really regret my choice of motorcycle..... why did I not buy another adventure bike? The squad is made-up of me, my brother-in-laws Tomaszek and Mateusz with a couple of new guys Grzegorz and Mariusz. So we have a Z1000SX, a Transalp, an old Africa Twin, an MT09 and the Starship Enerprise BMW RT1150. We left about 08:30 this morning - all to plan. It was really hot from the start, but bearable on all the dark forest roads. We stopped for fuel pretty quickly as the MT-09 has a tiny fuel tank and is thirsty but we pushed-on and hit Malbork. Amazing castle. We stopped opposite it for a coffee and a rest. Very slow progress, but the temperature rose to 30C so it was hard going. Hit some decent roads and made-up some ground before hitting really bumpy crappy roads (but wit...

Sunday 02/08/2020 ------------------------------ After a fantastic night of rest and free beer, I was forced to make a bit of a lazy start due to insane thunder/lightening and more specifically rain. I finally packed-up my wet gear and headed-off for my final leg of the transit phase to Poland. With only  400-odd miles to go, it wasn't going to be the toughest day so I tried to take my time and enjoy the journey as much as possible. Whilst 'getting there' is a necessary evil, I do need to learn to enjoy the journey more - even the transit bits. That said, it didn't stop raining so I had to put my tent down in the rain and ride through a storm that went on and on. Didn't even put waterproofs on as I was so hot and preferred getting wet to overheating. Eventually after hours of being soaked I decided to go directly East into Poland through the old border that I used to use. It was immediately dry and warm which was nice, but the small roads made progress slow (even wh...

Saturday 01/08/2020 ----------------------------------- After weeks of 'planning' the inevitable last minute rush of packing and re-packing and faffing with luggage happened as always. I have a ridiculously big new horse-shoe bag which looks silly, but was still too small to take all of my camping crap... so I had to attach yet another dry-bag to the silly big horse-shoe bag. Additionally, I have noticed that my petrol tank overflow pipe is blocked / kinked so any excess rain / petrol is unable to escape from the tank. It was too late to fix it. All previously untested which is not ideal just before setting-off on a 3500 mile journey...  I was busy on Friday night, but managed to get a few hours of sleep in before reluctantly getting-up at 3.30am for an appointment with the Channel Tunnel. When you're planning a 700 mile day, you've got to get up early! That said, chunnel was busy and there were delays. Not great when you have to hang around in the sun with all your bik...

August 27th 2020 Had all sorts of plans for 2020..... and then this COVID-19 thing happened. Lockdown was particularly frustrating as the weather in the UK was exceptional and what with me being 'in-between gainful employment', it was the perfect time to jump on the bike and roam far and wide...... but we were in lockdown. Once the restrictions eased, I took a few nice day trips, but the only hope I had was that things would get back to some sort of normality by August and I could at least squeeze-in one decent bike trip that had been in the making (not necessarily detailed planning) for a couple of years. It was also our only opportunity to squeeze-in a family holiday (of sorts). Where to? Over the last 2 years I've been talking the 'brothers-in-law' into sorting-out their motorbikes and going on a 'blokes' motorbike trip around Poland (to keep things as easy for them as possible as this is where they live). Being truthful, whilst Poland is a beautiful coun...