Wicko

So now there is less of the travelling around, seeing new places and the drama of trying to find accommodation every night, and more about trying to get by in Poland and exploring the area we have landed in. There's some nice cycling to be had around here so hopefully our bikes won't get too cross with us.

We're now in Wicko, where hopefully we will stay a while. Our room overlooks an adjacent lake, which sparkles in the afternoon sun as we laze around on the bed with our laptops, and over which we get to watch the sun set. Beyond the lake is more forest, and it's all rather pretty. At night the frogs sing to us to sleep and when we wake the cuckoos have joined in, unfortunately sometimes the local dogs decide to howl along which is not so conducive to sleep. The weather's been lovely these past few days.

On Wednesday we went on a ride around the Wolin national park to the east of Miedzyzdroje (which is pronounced Meezadroy, or something like that) through some lovely scenic foresty bits, of which there are lots around here. The weather's lovely at the moment, and we had a great time. There's even some hilliness around. Unfortunately, some of the things on the map which looked like roads are not so much roads as tracks, featuring many miles of all our favourite surfaces such as sharp bumpy stones, muddy bits and my all time favourite, dry sand. Various advice on the web tells us that most Polish bikes are mountain bikes - well, now it's clear why.

On Saturday we followed the road down to the tip of our little corner of Wolin Island, through the villages of Wapnica and Lubin. We found plenty of tourist buses, a few cafes, some signs to the beach (which we might follow some other time) and a village shop where we stocked up on supplies. On our return we found a tiny frog hopping around in the garden.

We then spent two solid days sat in our room playing Transport Tycoon.

Rather than using our host's kitchen, they have provided us with a small stove with two hotplates, and two pans. Kinda rules out baking cakes and pies but there's plenty we can do. (We have just realised that we haven't seen very many pies on our travels at all, a most worrying state of affairs). So far we have made spicy vegetable rice (which was very good but surprisingly unfilling), meat & veg stew, a concoction of fried potatoes and scrambled egg with dodgy tinned bacon (which is a little too spongey for comfort), and bangers and mash with some very tasty bangers. I'm quite keen to find a small frying pan so we can get going with the important stuff, i.e. pancakes. The mosquitoes are still eating well, thanks.