Day 26 - To Poland

I left Vilnius in glorious sunshine after a McDonalds breakfast....purely for the free wifi you understand. Actually, McDs are quite rare so far on this trip. I have only seen a couple so far and they are usually in capital cites. I backtracked to see Trakai Castle about 20km west of the city. Very picturesque and it hauls in the tourists by the busload.


Next on the agenda was Grutus Park near the Belarus border. After independence in 1991, most town squares in Lithuania had one or more soviet era statues. What was to become of them? Some of them were destroyed there and then by the crowds but the government removed and stored them. Along came the local mushroom magnate Viliumas Malinauskas who bought the lot and created a sculpture park, complete with fake guard towers, soviet era piped music and a genuine cattle truck used to ship people east. Strangely compelling, it has caused a but of a controversy here but still 200,000 people a year come in and pay 20Lt (about 4 quid) for the pleasure.


Not much time left I thought, so I decided on a short cut to get to Poland and take the wee roads rather than follow the signposted route. The road surface disappeared with the signs and then it got a but squirmy and sandy (a pet hate of mine). I began to wonder if I might be straying towards Belarus on the farm tracks, but a quick zoom out on the GPS indicated that the border was a good few klicks away. One more farm track and I started seeing polish number plates. Nothing to mark the border at all.

My GPS data for Poland is not that good so I headed for the nearest campsite about 65k away. As usual in the evening, the flipping rain started and this time it was a real bugger. The heavens opened and I couldn't see a thing. Proper biblical stuff with an inch of water on the road. I should have pulled over and sheltered but my boots were filling up....and then it happened. A kerbstone right in my path and I hit it doing about 30mph. Front tyre went down in a couple of seconds and I was wrestling the bike to the side. A close one.


Checked the tyre but there is a 2cm gash right near the rim so it is finished. It was just about shot anyway so no real loss. Called the recovery people and stood in the rain for an hour and a half getting hosed by every truck that passed. They have a lot of trucks here. Guys come and haul my baby onto an ordinary flatbed recovery truck and I wince with every manoeuvre. Not sure when or where I will be able to get a tyre tomorrow, possibly have to go to Warsaw. If nothing available, then I have a problem......