Gwilym's Adventure Blog

After a pretty good (if a little weird) breakfast. Cucumber is not a breakfast item! I was on the road at 07:30 heading for the border. After negotiating a main road closure and thick fog, I arrived at the border post at 9:42am and a que was starting to form The Belarussian border is very smart with everyone in uniform and the very large Russian style military hat. However, they were very pleasant and the guy dealing with me said. "Do you have a gun"? I replied "No" Cocaine"? "No" He seemed happy enough with that though took a casual look in my panniers to be sure. I then moved onto the Ukrainian side. What a difference. Still in uniform but mainly camouflage t-shirts and baseball caps. Again very pleasant chap dealt with me, wishing me well on my journey but the system was shambolic. He went down a line of 10 vehicles collecting all the passports and documents. We then waited like lemons and a different guy came and gave them...

An early start this morning got me to the Latvia/Belarus border at 7.28am. It was nearly all going well as only one vehicle ahead of me in the queue and then when they checked my paperwork, they noticed I did not have an MOT certificate (I a impressed they even knew what one was as they said they had about 1 or 2 British people through a month) Anyway, I don't have a certificate because the bike is not old enough. The supervisor came over and disappeard with my documents. At 8.19am I was let out of Latvia. The MOT certificate issue seemed to have gone away. Then is was the Belarussian border. I had to temporarily import my bike (lots of paperwork), have it searched by 2 people, get my visa all stamped up and buy some insurance. Now, it was from a genuine lady, in a booth with the words "Insurance" in many languages above it. But at only 2 euro for 15 days cover I left wondering of what value it really was. At 9.23 I left the border and headed into Belarus...

Left my tent up to dry in the sun this morning and left site at 7.30, a bit later than normal as I had a shorter day. Still over 450km but on fast A roads with good tarmac and even some sweeping bends. About 6 hours in total followed by 4km of dirt roads to get to my campsite here less than 1 hour from the border. The slightly dodgy double hotdog tasted better than it looked but I am not sure I will be looking to have anther one. It was nowhere near as hot today but even so, a quick swim in the lake was required before spending the afternoon planning the next 3 days. The "package holiday" has ended. Since Calais there have been no passport checks, no hard borders, only 2 currencies to deal with and most people I have met in whichever country have had some level of English. Tomorrow the "adventure" starts. Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova. All with real borders and a game of visas, vehicle import and export documents, customs, potential language...

Having left Lithuania early this morning, I passed through Lativia and into Estonia. I didn't follow my arbitrary rules (stopping for a meal or camping) so can't count Latvia today but don't worry, I will be back in Latvia tomorrow to make it count. I did however manage to drive through the outskirts of Riga, Latvia's capital due to a mis programming of the GPS! Again, I was generally following the coast and got a few views today. The roads are much better here with fast A roads with some sweeping bends. Only 2 rail crossings today as well so a much more flowing ride. My finish for the day was here in Parnu at around 2pm as I needed a supermarket to restock on food and get a few other bits and bobs. The first campsite I tried was in someone's back garden and a note which said, "pitch your tent, we will collect 8 euros later". I looked around but it was a bit crap really so moved on another 15 km to Solar Camping which is a whole site p...

The title says it all. Both Poland and Lithuania just delivered straight roads and level crossings. Just as you wind the bike up to speed a crossing appears. Every so often there was a bend and that had a crossing on it too! It is brakes on, stop, look left, look right, doubt yourself so look left again, right again, wonder if you would even see the train if it was coming full speed, rely on your hearing (wearing earplugs and a helmet) and think sod it, shut your eyes and open the throttle. Only a few km until you do it again Basically the route today was going around the little bit of Russia that is Kaliningrad . I considered getting a visa etc but would have had to go in person to London, get biometrics done and paid over £125 just to do about 100km through it. In the end it was time that decided against it as my Belarus visa only came back the day before I left. So after 400 odd km of riding I got to my campsite here at Karkle near Klaipede which is n...

Today I left the coast and headed inland towards some of Poland's Lakes. A quick stop at Deccathlon to get some swim shorts and the punishment for this was having to ride through the centre of Gdansk which is a pretty major city. Once I got out of there, it was back on a mix of fast A roads and narrow incomplete country roads. One road just stopped in a pile of dirt blocking the way but fortunately it was ony a couple of km back to another route. There were some good biking roads but they were short lived and as a rule, I am not impressed with northern Poland's roads. I travelled through lots of villages today and saw the same stork nests that I saw in Hungary although no storks were in them when I rode past. Still hot today and hoping that turning North tomorrow will bring some cooler temperatures. If not, early starts and hiding in the shade are the plans. After around 450km of riding, the last few kilometres of the day were along some sand tracks ...

…. is pretty poor. I would describe it as 200+ km of Butlins holiday camps interspersed with belts of trees so thick you can't see the sea and roadworks that have half the highway missing so even if you could see the sea, you wouldn't be looking at it as you are too busy trying not to fall off your bike into foot deep gravel pits. From the campsite in Germany I headed north straight to the coast and then turned east and crossed into Poland by land. A ferry was required to get across a river. A free ferry at that! My plan to have a breeze and keep cool also failed with temps low to mid thirties again. Those trees and camps stop any wind making it to the road. This may sound very negative but it was also 9 hrs of riding and exploring a new country so still fun in its own way. On the positive side, the roads have more corners than northern Germany and the prices are low (and I mean super low). Yesterday's camping was 11 Euro. Today's campsite here was 2...

I don't normally carry passengers but today, when I stopped for breakfast in Belgium I noticed a grasshopper was on board. I tried to remove him but he dropped into a gap in the fairing. So off we went through The Netherlands and he re-appeared as we entered Germany. By now we were on first name terms and I called him Graham. Unfortunately Graham made a very poor decision as we were on a derestricted part of the German Autobahn. His obituary is at the bottom of this thread. Nearly 900km through Germany (700km motorway and 180 km b roads) today to put me here close to the Polish border for the real adventure to start. The first of some new countries and defo no trunk roads for a while. The sat nav took my down some interesting b roads though. I have seen better surfaces. It was very hot today with temps around 32 so it was visor up, screen down and jacket half unzipped just to survive. The next few countries have much cooler forecasts so it is heading North and Ea...

Another European bike adventure started today. I am aiming to fill in the gap on my pannier with all the flag stickers of the European countries I have not yet been to. I am currently near Ghent in Belgium having covered over 500km from home. The time in the saddle was interspersed with the "club lounge" on the ferry. £12 upgrade fee for quiet lounge with comfy sofas, no screaming kids and complimentary coffee/biscuits. Well that was a no brainer. Off the ferry, switch GPS into kilometres and "no motorways" and it was straight into French countryside towards Dunkerque. At some point along the route I passed into Belgium but the problem with "frictionless borders" is I often don't know what country I am. Anyway, I am now chilling here at a nice little (and cheapish) campsite looking at my options for tomorrow, I have to get across Germany (or at least most of it) tomorrow to fit in with my master plan - I will be honest, the first ti...

4 very mixed weather days in The Lake District working with some Gold DofE groups from Bristol Cathedral school. A full traverse from Ravenglass to Coniston with a wild camp out under Scafell pike for my team giving me the challenge of moving a minibus and running around the hills. Now sat in a cafe waiting for the second team to come in so we can get on the road back to Bristol. Going to be a late one methinks.

After being in 2 groups for the previous days, we all joined together for the last day of the Hill and Moorland Leader Assessment course for some more navigation, leadership and scenario based exercises. It was mainly dry and even sunny towards the end as we navigated our way around some features south of Meldon Reservoir. Big effort put in by all the candidates over the last 3 days through some challenging weather. Well done.

The second day of the Hill and Moorland Leader Assessment I am directing for Wet and High Adventures Ltd was equally as wet as the first. Using a range of maps we explored the area of Ryder's Hill and enjoyed about 2 mins of sunshine in the whole day. Plenty of colour out on the moor and nice to see a Common Newt although a little confused as to why it hitched a lift on a rucksack.