Gwilym's Adventure Blog

 Yesterday I was on Dartmoor  running an efficient rigging course for a couple fo RCIS who wanted to know how to use their set ups systems more effectively and also how to minimise the impact on the popular routes at Hound Tor Last night, I was out wild camping assessing an instructor in his skills to camp, cook and manage a group away from the comforts of a campsite. Lovely day yesterday followed but a wet and misty morning for the walk out.

A long day today. Leaving the campsite at 06:15 it was so cold, about 7 degrees in fact so  I had evey item of clothing with me on. At 7.27 am I entered Czech Reublic and it was somehow even colder at 6 degrees. I gave up and grabbed a coffee in the nearest petrol station and waited for the sun to warm up a bit. Entering The Czech Republic was the last country on my list (number 36 in fact) of Mainland European Countries and so it was a case of Europe Complete. I will justify my selection of countries in a later blog post. Once I got going again the route I chose seem to contain all the roadworks so it was a little stop start but in between the roads were very good with plenty of interest. Any way, 9 hours of riding in a westerly direction has me here , near the border at my last campsite. I have a hostel in Brussels booked for tomorrow as it will be a long ride to get there.

I left Kiev at 6am and yes the roads are as bad as I was told. Huge holes that a bike could disappear into, random grooves that track you off into the verge and truck/car drivers that still want to be doing 90kph. It was stick with them and hold on tight. Glad I have off road setting and comfort suspension. Even so, I spent a fair part of the day standing up.  I got to the Moldovian border at 10:42. This was a much smaller and more relaxed affair than where I entered. Behind my in the queue was a horse and cart! It was also my quickest border with me out the other side by 12.10. However, that my be because they don't do things inside the border!  Once out I had to go  and get some local currency and sort insurance (5 euro) and a road vignette (86 lei about 4.5 euro). Once out the other side,Ii was off to find some food and coffee before heading to my campsite here for the night. Duruita Camping That is where things got better. Not onl...

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...

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...

This summer I will be working for True Adventure on a expedition to Ecuador and The Galapagos Islands. This weekend is was in Ickwell near Bedford meeting the team from Bedford Modern School that I will be working with. A very cold and wet Saturday (where we managed to do most activities inside) dried out enough for a short walk with some training scenarios thrown in. It was also my last night in a tent for 2018

It was a wet start to the morning on the south side of the Dingle Peninsula but not to be deterred I headed for the very end. A quick stop at the beach my sister told me about (I sat in a cafe watching the rain) and then I carried on to Dunmore Head, Ireland's most Westerly point (and Europe's most Westerly in some people's eyes). Unbelievably, the weather cleared just long enough for me to park the bike and walk to the very end to take pictures of the Blasket Isles before it closed in again. As I continued on the WAW through Conor Pass (I could not see a thing due to the mist) I was beginning to question whether to continue or find somewhere to bail out. However on the north side of the peninsula, the weather cleared and the sun was shining, the roads were dry so it had probably not rained there at all. After Tralee, I went to the beach for a break an watched some surfers before carrying on to my decision of the day. Ferry for 9 Euros or 150km detour i...

Another day of no sat nav I just follow the WAW (N) signs and see where I end up. The morning as spent on the Ring of Beara , which including going right out to the headland where you could get the cable car to Durnsey Island. I didn't go on it as the bike wouldn't fit. Sadly I was too early for the cafe so had to continue following the route a way to get mid morning snack and fuel. I even passed though a town that could be Balamory's stunt double as almost every house was a bright colour. I was riding quite slowly at times, either because of the view or the herds of cows that just stood in the middle of the road just looking at me. Then I went up to Molls Gap before heading back down to pick up the Ring of Kerry which is about 180km round I even had a time to walk upto and take a photo (picture 4) of the Kerry Cliffs. It was very windy on the exposed headland so I didn't stay up there long. A short ride from there, and I was at my accommodati...